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
Mini-cab firm Addison Lee exacted cold revenge on ITN last night at about the worst possible time. Slap bang in the middle of the election coverage, they cancelled the news provider’s taxi account. ITN had recently announced that they would be moving the company account to a rival firm, and Addison Lee did not take
Picture the scene. BBC executives convene in a glass think pod in Salford to consider the latest expensive external report commissioned by Director of News James Harding. The report states that Auntie, despite its vast budget and massive staff, is ‘punching well below its weight in the digital world.’ That was what Sir Howard Stringer’s
Boris and Dave have been enjoying each other’s company on the campaign trail in Newark today. Just look how cosy they are at the station: But is that Boris sneaking a longing glance at the red box that the Prime Minister carries with him as a trapping of office? Anyway, the two men got along
Tory whips have been haranguing backbenchers and ministers to campaign ahead of the European Elections and the Newark by-election. They have been keeping extensive lists of who is pulling their weight. Ever helpful, Mr S thought he would draw up a little list of his own. These Tory MPs were sipping champagne with Thatcher’s PR
Are we finally seeing the effect of Ed Miliband’s expensive investment in David Axelrod? As the New Republic pointed out in 2010: ‘Food mishaps are central to the Axelrod mystique. He was famous during the campaign for having disabled a BlackBerry with a stray piece of donut glaze. He once convened a meeting with a
Mr S started the morning with Susannah Reid and Charlotte Hawkins of Good Morning Britain. All was pootling along quietly until Ed Miliband turned up on screen. The Leader of the Opposition was doing his routine about the ‘cost of living crisis’ when Hawkins decided to put his professed empathy for humble people to the
The 2010 Tory intake is defined by ruthless ambition, a penchant for pamphlets and rampant Euroscepticism. But Mr S has spotted another unifying characteristic: posing in their swimwear. First we had Penny Mordaunt, the Portsmouth MP, in a variety of cossies for her appearence of flop TV show Splash! Then there was Bristol’s Charlotte Leslie,
‘Great meeting Rob Brydon at the Chelsea Flower Show today,’ tweeted veteran broadcaster Tony Blackburn earlier. ‘What a very funny and nice man’ he added with an accompanying picture of his new chum. Except the picture was of the ‘funny and nice’, though significantly blonder, taller and less Welsh Ben Fogle. ‘That is not Rob
Nick Clegg used to joke that he should include Ken Clarke in any list of senior Liberal Democrats. But Mr Steerpike hears things have moved way beyond that. Ken, who revealed to the Spectator that he was hoping for a coalition even before it was on the cards, is now acting with the Lib Dems on
“We need to raise £66,000 to make…122,000 calls to Labour voters,” says a super-localised campaign email from the Labour Party. Apparently a donation of £5 will pay for ten phone calls to be made, and a £50 wedge will secure 100 of these vital calls. No wonder Labour is more than £12 million in debt:
After Michael Fallon suggested that the Conservative party could campaign for the UK to leave the EU if a renegotiation proved unsuccessful, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was today asked about David Cameron’s view on this. He said: ‘The position hasn’t changed. The Prime Minister is confident of success.’ The Prime Minister’s position is that
Westbourne’s Change Opinion Awards last night might have got rather feisty. The Sun beat feminist campaigners Stella Creasy and Caroline Criado Perez to the top prize for its ‘Check ‘Em Tuesday’ breast cancer campaign, and the Anti-Page 3 brigade was in attendance. The scene was set for a showdown when the paper’s editor went to
At first glance Mr S thought that he might be watching Labour’s latest class-war party election broadcast: rich kids at Oxford University trashing restaurants, tussling with the law and generally playing silly buggers in evening wear. Sound familiar? This is, however, the trailer for The Riot Club: the silver screen’s answer to ‘the Buller’, which
‘I am ceasing to tweet’ wrote Matthew Parris in The Times this morning. ‘Life’s too short,’ he said. ‘Reluctantly last year I was persuaded to venture into the twittersphere; and built a herd of followers; but (as Milton might have tweeted) the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.’ So what happened? It seems
In further proof that the devil makes work for idle thumbs, Labour MP Austin Mitchell described Pfizer as ‘rapists’ in a tweet. All hell has since broken loose. All of which leaves Mr S nonplussed. Definitions of the noun ‘rape’ are as follows: 1. the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress
Filming of season three of Netflix’s House of Cards will begin in four weeks’ time in Maryland, creator Michael Dobbs revealed at Norman Tebbit’s book launch last night. Lord Dobbs, who was an advisor to Thatcher, said that he had to ‘tone things down a little bit’ to make the plot ‘credible’, although he’s clearly proud
Mr S unleashed his inner-feminist at the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Awards last night. Veuve Clicquot president Jean-Marc Lacave was clearly feeling equally empowered by the opposite sex, telling Mr S ‘in sixty years my dream is to have a businessman awards because the world will be run by women.’ Mr S,
Mr has news from La Belle France, where authorities have incensed several foreign tech companies by proposing to ban geo-locating software apps to protect the antediluvian local taxi service. One of the firms in question, San Francisco-based Uber, has struck back. With a jet app: ‘All lights on the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.
Kensington and Chelsea Council can do nothing to counter its reputation as the most affluent borough in London. In fact, it revels in the notoriety. Take a look at the council’s new alcohol awareness campaign. The prostrate gentleman appears to be in white tie and drinking a half-bottle of champagne, while the lady, bedecked with pearls,
Mr S attended the international rugby union 7s tournament at Twickenham on Saturday, which was graced by some 76,000 people – mostly yuppies on the razzle by the look of things. I regret to report that this crowd of genteel, if beery, English people loudly and roundly booed the Scottish team. The Scots ran in several tries