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
When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. Now it has emerged that during the Labour lot’s first year in office to June 2025, a whopping 111,000 people claimed asylum in the UK amid a surge in small boat crossings – up by a staggering 14 per cent on the previous 12 months. So
Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth has been arrested and charged in connection with the possession of indecent images. The 52-year-old politician – who has represented the South Scotland constituency for a decade – was taken into custody at a Dumfries property earlier this month and a police investigation has been launched. The Scottish Labour party
To the Land of the Free, where Donald Trump’s administration has been busy, er, setting up a TikTok account. The White House has joined the social media platform this week, despite plans by the United States to ban the app in just under a month over security concerns. The profile has so far posted three
Well, well, well. The Scottish Tories have lost a number of councillors to Nigel Farage’s ranks and now Labour appears to be facing the same fate. This morning, a former Labour councillor in Fife who left the party over claims she was blocked from becoming a general election candidate has jumped ship to Nige’s Scottish
Dear oh dear. As Steerpike wrote on Tuesday afternoon, asylum seekers will be removed from the Bell Hotel in Essex after Epping Forest district council was granted a temporary injunction by the High Court. The legal action comes after a series of protestors gathered outside the venue after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting
Asylum seekers will be removed from the Bell Hotel in Essex after Epping Forest district council was granted a temporary injunction by the High Court. The legal action comes after a series of protestors gathered outside the venue after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. The council’s lawyers claimed that Somani
Well, well, well. According to research by the children’s commissioner for England, children’s exposure to pornography has increased since the Online Safety Act came into effect. Dame Rachel de Souza noted that a survey had found that more young people said they’d been exposed to porn before the age of 18 after the new rules
It’s not a good time to be in Scottish Labour. With nine months to go until the 2026 Holyrood election, the party is still trailing behind the SNP and, at times, Reform UK. And things aren’t going well at a local level either: in recent months the party has suspended five councillors over inappropriate conduct
Back to the UK’s bloated civil service. As if the government didn’t have enough on its plate trying to slash Whitehall red tape, the number of sick days taken by civil servants won’t help Sir Keir Starmer’s army pick up the pace on progress. Civil servant absences are on track to reach a record high
The UK government’s proscription of campaign group Palestine Action saw over more than 500 protestors arrested this month – the greatest number of arrests made by the Met Police on a single day – after they took signs supporting the group to Parliament Square. The arrests prompted expressions of unease from politicians, commentators and, now,
Now the beleaguered BBC is facing fury from its own staff – after it emerged that Huw Edwards has not paid back the £200,000 doled out to him after being arrested in November 2023 for possessing indecent images of children. Last summer the former TV star pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children
The SNP’s former Dear Leader Nicola Sturgeon released her memoir this week – but it has not quite had the reception she anticipated. The trailed excerpts prompted Alex Salmond’s allies to accuse Sturgeon of besmirching her former mentor’s name, brought her failed gender reform bill to the fore and confused pro-independence supporters after the Queen
Ding ding ding! John Healey was pulling no punches this morning as he took aim at Reform UK on the airwaves. Nigel Farage’s party has slammed Prime Minister Keir Starmer for presiding over a ‘democratic disparity’ because despite having four MPs and managing ten councils, the party has no representation in the House of Lords.
Well, well, well. Back to Scotland’s self-identifying ‘newspaper’, which has planted itself at the centre of a row over the delisting of a gender critical book from a national library exhibition. Women’s rights campaigners flagged concerns after The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht – a selection of gender critical essays – was removed from the National
‘Smashing Westminster’s glass ceiling’ is generally hailed as a good thing – except when it is the taxpayer left holding the bill. In the heady days of the new millennium, Portcullis House (PCH) was opened at a cost of £235million. As the newest part of the parliamentary estate, it was expected to last for 200
Well, well, well. Scottish health board NHS Fife has admitted to the UK’s equalities watchdog that it was in breach of the law when it allowed a trans doctor to use a single-sex changing room without first doing an equality impact assessment. Now NHS Fife has been ordered by the Equality and Human Rights Commission
Dear oh dear. Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with US Vice President JD Vance at the weekend to discuss the wars in Gaza and Ukraine over a spot of fishing. Lammy’s attempts at chumminess haven’t gone all that well however. Vance told Fox News that Washington is ‘done funding’ Kyiv, the Foreign Secretary failed to
Well, well, well. After Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes announced she was stepping down at next year’s Scottish parliament election, speculation about who could stand for her Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency has been rife. Some have suggested that Ian Blackford, the former SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and onetime Westminster group leader,
Oh dear. Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly was always going to have its detractors, given how divisive a figure the SNP’s former Dear Leader has become. A number of those people will not have read the former first minister’s tome in full (for those who want to save themselves the time, Steerpike has compiled a handy
Well, well, well. The US Vice President has taken a family trip to the UK this summer, to enjoy a stay at an 18th-century Georgian manor in the Cotswolds. But although this getaway was supposed to provide some leisure time for JD Vance, the VP has made space to meet with a stream of British