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
According to a recent YouGov poll, Nick Clegg has an overall rating of minus 54, making him more popular than the hapless Ed Miliband by just one point. While that wouldn’t appear to be much to celebrate, the Deputy Prime Minister seems to actually be in denial about his own standing amongst the British public. In
It could be a bleak Christmas party for Arsenal Football Club on the 22 December, as Steerpike hears their planned festive bash booked in at Brocket Hall in Berkshire may be a little austere thanks to a lack of the hall’s usual furniture. Since Lord Brocket’s spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, the artistic accountant has been forced
Ukip’s commonwealth spokesperson Winston McKenzie – he of Carnival of Colour fame – is never far from controversy. It was only a matter of time before a devout Ukipper compared their hero Nigel Farage to a deity and we should have all guessed it would be Winston: ‘Jesus was one man. We are his army. Nigel
Ukip has confirmed this morning that Nigel Farage’s wife is still in receipt of public money — despite an on air denial from her husband. The party could not have paid for better PR on Channel 4 last night, with Farage meeting Gogglebox poshos Steph and Dom for a special one off programme. One exchange caught
I have been passed a snap of the Christmas tree inside Brighton and Hove’s Green Party run council building. Or more accurately, I have been passed a snap of some bits of old shit collected from Brighton beach and put on a shelf under the title ‘One Planet’. After a year where rubbish has gone
Stuck with gift ideas for that slightly xenophobic, older family member this Christmas? Then look no further than the Ukip website. They are currently auctioning off a painting of their dear leader. Donate a fiver for the chance to win this horrific oil on canvas of Nigel Farage. No one mention Mr Toad…
Ukip are cock-a-hoop this afternoon with news that controversial proprietor Richard Desmond is to donate £300,000 to Farage’s party ahead of the 2015 election. Express sources confirm that Dirty Desmond gave the Ukip leader the full treatment on 2 December, with the Nigel personally given a full tour of his Northern and Shell Thames-side complex.
Mr S strolled to Westminster this lunchtime to see what all the fuss was about some porn protest. He wasn’t alone. Hacks significantly outnumbered the protestors, who were upset about the recent changes to UK pornography regulations. Despite the abundance of dictaphones, notepads and cameras, Mr S strongly suspects that many of the hacks were simply there to ogle – not that
Things seem to be getting tricky for the Russian Embassy in London. A much hyped mini-conference organised with Russia Today and set to be headlined on Friday by former Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has been canned at the last minute. Mr S understands that the attendee numbers were down in light of recent developments near
To Quaglino’s for the GQ Christmas lunch, where editor Dylan Jones was in a revelatory mood. Lifting the lid on his magazine’s controversial decision to award Tony Blair the Philanthropist of the Year gong at their Man of the Year awards this year, Jones recalled being quizzed about it in New York shortly after the
Alan Rusbridger’s announcement that he will stand down in summer 2015 as Guardian editor after 20 years has fired the starting gun on one very long succession battle. Current online boss Janine Gibson is a firm favourite with Kath Viner the struggling US editor not far behind. Other wannabes include Jonathan Freedland – the newly anointed head
The Roger Bird-Natasha Bolter saga continues. Text messages between the Ukip romantics have revealed by the Telegraph which paint Bolter in a less favourable than Bird. While the Ukip investigation is ongoing, Bird has told Guido that they demonstrate a ‘gradual development of the relationship and make it clear that there was no impropriety involved’. That’s as maybe,
It was a battle of the Westminster couples last night as Yvette Cooper took to the airwaves on Tom Bradby’s ITV Agenda show. Snarkily commenting from the couch at home, Sarah Vine, aka Mrs Michael Gove, publicly questioned ‘How did Ed Balls ever bag Yvette?’ The darling couple of the Brown treasury married in 1998,
Ralph Atkinson ranted this weekend that Ukip have ‘standards of democracy lower than the unelected European Commission’ after he was allegedly ousted as the Ukip candidate for Hastings and Rye in favour of the wealthy Gogglebox ‘celebrity’ Andrew Michael. Now Mr S learns of a leaked recording which appears to show Roger Helmer, MEP for Ukip, letting
When the Sun found Nigel Mills had spent most of a select committee session playing Candy Crush on his iPad, the MP’s first response was to say he’d ‘try not to do it in the future’. This sounded rather as though he couldn’t promise that he couldn’t resist the urge to line up jelly beans
Tory MP Mark Field is not a happy bunny about Osborne’s Autumn Statement. Writing to members of his association, the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster has blasted the Chancellor’s ‘unfortunate’ move over stamp duty — despite claiming to be sympathetic to the ‘politics’ of ‘soaking the remaining rich’. Mr S thought the
Tony Blair has taken some time out from posing awkwardly with his wife in order to pen a piece for the New York Times. While he tries to avoid getting drawn on talking about UK domestic politics explicitly, his feeling are poorly hidden: ‘…there have grown up powerful interest groups that can stand in the
Ignore the numbers, the spin and the bleak borrowing – there is only one question that needs answering. What colour is the Chancellor’s tie? Ladbrokes were offering bets on the subject, and Mr S understands a significant amount of cash has changed hands on the subject: 1/2 Blue 3/1 Purple 4/1 Green 10/1 Red 12/1
There is no love lost between UKIP defectors Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless and their old Tory colleagues. Catty Conservative MPs have for some reason nicknamed the Ukip twosome ‘Popeye and Olive Oyl’. Mr S will let you decide which is which.
William Hague told the Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year awards last week that he was standing down from the Commons ‘to do some other things I’ve always wanted to do’. So far that seems to consist of expensive after dinner speeches. Accepting his lifetime achievement award at the Savoy, the one time Tory leader finally
