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
There were some dangerous pledges made in the heat of the election battle from both politicians and pundits. Paddy Ashdown promised to eat his hat should the exit poll prediction bear out. It did, and he has not consumed his hat, though he did go halfway and consume a hat-shaped cake. A similarly rash exit poll
Ed Miliband’s spin doctor Tom Baldwin has been rather quiet since Labour’s disastrous election night results. Now the former Times journalist has explained his radio silence in an article for the Guardian. He says he has been avoiding the news after the Tories had ‘a win they did not fully expect or really deserve’. However, the appointment
After Jeremy Clarkson was sacked from Top Gear, his fellow presenters James May and Richard Hammond resigned in protest. Since then, the trio have been spotted together over the past few weeks having ‘secret talks’ about their futures, with the pair reportedly visiting the home of ITV director Peter Fincham. Now Mr S hears that with talks
To appoint one Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage looked sloppy, to do it twice looks frankly strange. Yet that is what the Prime Minister has just done. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan voted against same sex marriage in July 2013, though she claims she has subsequently changed her mind. Caroline Dinenage, the Gosport MP, who has
Ahead of the arrival of 56 SNP MPs in Westminster yesterday, Alex Salmond offered his new colleagues some advice in a recent interview. He said: ‘Make your voice heard, represent your constituents, and stay out the Strangers Bar’. So far, so good. In fact, Salmond will no doubt be glad to hear that his fellow MPs have taken his advice and stayed
David Cameron has never been hugely popular with the right-wing fringe of the Conservative Party, yet they tolerated him as long as they thought he was going to win. And win he did. At Monday’s jubilant 1922 Committee meeting, Tory MPs were shocked to see Bill Cash – a key figure of the so called
When Liam Byrne departed from the role of chief secretary to the Treasury in 2010, he left a note for his successor which read that ‘there is no money’. The note went on to haunt the Labour party throughout their unsuccessful election campaign, with Byrne recently describing it as ‘the letter I will regret for ever’. Happily, Danny Alexander hasn’t
Mr S previously reported that there were plans to donate the Guardian‘s election sweepstake to a foodbank. The decision was made after the organisers assumed that none of their employees could have possibly correctly guessed that there would be a Conservative majority. Now, word reaches Steerpike that the matter didn’t stop there. In fact, one employee at Guardian HQ was so bold
Warning: The SNP revolution has begun in Westminster. This afternoon Nicola Sturgeon arrived at parliament with her 56 newly elected SNP MPs in tow. However, despite talk of discord between the Scots and English, Mr S is assured that so far relations are remarkably civil. Mhairi Black, the 20-year-old student who ousted Labour’s Douglas Alexander from
While cases of Moët & Chandon champagne have been photographed making their way to Downing Street in previous years, the new government appears to have developed finer tastes. Sean Clare, a BBC producer, reports that a delivery of Bollinger champagne – the favoured tipple in of Patsy in the BBC’s Absolutely Fabulous – has arrived at Number Ten Downing
Seemingly missing the democratic process that returned a Tory government with a majority and an increased share of the vote, the hard left took to the streets of Westminster over the weekend to protest against austerity. However, has ‘austerity’ really hurt all of the protesters who took part? Look closely at the box one used to make their
After David Cameron won a surprise Conservative majority in the general election, angry anti-austerity protesters gathered near Parliament Square today to let their outrage be known. During the demonstration, a war memorial, honouring the women of the Second World War, was vandalised with ‘F— tory scum’ graffiti. While the crime was greeted with outrage by both the left and right, Laurie
Given that staff at the BBC have been providing rolling election coverage, it’s understandable that they may be rather tired. Even so, Mr S was surprised to see that BBC veteran Huw Edwards described an SNP MP and Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland’s power couple. Speaking over footage of Sturgeon walking alongside Patrick Grady, the recently appointed SNP MP for Glasgow North, Edwards
In 1992 the Sun claimed it was them ‘wot won it’, fast forward to the next time the Tories achieved a majority and an editor of a different paper is claiming ‘victory’: FROM: Sarah Sands TO: ES ALL (editorial) SENT: Fri 08/05/2015 10:16 SUBJECT: Congratulations Well done everyone on our superbly professional election coverage. It
Nigel Farage has failed to win in South Thanet. However, he can take some comfort that he came second in the hotly contested seat. Alas the same cannot be said for Al Murray and his FUKP party. The Pub Landlord only managed to muster 318 votes. That means that Murray will need to pay back his £500 election
Oh dear. Not only have the Liberal Democrats only won eight seats so far compared to the 56 taken in 2010, many candidates face losing their deposit. If a candidate fails to win five per cent of the vote in their desired constituency then they are subject to a £500 fine. Unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have had many candidates
An interesting election day parcel has arrived at the Spectator office: it contains a box of ‘party leader cupcakes’ from Sky News. ‘We recommend eating David, Ed, Nick, Nigel, Nicola, Natalie and Leanne whilst they are still delicious and fresh,’ says the accompanying letter. Funny thing, though, somebody at the channel — we suspect a
Was this really the wisest picture for Labour to put on their get-out-the-vote leaflets this morning? We should know which of the parties are toast by breakfast tomorrow.
Today Channel 4’s sister channel E4 has made the bold decision to halt broadcasting any programmes until this evening in a bid to encourage their viewers to vote. The channel, which is aimed at youths between the ages of 16-24, will instead broadcast a cartoon of a purple creature asking viewers to get off the sofa and vote because ‘there
The feral travelling Tory press pack were suited and booted this morning in the pouring Cheshire rain and led up a muddy path to a giant rock. No, David Cameron was not going to unveil his answer to a Miliband’s carved pledge stone, in fact he wasn’t going to say anything at all. You can
