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
While Sir Keir Starmer is trying hard to ban fun, the Scottish National party is hot on his heels. Now it transpires that, er, pint glasses with logos are proving too offensive for the Nats – with a possible crackdown on the horizon. Priorities, priorities… The SNP government has, it emerged, ordered experts to investigate
Oh dear. It appears that Sir Keir Starmer’s own MPs are rather unhappy about the Prime Minister’s proposed smoking ban that would see a crackdown in beer gardens and shisha bars – so much so that one has even tabled a motion to oppose it. Talk about trouble in paradise… It transpires that Mary Glindon,
To Scotland, where the closure of the country’s only oil refinery has been announced today. The site will shut next year – resulting in the loss of 400 jobs – after refining company Petroineos said it was unable to continue to compete with similar organisations around the world. With the news comes a wave of
Sir Keir’s Labour government may be determined to deprive daily life of all fun, but there’s still a little humour left in politics yet. Now it transpires that when the government’s policing minister, Dame Diana Johnson, attended a meeting of senior police officers earlier this week, she, er, had her very own purse stolen. You
Tensions are brewing between Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot and John Swinney’s SNP north of the border. Now Scotland Secretary Ian Murray has hit out at the Nats, urging the Scottish government to ditch their cack-handed foreign affairs efforts and focus on Scotland’s domestic issues instead. It’s not like they’ve already had almost two decades
To the Trades Union Congress conference, where Mick Lynch is once again at the centre of political controversy. The RMT union boss took to the stage at a pro-Palestine fringe event to first berate the decisions of Foreign Secretary David Lammy before appearing to compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to the, um, slave trade. Good
With two months to go until his successor takes over, Rishi Sunak only has a handful of PMQs sessions left. But never fear: with the end of the Starmer/Sunak show comes a new leading man in the latter’s place. Nigel Farage – the man who loves to claim he’s the real ‘Leader of the Opposition’
Ding ding! It’s not just in Westminster that the debate over illegal migration has got politicians tearing chunks out of each other. Over in Berlin, an emotional Olaf Scholz got up in front of the Bundestag to give his opponents a piece of his mind. The Chancellor’s speech was meant to be about the budget,
Prisoners are out, the unions are striking and pensioners are having their winter fuel payments pulled. With Starmer’s Britain now bearing increasingly less resemblance to the land of milk and honey we were promised before the election, it’s good to see Labour MPs resorting to their default setting: banning things they just don’t like. Whether
Look What You Made Me Do. It seems that last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris convinced one of America’s biggest icons to nail their colours to the mast. Fresh from conquering Wembley on her ‘Eras’ mega-tour, Taylor Swift has now thrown her lot in with the Democrat Vice-President. Writing on Instagram, the
On Tuesday night the former President Donald Trump and the current Vice President Kamala Harris faced off in Philadelphia for the first presidential debate since Joe Biden’s disastrous fall from grace earlier this year. The debate, moderated by ABC, took place over 90 minutes, and saw the candidates clash on immigration, Trump’s rallies, and Afghanistan.
Happy prisoner release day, one and all! Today’s move to let out the lags is all part of the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to ease the pressures on Britain’s overburdened prisons. To mark this auspicious occasion, hacks across the country have descended on various prisons to interview inmates being released to the outside world. And
It’s less than 60 days to go until polling day in America and the race could not be closer. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are due to debate on Tuesday night in what could be one of the most consequential clashes of modern times. So, with all eyes on the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia,
Whither the future of parliament’s pubs? It was less than three months ago that Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue Gray reportedly wanted to close permanently all of Westminster’s watering holes – including the famous Strangers’ Bar – to stop novice MPs falling prey to the House of Commons’ historic drinking culture. But eight weeks
In the fall-out from last week’s devastating report on the Grenfell report, it seems one question has not been asked of the various Labour spokesmen out on the airwaves. In a 1,700-page report that apportioned blame for the 2017 tragedy widely, retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Martin Moore-Bick spared no one in his excoriating judgements.
Labour have been encouraging plenty of controversy recently with the growing allegations of cronyism surrounding recent civil service and public appointments. Today, however, it’s a resignation that’s bringing yet more heat upon the flailing government. Northern Ireland’s Veterans Commissioner, Danny Kinahan, appointed in 2020 to champion the cause of 60,000 veterans yesterday left his position
It’s a day ending in ‘y’, which means another Labour scandal. Today marks the return of Lord Alli, the media luvvy with more money than sense. Alli, famed for perfecting TV ‘presented by morons for morons’, hit the headlines last month for the ‘passes for glasses’ row. Now it seems he has also been making recommendations
More bad news for the BBC. Following the fall-out from the Corporation’s catastrophic handling of the Huw Edwards affair, a long-running controversy threatens to re-ignite once more. Steerpike understands that next week a major report is set to be published on the Beeb’s coverage of the conflict in Gaza, with a 100-page publication by a
Another day, another drama. This time Ed Miliband is in the firing line after his opposite number took aim at him in parliament on Thursday. Shadow net zero secretary Claire Coutinho pulled no punches as she attacked Labour’s Energy Secretary over his government’s controversial pensioner palaver, Sir Keir Starmer’s much-lauded GB Energy proposal and exactly
Over to the Mayor of London and his minions. While the Prime Minister has been busy giving pay rises to train drivers, it seems London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan continues to employ Amy Lamé as his night czar on, er, £132,846 per annum – after already receiving, as Mr S revealed, a 40 per cent pay
