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
Some big egos are set to join David Cameron’s rubber-stamping Cabinet meetings, which will make life interesting. There is a physical problem, too. Mr S makes it 11 ministers awarded the right to attend (in addition to the 22 full Cabinet ministers) — and the reshuffle is not even complete yet. Sue Cameron reported during
The Speaker’s House hosted the launch of ‘Women in Parliament’, a cross-party initiative to get more women into parliament, today. Fittingly, there was barely a man in sight — besides wee John Bercow, obviously. ‘Women in Parliament’ is led from by Mary MacLeod — former PPS to ex-Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who is also closely
The BBC has departments devoted to pronouncing dialect and names; but they must have been in management meetings this morning, leaving news presenter Joanna Gosling to struggle with the name Tulisa Contostavlos: ‘We’ll just leave it at Tulisa,’ said the tongue-tied presenter. The Spectator sympathises with Ms Gosling: try pronouncing Taki’s name.
Taking sides in the Middle East causes rows over many a Sunday lunch table; but one imagines that things are even tenser when you’re a member of one of the most prominent Jewish families in history and you’ve converted to Islam. This is the world in which Jemima Khan lives. Ben Goldsmith expressed a few
Mr S likes a flutter. His eyes were drawn to the latest speculation about Boris’s return to the Commons. Ladbrokes are offering 3-1 that the Blond Bombshell will be selected in Uxbridge, which is to be vacated by John Randall at the next election. Uxbridge is hardly K&C (Mrs S is agin it); but, it
Ed Miliband’s negotiations with the White House to meet his hero Barack Obama aren’t going well, Nick Robinson reported on the Today programme this morning: ‘Ed Miliband’s team are desperate not to ruin their man’s chances of a visit to the White House by talking them up… The Labour leader’s aides point out that he
‘Hypocrisy of the stars who shielded cash from taxman’, cries a headline in today’s Daily Mail. But are we sure that it’s really hypocrisy? Among those ‘outed’ as hypocrites is the actor Michael Caine. But Mr Steerpike seems to recall that the cockney lad has been a vocal campaigner against our tax system, which seem to
Earlier this year, a ‘government source’ floated the idea that Sebastian Coe could well be appointed the next chairman of the BBC Trust. It’s no secret that George Osborne and Seb Coe go back a long way – they both used to work together in William Hague’s private office. And while Osborne has never officially
In 1975 Margaret Thatcher said in her ‘Free Society’ speech to the Conservative Party Conference: ‘Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a state computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We
‘I’m like any parent,’ says Nick Clegg (Deputy Prime Minister, privy councillor and universally derided leader of the Liberal Democrats). Speaking to the Radio Times, as any old parent might do, Average Dad Nick pleaded with his offspring: ‘The first, most visceral instinct you have as a parent is you want to protect your children, and politics is
Labour Party guru David Axelrod popped up in Sunday’s New York Times, presumably to promote his new book. He spoke candidly to columnist Maureen Dowd, attempting to explain why Barack Obama is plummeting in the polls: ‘Reagan significantly changed the trajectory of the country for better and worse. But he restored a sense of clarity. Bush and
Mr S would like to draw your attention to two separate articles in the Guardian, which he passes on without so much as a smirk. The actor and comedian Steve Coogan, told the paper in 2011 that he would never let Rupert Murdoch forget the News of the Word hacking scandal: ‘[They are hoping] there
Chuka Umunna was on the receiving end of an internet storm after he suggested that people who vote UKIP are either too old or too stupid to do things like ‘sending and receiving an email, browsing the internet, filling in an online form.’ Angry E-Kippers flooded the Shadow Business Secretary’s inbox with proof to the
Labour’s ‘media grid’ for this week had Miliband’s millionaire spinner Tom Baldwin pencilled in to brief Times journalist Rachel Sylvester and give her an exclusive story for Tuesday’s paper. When the paper landed it was actually lots of Labour figures slagging off the leader, and saying how Ed had lots of policies but not the
Last night The Spectator held their annual summer party at what the Mail Online have now christened ‘Spectator House’ (aka our Old Queen Street offices). Here is a selection of photos from the bash, courtesy of Alan Davidson.
Mr S wandered down to Ed Miliband’s big business speech at the ‘Inclusive Prosperity’ conference at the Science Museum today, and it has to be said: it was all a bit weird. While the space age theme of the ‘breakout’ coffee room was rather funky, it was so dark that you could not actually see
What has Labour got against people who work in McDonald’s? Last week we had Liam Byrne’s burger flip, where he slammed the same fast food employer for which he used to sizzle with praise. Now Andy Burnham has told the Unite conference in Liverpool: ‘What sort of message are we sending out when we say social
Mr Steerpike’s suggestion that things could be getting so bad for Labour that they may have to call on the services of Damian McBride, based on the disgraced former spin doctor’s helpful recent interventions, has ruffled a few feathers in Westminster. A Labour source pours an ice bucket on the idea: ‘I think it’s an
Is Damian McBride auditioning for a job as the saviour of the Labour Party spin operation? His re-energised blogging would certainly indicate as much. In the last few weeks the Brownite bad boy has left his job with Catholic aid charity Cafod, and returned to writing full time. He’s also managed to make a compelling
It’s fair to say that Jeremy Paxman did not see eye-to-eye with Ian Katz, the modish former Guardian hack who edits Newsnight these days. Paxman told the crowds at the Chalke Valley History Festival, ‘Look, Newsnight is made by 13-year-olds.’ He could not have been more withering about ‘Katz’s Cubs’ — the new generation of green (and
