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
‘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
It was widely noted that the Prime Minister remained grinning in his seat after PMQs to hear a Point of Order directed to the Speaker from Tory MP Simon Burns. Burns wanted to know whether the Speaker would withdraw his letter of recommendation for Carol Mills as Clerk of the House. The letter is currently
It’s what you might call a Millwall strategy: Mr S hears the Sun will be parking a very large, metaphorical tank on Ed Miliband’s lawn following the row over the Labour leader apologising for being snapped supporting the paper. The paper will be throwing a bash at the Labour Party Conference, despite delegates tearing up
As Mr S predicted yesterday, the row between Times colleagues Matthew Parris and Tim Montgomerie has simmered on. And turning up the temperature in the Times’ Red Box email this morning, Parris seemed to be getting rather catty: ‘I was pleased to be singled out by my friend and colleague, Tim Montgomerie, in yesterday’s throwaway
‘It was an utter humiliation’, says Bercow’s biographer, after the Speaker was openly mocked by MPs as he retreated in the row over who will be the new Commons clerk. listen to ‘John Bercow: ‘Modest pause’ in Commons clerk recruitment’ on Audioboo
It’s open warfare at the Times between two leading lights on the right – the newspaper’s former Comment Editor Tim Montgomerie and longtime columnist Matthew Parris, who held no punches in his Saturday column in the paper: ‘My fellow columnist Tim Montgomerie could not have been more wrong when he wrote in yesterday’s Times Red
Mr S could not help think that last night’s Scottish CBI dinner looked a little dreary and frankly a bit ‘budget’. The PM was coming to town; could they not have strung up some bunting at the very least? There was good reason the whole thing looked rubbish though: bureaucracy. The guest list was cut
Andrew Norfolk, the Times journalist that blew open the Rotherham child abuse scandal, can sleep well in his bed tonight, for he has been completely vindicated now. Forget the Jay Report, and the resignation of the Leader of Rotherham Council. No, Norfolk has been blessed with great reward from a far higher power; from the
This is no ordinary defection. It would be easy for the Tories to brush off a member of the old guard as a swivel-eyed headbanger, but Douglas Carswell is not only a darling of the grassroots, he’s also extremely popular in the House. And not just amounst Tories. As Mr S reported last year from
So it turns out the revolution will be televised after all. ‘Brand’, a full length documentary about the comedian turned political activist Russell Brand, is heading our way next year. The multi-millionaire comedian—who is dating a scion of the Goldsmith family—used a recent appearance on Newsnight to call for the overthrow of the state, claiming
One of the many blows landed by Alex Salmond during last night’s debate centred on Alistair Darling’s criticism of the Office of Budget Responsibility, set up in 2010 by George Osborne to provide independent economic forecasts for the Treasury. The OBR’s numbers have been key to the Better Together’s onslaught on the numerical black holes at the
With the interventions of former Speaker Betty Boothroyd, ex-ministers — including Jack Straw, Malcolm Rifkind and Margaret Beckett — and the Clerk of the Australian Senate, Rosemary Laing, it is becoming increasingly hard for John Bercow to spin the fight over his choice for the replacement Commons clerk as a row with his ‘usual suspect’ critics. Yesterday’s Times leader
It’s going to be the battle of the Georges in Bradford West at next year’s general election – and Mr S reckons it could be a worth keeping an eye on George Grant, the Tory candidate selected for the seat on Saturday. After helping to launch the Libya Herald, the country’s first post-Gaddafi English language newspaper, Grant was
Calling in a favour from a comrade to help flog your new book is hardly a new trick, but Mr S wonders if Owen Jones really thought this one through: Thankfully, Russell ‘the revolution is coming’ Brand is not known for his outrageous hyperbole.
Where are the Labour sisterhood this morning? Presumably they’re not listening to Woman’s Hour, where one of their Westminster colleagues blamed the ladies for Britain’s paralysis on the world stage. Outgoing Labour MP Austin Mitchell has—to say the least—a curious theory: ‘I think the problem is simply this, that parliament with more women is going
Somebody find Carson the butler!
Mr S was interested to read that Mark Carney has sounded the alarm on low wage growth. In light of yesterday’s announcements, the Times’s business commentator Andrew Clark calls for bosses to ‘display a modicum of largesse’ to sustain the economic recovery. Mr S hears on the grapevine that business leaders are planning to open
As so often, no one put it better than Papa. Here is Ernest Hemingway talking of all the movies made from his novels and short stories: ‘The only two I could sit through were The Killers and To Have and Have Not — I guess Ava Gardner and Lauren Bacall had a lot to do
Well, well, well. What’s all this then? Uncle Vince has announced the suspension of 12 export licenses to Israel. Here’s what he said: ‘We welcome the current ceasefire in Gaza and hope that it will lead to a peaceful resolution. However the UK Government has not been able to clarify if the export licence criteria
Mr S was saddened to hear of the death of Robin Williams — a man who contributed to the gaiety of nations. People wax lyrical about Williams’s ability to inhabit character; but Mr S is more impressed by his turn of phrase. Here are some Mr S’s favourite one liners: ‘Cricket is basically baseball on