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
How time flies. Half a year has passed since former prime minister David Cameron made a shock return to frontline politics — and the House of Lords. His appointment as Foreign Secretary was a controversial one, with certain sections of the Tory party pretty sceptical at Dave’s big return. His ardent support for Remain ruffled
Another day, another development in the curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. It now transpires that the deputy Labour leader is set to face a police interview under caution in the next few weeks. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) will quiz Sir Keir Starmer’s second-in-command over which of her two homes was her primary residence
Five days have passed since Keir Starmer’s masterstroke of getting Natalie Elphicke to defect from the Tories and join the Labour party. Yet in Starmer’s rush to secure a defective Tory, no-one in the Leader’s Office (Loto) seems to have wondered whether the Labour party would actually welcome into its ranks a scandal-prone, hardline Eurosceptic
Oh dear. It’s not just Reform UK that has had trouble with party candidates in recent weeks — the Labour party is facing issues of its own. Candidates for both the local and general elections have been found to have made and shared some rather inappropriate views — which are now coming back to bite
There may be a new First Minister in the driving seat but can the SNP overtake Labour’s lead in the polls? Just this morning, Savanta revealed that, for the very first time in the pollster’s history, Labour is four points ahead of the SNP in Westminster voting intention. It’s certainly not the best start to
When it rains for the Tories, it pours. Now Tees Valley’s Conservative mayor Ben Houchen has hit out at his party’s leadership – just 24 hours after yet another Tory MP defected to Labour. The re-elected Conservative mayor this morning admitted the path to Tory electoral victory is ‘getting narrower by the day’ before adding,
Poor Rishi Sunak is not having a very good week. After a bruising set of local elections and two defections to Labour in a fortnight, the latest Times poll won’t do anything to settle the Prime Minister’s nerves as the general election looms. Labour now has a staggering 30 point lead over the Tories — the biggest
Will the last Tory MP to leave please turn out the lights? Nadhim Zahawi today becomes the 67th Conservative to announce they are standing down at the next election. The former Chancellor – who has held nine different ministerial posts – announced the decision on Twitter/X this morning. ‘My mistakes have been mine,’ he wrote in a
Another one bites the dust. The second Tory to defect to Labour in as many weeks is none other than Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover. In a shock announcement just before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour declared that one of the Conservatives’ most hawkish MPs on immigration had defected to the Starmer army. Elphicke released
The Green party has no problem getting attention these days – but it’s for all the wrong reasons. A second Green councillor is now being investigated by the party for using ‘inflammatory rhetoric’ about the Israel-Gaza conflict in the Middle East. When will they learn? Alexi Dimond was re-elected in last week’s local elections to
Another day, another BBC slip-up. This time the much-lauded public service broadcaster has been dragged back into the spotlight after an independent review found it hadn’t been reporting fully on immigration — because it feared being labelled either ‘racist’ or ‘woke’. Oh dear… The 75-page report, carried out by Madeleine Sumption of the Migration Observatory
What comes around goes around. John Swinney has this afternoon become Scotland’s seventh First Minister after being appointed, unopposed, as SNP leader on Monday. It was a coronation event like no other – where Swinney was threatened by a contest from a rank and file activist within his own party after hapless Humza Yousaf paved
These days it seems there’s little you can’t blame on Brexit. From low ratings to school bullying, Britain’s departure from the European Union has served as a wonderful catch-all, consequence-free excuse for various individuals and institutions to explain their shortcomings. A vintage example of this was offered today by Rufus Wainwright, the Canadian-American singer-songwriter. His latest production ‘Opening
Since coming to office in December, Javier Milei has won right-wing fans across the world for his bombastic rhetoric and fervent championing of libertarian ideas. Among them is Liz Truss, who sees Milei as very much an ideological ally. In a recent interview to promote her book, she was asked by GB News to name
Oh dear. The Green party is in hot water after it emerged that one of its newly-elected councillors labelled a rabbi a ‘creep’ and a ‘kind of animal’. The party is under fire for failing to suspend Mothin Ali, who was elected to Leeds city council in last week’s elections, after the new councillor was
And so we have it: a nationalist coronation, as yet another First Minister resigns. John Swinney, formerly Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy FM and onetime leader of the SNP himself, has been elected – unopposed – as the new leader of the Scottish National party. Thought to have been parachuted in by the party establishment, Swinney’s coronation
The fall-out from the local elections continue. In the West Midlands, Labour pulled off a shock upset to unseat Andy Street by 1,500 votes. The Starmer army’s triumph there was all the more impressive when one considers that the pro-Palestine independent Akhmed Yakoob finished third on 11 per cent. Yakoob, who won the votes of
So, it didn’t take long for the recriminations to begin. After Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives were subject to a massive drubbing in this week’s council elections, and were hit with the loss of the West Midlands mayoralty last night, the blame game is well underway. Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman certainly wasted no time in giving
Back to London for the city’s mayoral elections – and the verdict is in. In a win for Labour, Sadiq Khan has been hailed as victor for an unprecedented third term with an increased vote share of 44 per cent, while the Conservative’s Susan Hall has been relegated to second place with a 33 per
The fighting talk continues over at Reform HQ as local election results continue to drip out. The Farage-founded party’s right-wing campaign has seen leader Richard Tice proclaim Reform UK is ‘rapidly becoming the real opposition to the Labour party in the North of England’. Tory defector Lee Anderson has even gone so far as to
