Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
In a society obsessed with political correctness and progressiveness, nothing is sacred – not, it seems, even William Shakespeare. It transpires that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which owns a number of buildings in the bard’s hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon, is working on plans to ensure the writer’s place of origin will be ‘decolonised’. The move, as
Once again, the spotlight is back on the monarch of Montecito. A US judge has now ruled that Prince Harry’s visa documents must be made public by Tuesday – in a bid to find out whether the Duke of Sussex lied on his immigration files about drug use. In the end, truth will out… The
To Canada, where Mark Carney is settling into his first week in the top job. The former Bank of England governor won a landslide victory in Sunday’s election and has been quick to turn his attention to the growing animosity between his nation and its neighbour over Donald Trump’s tariffs. But what prompted the new
It’s shaping up to be a difficult year for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is struggling to get many within her own party – and Cabinet – onside with proposed spending cuts. But fear not, Reeves has managed to find some downtime amid the drama. It transpires that she nabbed free tickets to US singer Sabrina
It has not been Rachel Reeves’s year. From accusations of CV embellishment to noisy backlash over the farmer’s tax, the Chancellor has been fighting on all fronts as she battles her way towards the Spring spending review. And now, in yet another blow for Reeves, it transpires that her plans to increase the amount of
Is Keir Starmer a Tory? That’s the question much of Westminster is asking after his recent talk of welfare cuts, planning reform and raiding the aid budget to pay for defence. But while the Labour leader seems happy to talk the talk, some of his ministers are less keen to walk the walk. For while
Nicola Sturgeon may be leaving Holyrood next year, but the spectre of Operation Branchform isn’t going away any time soon. It transpires that Scotland’s former first minister is still under investigation by the police over the probe into the SNP’s finances and funding – with the four-year investigation running up costs of over £2 million.
Well, well, well. After Guido Fawkes revealed that Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds had previously – and inaccurately – referred to himself as a solicitor, the Labour man has now been forced to rather publicly correct the record. While the Stalybridge and Hyde MP did receive solicitor training at Addleshaw Goddard for ten months, he left
It was only a few weeks ago that Reform UK was flying high in the polls. Now a fallout between the party leadership and MP Rupert Lowe has left their voters shaken – with Lowe currently suspended from the group over allegations of bullying made against his office and under investigation by the Metropolitan Police.
There’s drama in Labourland today as one backbencher appears to have had second thoughts about her stance on benefits payments – after the Get Britain Working group’s open letter went out with her name on it. The letter, which has called upon Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall to introduce a ‘new social contract’ to
If you, dear reader, have visited parliament in recent years, you might have had the misfortune to be confronted by one of the new-fangled orange traffic marshals popping up around the estate. Given the crumbling state of the Commons, Mr S is constantly querying whether this army of apparatchiks is really necessary – given that
Farewell Nicola Sturgeon. The former first minister took to the professional platform that is Instagram today to announce that she will be stepping down as an MSP at the next election. After much speculation, the SNP’s ex-Dear Leader has confirmed that she does not plan to stand for Holyrood in 2026 – after spending more
Today brings the news that the flailing Guardian Media Group has had to pay out ‘substantial damages’ to The Spectator’s Douglas Murray – after the Observer was found to have defamed him. In a court statement, lawyers for the paper said it ‘apologises unreservedly’ for the ‘false’ allegations it made about Murray in a piece
Is Nigel Farage’s position under threat? Most inside Reform don’t seem to think so – but a new poll offers a warning shot to the Clacton MP. It transpires that a third of the party’s voters think Reform would be performing better if he stepped down and allowed another to take his place. Who might
To Scotland, where the beleaguered Nats have appointed their third chief executive in two years. Yet Carol Beattie wasn’t able to celebrate for long after some of her rather unsavoury social media interactions aimed at the royal family were dredged up by her opponents. The most egregious example came after the Princess of Wales was
It was Alastair Campbell who declared that ‘if a story stays front page news for more than ten days, the chances are it is a real issue.’ Well, we are now on day five of the great Reform fall out and it is still making waves. Nigel Farage spoke to ITV Anglia about Rupert Lowe last
To the Covid Inquiry, the longest-running farce outside of the West End. With costs for the great gravy train now expected to top £200 million, Fleet Street hacks are certainly getting their money’s worth. There was the mammoth grilling of a brooding Boris Johnson in December 2023. The ritual humiliation of ‘simple’ Simon Case back
Sound the by-election claxon, Runcorn is a-go! Yes, that’s right – five months after his kerfuffle on the kerb, Mike Amesbury has (for once) done the decent thing. In an interview with the BBC, the disgraced ex-Labour MP today declared it is his intention to resign from the House of Commons ‘shortly’ and trigger a
As the Assisted Dying Bill continues to make its unceremonious way through parliament, various medical organisations are making themselves heard. The British Medical Association has featured throughout the public debate, so Mr S was struck by one of the motions passed at its annual consultants’ conference last week. Here, senior doctors vote upon motions relating
Oh dear, it looks like the civil war engulfing Reform UK is showing no sign of simmering down. On Friday, the political party currently leading in the polls went into complete meltdown after it announced that it had reported one of its MPs, Rupert Lowe, to the police and was suspending the whip. Party chairman
