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
It was no expenses spared last night at One Great George Street to toast the departure of long-time Andrew Marr Show editor Barney Jones. Most ‘leaving dos’ in journalism involve a few beers down the Dog and Duck but Aunty was an extremely kind benefactor, providing fine wines and canapés as well as music from Nick
To the Oldie literary lunch where Mr S dined alongside the magazine’s editor Alexander Chancellor and Alan Johnson. Talk soon turned to Johnson’s former boss Tony Blair, as the Labour politician recalled a joke that backfired spectacularly. ‘Probably the reason why I fell out,’ Johnson said, before stopping himself and tactically rephrasing. ‘Alex and I have
Last week Nick Robinson took a swipe at Russell Brand’s call for the public to refrain from voting, claiming that it could undermine democracy. He went so far as to say that in a choice between quitting the BBC and defending democracy he would choose the latter. Happily it didn’t come to that and instead the
Mr S’s favourite ‘rent-a-quote’ Mo Ansar appears to have missed the message in a Twitter spat with our own Alex Massie. Ansar, who was a planning manager at Lloyds-TSB in Winchester until 2006, has reinvented himself as the ‘voice of Islam’ in recent years. He may, however, want to try thinking before sharing opinions in the future… #Newsnight
Flick Drummond’s campaign to win a Conservative seat in Portsmouth South has hit a bump in the road. Word reaches Mr S that plans for a set of campaign posters for Flick had to be revised after the Conservatives realised that from a distance the poster could be misread as -well, another word starting in F. The issue
Ed Miliband’s popularity may be at an all time low, but the leader of the Labour party is at least now moving in A-list circles. The Telegraph reports that Miliband recently enjoyed a supper at the mansion of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the human rights barrister, which both George and Amal Clooney attended. Mrs Clooney is a barrister
Despite being the heiress to a steel fortune, Margaret Hodge never stops criticising multinational corporations over their tax affairs including the use of offshore havens and complex company schemes that befuddle the taxman. BP, for example, reportedly has 85 subsidiaries in a variety of tax havens built up over many years. That has not stopped moaning Margaret taking a
Has the Mayor of London fallen on tough times? Mr S only asks after this photo landed in his inbox. On further investigation it transpires that Boris Johnson and Evening Standard owner Evgeny Lebedev had a sleepover on the streets of London on Friday night as part of the paper’s pledge to support charities ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and
Mr S’s colleague Tanya Gold writes in this week’s issue of The Spectator, that Eddie Redmayne is ‘very good’ in The Theory of Everything even if the Stephen Hawking biopic fails to mention that the physicist was ‘a very bad husband indeed’. Script issues aside, the judges at the Golden Globes were also won over by Redmayne’s performance,
Last night’s Question Time saw David Dimbleby chair a debate on freedom of expression following the Charlie Hebdo shootings. During the programme, Dimbleby stated that the BBC’s policy with regards to representations of Mohammed was to not depict the Prophet in any shape or form. This policy was met with criticism from panel and audience members alike. @bbcquestiontime that is utterly disgraceful
After Nick Hewer announced last month that he will not return for the eleventh series of The Apprentice, Lord Sugar ought to take care that he doesn’t end up having to recruit two new sidekicks. When Steerpike last caught up with Karren Brady, the recently appointed Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge would not confirm her return for the next series. Instead, she suggested that her seat in the House
There were very few smiles at Downing Street this afternoon as a mustard clad Angela Merkel spoke of a ‘moving moment’. Yet that steely resolve had to crack eventually and with the final question at her joint press conference with David Cameron, the German Chancellor’s perma-frown turned into an impish grin for just a split
If you hear any government officials talking about blue rivers in the coming days, it’s down to Google. Steve Vaughan, the head of media monitoring at the Home Office, has just spent a week with Google to develop his digital skills. The reason we know this, is that he has written a government blog about it. In it,
Angela Merkel is in London officially to talk about the G7 and unofficially to discuss David Cameron’s hopes for a reformed European Union that Britain can stay in. But while she’s here, she might want to ask after one of Cameron’s colleagues, Iain Duncan Smith. Duncan Smith likes to tell Tory constituency parties the tale
As Mr S revealed yesterday, The Guardian has vetoed brown sauce for their palatable readers, confining it to be fit only for lowly members of the establishment. Champagne, on the other hand, is still okay. The paper are running a bubbly tasting session tonight which will allow their readers to ‘break down the barriers of this
As one of the oldest Conservative think tanks, the Bow Group has a prestigious roll call of former chairmen who include Michael Howard, Norman Lamont and Peter Lilley. Now, Mr S hears that times are a-changing at the organisation, with the group’s president Sir John Major stepping down. His departure comes after an eventful few years for the think tank and its colourful
Mr S is inclined to believe this is a piss-take, lest it be clear the Guardian completely disappeared up its own bottom. Apparently enjoying HP Sauce basically makes you some sort of quasi-racist, Ukip-voting, little-England philistine: ‘Created in the late 1800s, brown sauce reads, tastes and smells like the idle creation of some Phileas Fogg-type,
If social media is going to play a deciding role in the general election, the brains at Conservative HQ ought to take a closer look at who they promote on their Twitter account. The official Conservative Twitter feed has a Tweetminster list of Tory MPs on it which allows their 131,000 followers to catch up with the ramblings
Things are getting heated in Rochester after Conservative HQ announced that the lacklustre Kelly Tolhurst will return as their candidate for the general election. The businesswoman put on a dismal display when she represented the Tories in the recent by-election against Mark Reckless. Reckless won then, and judging by his recent retweets, the Ukip MP is confident he
As Westminster clatters back to life after the Christmas break, so the steady stream of invitations land on Steerpike’s mat. Don’t all rush at once, but David Laws will be giving a speech this month at the Institute of Government on ‘effective government in 2015 and beyond’. While this will no doubt be riveting feast
