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
In a further blow for outgoing Tory leader Rishi Sunak figures have revealed that donations to the Conservative party this year were not quite as generous as they have been in the past. It transpires that Sunak’s Tories received less than 10 per cent of the donations Boris Johnson managed to wrangle in 2019. And to
To Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where the great and the good of the Republican elite have arrived to crown Donald Trump as their presidential candidate once again. After the 2020 convention was hit by Covid, this year’s political jamboree is a full-blown Trump-fest. Hot topics of conversation include his pick of JD Vance for his VP nominee
Another day, another drama. This time it’s in Wales, where Labour leader Vaughan Gething has this morning resigned from his role as First Minister. In a statement the outgoing FM admits he had hope that over the summer period ‘rebuilding and renewal could take place under my leadership… I realise now that this is not
Donald Trump has chosen JD Vance as his US vice-presidential running mate – but the author of Hillbilly Elegy has some, erm, interesting views on the UK. At a conference last week, Vance said that the UK could become ‘the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon’ after Labour’s landslide election victory. He
Oh dear. The National is renowned for neither grace nor charm and Saturday’s front page was no exception. Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper sparked outrage this weekend after it splashed a rather, er, creative cartoon across its cover a day ahead of the Euros final. When the Jocks failed to progress through the tournament – instead
As Rishi Sunak prepares to step down, the race for a new Tory leader is underway. Although no one has officially announced they’ll run, there are already a number of names in the mix. Kemi Badenoch is a top contender, according to Conservative Home, which suggested that over a quarter of party members back the
Back to Scotland, the land of failing upwards. Very recently, Humza Yousaf held the top political job in the country for just over a year – despite the SNP’s former cabinet minister having a record of underdelivering while he held the posts of transport, justice and health secretary. Now the First Minister is John Swinney,
Sir Keir’s Labour government may have only been in power for a week, but already it is experiencing party splits. The Sunday Telegraph reported this weekend that allies of Starmer’s deputy Angela Rayner fear she is being ‘frozen out’ of the top team — and now new Health Secretary Wes Streeting is facing dissent over
Oh dear. It’s a day ending in ‘y’ which means Joe Biden has caused another diplomatic incident. As the gaffe-prone president battles to convince Democrats to stick with him for another four years, the aging octogenarian slipped up again when speaking today at the Nato 75th anniversary summit in Washington DC. This year’s jamboree is
Uh oh. It’s a busy time for elected politicians trying to work their way around Westminster and no party knows that better than Reform UK. For the first time the group now has parliamentarians elected under its own banner, after sweeping up 14 per cent of the vote share last week. But it’s not all
As if London mayor Sadiq Khan and his night tzar Amy Lamé weren’t already taking it upon themselves to be the capital’s fun police, now councils have decided to lecture football fans about peace and quiet during the Euros. As the England team approaches the final, Mr S can reveal that two London councils have
Oh dear. While no one has officially announced that they’re standing for the Tory leadership, prospective candidates are already rocking the boat. Mr S wrote on Wednesday that shadow showing secretary Kemi Badenoch had blasted ex-PM Rishi Sunak and said that former home secretary Suella Braverman seemed to be having a ‘very public’ nervous breakdown
Back to Scotland, where the Nats are still reeling after their general election defeat. The national poll left the SNP with just nine seats and the exodus has rocked the secessionists. It transpires that while Stephen Flynn has remained leader of the Westminster group, Pete Wishart is now his deputy and Kirsty Blackman is the
Another day, another drama. This time Sir Patrick Vallance is in the limelight, after attacking Brexit on the BBC. The new science minister – and former scientific adviser to the government – has given a rather curious interview this afternoon in which he has slammed the decision to leave the EU and refuses to rule
Uh oh. It’s day five of Sir Keir’s new Labour government and already the reds are running into trouble. Politicians confirmed last week Sunak’s Rwanda plan was to be scrapped, with the Labour party instead planning to tackle immigration by ‘smashing the gangs’. But there is a cost to the change of tack – and
The election is over and with MPs now being sworn in, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? As New York Magazine recently wrote, it is ‘an unmissable event on the social and political calendar’ and perhaps the only place in the world that you would find
The Tories faced a difficult election campaign and things aren’t much improving for the party. Now it transpires that Kemi Badenoch used the group’s first shadow cabinet meeting to hit out at ex-PM Rishi Sunak, describing his decision to call an early election as bordering on ‘unconstitutional’. Talk about trouble in paradise… The shadow housing
To the House of Commons, where party leaders are making their first post-election speeches. And for the first time, Nigel Farage MP gets to join in too. The Reform leader and newly-elected member of parliament for Clacton addressed his colleagues this afternoon, dubbing his party’s five MPs ‘the new kids on the block’, admitting to
All is not well in the Conservative party. Tory leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has turned on fellow MP Robert Jenrick in a scathing attack on her rival. The former home secretary previously worked closely with the ex-minister while their party was in government – but was this week keen to draw up dividing lines between
Oh dear. After last week’s bruising defeat for the Conservatives, the party has been left looking for a new leader and a way to win back voters. With only 121 seats, the Tory party has lost a number of key figures – and just last night, it was revealed that both party chairman Richard Holden