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
Good old Charlie Falconer. For more than 15 years now, the noble Lord has been trying, desperately, to ram assisted dying through parliament. Kim Leadbeater’s Bill represents his eighth attempt at legalising suicide following previous efforts in 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2019, 2022 and 2024. Now, with a narrow majority of just 23 MPs backing
It seems that all is not well with the once-mighty Tory ground game. After a thumping set of election defeats last month, a worrying new trend has developed for the Conservatives. They are not only losing more wards in council by-elections; they now seem unable to field candidates, even in seats still represented at Westminster
Next Friday marks a year since Labour came to power. To celebrate the occasion, Sir Keir Starmer has done a bizarre sit down interview with the Observer in which our hapless premier admits that, er, he basically has got all of it wrong. Quelle Surprise. Across 3,700 words the Hon. Member struggles, manfully, to walk
It never rains but it pours. Rachel Reeves really isn’t having a good time at the Treasury. First, there was the £1bn winter fuel U-turn. Then, came the £1.5bn welfare concessions. And now, some new polling has dropped which makes for grim reading for the Chancellor. LabourList has this morning published the latest findings from
Oh dear. While Labour rips itself apart on welfare, it seems that one Tory MP is determined to get the focus back on his party. Mark Pritchard, the Hon. Member for the Wrekin, stood up during Keir Starmer’s statement on Nato today to offer some much-needed cover for our under-fire PM. Pritchard took aim at
It is a year ago next week that Labour won the general election. ‘The adults are back in the room!’ proclaimed Treasury minister Darren Jones, shortly after the result. Yet, 12 months on, it seems governing is proving somewhat more difficult than many first thought. Luckily, a group of wonks, hacks and thinkers are on
Oh dear. It’s not been a good year for the Scottish Conservatives, who have seen multiple councillors defect to Reform UK ahead of next year’s Scottish parliament elections. Now, in a further blow to the Tories, it transpires a former Conservative MP has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s party. Talk about a sinking ship, eh?
Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick has insisted that the Conservatives must not beat around the bush about what they stand for – even if it means pushing more liberal members out. The shadow justice secretary made his comments to Popular Conservatism director Mark Littlewood. Jenrick told Littlewood: I’ve always said that a political party can
US President Donald Trump is taking no prisoners today. Just hours after Trump announced a ceasefire had come into place between Israel and Iran – following the Iranian strikes yesterday evening on Doha – now the President has sent a message to Israel, warning against further strikes in a rather, um, explicit fashion. Taking first
While Britain’s NHS remains on its knees, with A&E waiting times still unacceptably long and bed-blocked preventing sick patients from accessing wards, you’d think that all hands would be on deck to help make patient passages through hospital even a little more comfortable. Not in the County Durham and Darlington hospital trust. The trust’s LGBT
Well, well, well. At long last, the Westminster parliament has issued an update on where it stands over the Supreme Court ruling, which saw judges unanimously backed the biological definition of a woman. But despite the ruling being announced in April, it is only now that the UK parliament has published guidance on the subject
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday afternoon that the UK government had decided to proscribe activist group Palestine Action – and now it transpires that officials are investigating its funding over concerns that there may be an Iran link. As reported by the Times, Palestine Action’s donations are being probed amid worries that the
Oh dear. It seems that the office of the Hon. Member for Spen Valley has put their foot in it again. Kim Leadbeater might have hoped for a quieter life now that her much-criticised Assisted Dying Private Members’ Bill narrowly scraped through the Commons by 23 votes on Friday. But Leadbeater has started the new
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced in the Commons this afternoon that the UK government will proscribe Palestine Action. The move comes after members of the activist group broke into RAF Brize Norton and graffitied two military planes. In a statement, Cooper said: ‘A draft proscription order will be laid in Parliament on Monday 30
To the Beeb, which is once again making the news rather than breaking it. BBC presenter Martine Croxall caught the attention of viewers on Sunday as she read out a news report about a heart health study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Reading the autocue, the presenter hesitated as she got
It seems the Labour lot has got themselves in quite a tizzy over events in the Middle East – and this morning saw an excruciating interview in which the defence minister couldn’t answer the most straightforward question about Iran. Luke Pollard gave a car crash interview earlier today on Sky News, where the Labour minister
On Thursday night, a group of Palestine Action protestors managed to enter RAF Brize Norton, spraying paint into a pair of Voyager jet engines and leaving the military base without being caught. The Prime Minister has since called it ‘vandalism’ and there has been talk of proscribing Palestine Action. But Mr S wants to know how
Summer is here! And you know what gorgeous weather means: more small boats crossing the Channel. Get ready for the great Starmada in the coming weeks, as thousands more migrants prepare to sail the 21 miles from Calais to Dover. The current crisis has been going on since 2018, when Sajid Javid – the-then Home
The News Agents podcasters appear increasingly less focused on facts and more on taking a pop at people who hold different views to them. Ex-Reform man Rupert Lowe was a recent casualty. He was invited onto the podcast to speak to Maitlis – who wasted no time in tearing into him, going so far as
It’s a big day in parliament tomorrow. Both sides of the assisted dying debate are gearing up for a crunch Commons clash when Kim Leadbeater’s Bill returns for its Third Reading. One key flashpoint in its recently-completed Report Stage was when Rebecca Paul’s amendment to allow hospices to opt out of providing assisted dying was
