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
George Osborne has just finished delivering his speech at the Tory party conference. More analysis to come, but Mr Steerpike couldn’t help noticing a distinct flavour to it. Edinburgh. Drugs. Irvine Welsh. Ringing any bells? The final part – ‘choose the future’, ‘choose David Cameron’ – felt very much like a re-run from the opening scene of Trainspotting. Who
The Conservative conference pub is back again this year, with its usual bitter jokes about Labour. Mr Steerpike had an exclusive peek at the posters they’re using to poke fun at Ed Miliband’s party. The pub this year is called the ‘Tax & Spend’. Funnily enough, they’ve decided to remind the Labour leader of the
First we had Mrs Miliband redefining her role from elusive lawyer to political campaigning wife; now we have another once shy ‘leader’s wife’ tweaking their public profile. The Liberal Democrats get very grumpy if you refer to Miriam González Durántez as Mrs Clegg, but the Dechert LLP lawyer is described as the ‘wife of Nick
The hall may have been half empty during his speech, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said lots of nice things about Ed Miliband during the closing session of Labour Party conference in Manchester. And the similarities between the two politicians are copious. They’re both metropolitan lefties who are far more ideologically radical than they let
Yesterday ‘Gareth’ was just the bloke from a software company, but Ed Miliband helped transform him into an internet sensation and telly star in a matter of hours after mentioning him in his lamentable conference speech. Normally politicians prefer to keep quiet about their encounters on Hampstead Heath. Hats off to Newsnight for this one…
Poor Jon Snow. The veteran presenter has some serious competition from the latest BBC defection to Channel 4; it’s the big one. After months of speculation about his future, and a dire sojourn into stand up comedy, Jeremy Paxman has joined the channel to front their general election coverage, but there is a full ego
Having spent four years sticking to a wave at the end of conference and the odd photograph together with her husband, Justine Thornton has burst onto centre stage at Labour’s conference. Mrs Miliband – and she uses her Miliband name today – has written to Labour activists pledging her commitment to getting her man into
Fancy a cheeky chew on Chuka, a bite of Balls or a munch on Miliband? At last night’s Sky party at Labour conference, the Shadow Cabinet were out in force – on macaroons, presumably to help with the cost of pudding crisis for hardworking people. Those around Miliband often get sniped at for being weak,
Upon leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, Benefits Street star and Spectator contributor White Dee – also known as Deirdre Kelly – threatened to give ‘David Cameron a run for his money,’ and she’s true to her word. Fresh from this year’s Channel Five finale, Dee is about to enter a different sort of mad
Ed Balls playing football each year at Labour conference is almost as big as Ed Balls Day. The Shadow Chancellor always participates enthusiastically in the annual hacks vs MPs match. Sometimes, he’s a little too enthusiastic. Like today, when he accidentally wounded lobby journalist Rob Merrick. Still, the pair made up by the end of the match.
There is a certain irony in the fact that Miliband is protecting his party’s Scottish advantage by accusing the Prime Minister of allowing ‘this moment to be used for narrow party political advantage’. Rejecting Cameron’s plans for English votes for English laws, Labour have rushed out plans for ‘a full Constitutional Convention rooted in our
As the Saltires are put away and the fireworks dismantled, some celebrities waking up to the Scottish referendum result took it rather badly, the poor lambs. Russell Brand was in his usual Citizen Smith mode: Fear is more powerful than faith. Until that changes none of us are free. — Russell Brand (@rustyrockets) September 19, 2014
‘Ineptocracy: Noun – A government characterised by incompetent leaders.’ A gloriously incompetent attack on incompetence, and the greatest example of Muphry’s Law that Mr S has seen in a long time. The old adage is that if you write anything criticising someone else’s writing, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have
It’s certainly an interesting strategy for endearing wavering Scots. Former England football captain David Beckham has been unveiled as the latest celeb supporter of the Let’s Stay Together campaign. Nothing like football to bring two ultra-competitive countries together, right? In an open letter, Beckham writes: ‘My sincere hope is that you will vote to renew our historic bond which
Former Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason seems rather happy to be free of Auntie, especially since the Scottish independence referendum campaign sent the establishment to panic stations: ‘Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this. So glad I’m out of there,’ he writes on his Facebook page, to the consternation of
Don’t they know there’s a war on? Given that the government has finally woken up to the very real threat of a ‘yes’ victory, Mr S was rather surprised to hear where the Secretary of State for Scotland has been. Spies report that Alistair Carmichael spent the day in London yesterday. Presumably someone had to
A wincing Douglas Alexander told Newsnight last night that the tightening of the referendum polls ‘saw more £2 billion worth of value wiped off the stocks of Scottish companies.’ His pained expression revealed concern for ‘real people’s pensions and the threat to real people’s jobs… on the basis of a single opinion poll.’ Better Together
Labour like to campaign with the slogan ‘our NHS’, but are they taking their claim of owning the health service a little bit too far? Dr Mark Hayes is standing for the party in Selby, Yorkshire yet remains head of the local NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG). When questions were raised about a conflict of interest
‘A secret plot to boot John Bercow out of the Commons is being drawn up by senior Tory MPs,’ reported yesterday’s Mail on Sunday. Apparently a plan is afoot to field ‘a “proper” Tory candidate against him’, something that would ‘drive a coach and horses through the convention at Westminster that sitting Commons Speakers are
‘I don’t think Russell Brand has read much Orwell’, says the Catholic Herald, responding to the multi-millionaire revolutionary’s YouTube claim that IS are less of a threat than David Cameron: ‘Not just because he recently described Owen Jones as our generation’s incarnation of the left-wing iconoclast, but because yesterday he engaged in the kind of
