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
You know your brand is struggling when even the boss wants to ditch it. For it seems that hapless Humza Yousaf has ‘done a Ratner’ today by distancing himself from the increasingly-toxic SNP brand. With his party set to lose half their seats to Labour, the flailing First Minister has decided that now is the
Tory MP Lee Anderson’s name was a curious omission from the list of rebels who voted against Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill. Anderson’s absence was surprising given that this week he resigned as deputy chair of the Conservative party over the legislation to ‘stop the boats’. ‘I don’t think I could carry on in my role
Oh dear. It seems that the right-on Member for Walthamstow is wrong again. Watching the Rwanda Bill debate this afternoon, Mr S was struck by an exchange between Stella Creasy and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman. The latter was in full flow, decrying the indignities of Westminster’s subservience to Strasbourg’s judges when Creasy rose to intervene.
A feisty edition of PMQs today, following the drama in the House yesterday evening. As predicted, Sir Keir Starmer opted to lead on Tory disunity over the Rwanda plan. He likened the Conservatives to ‘hundreds of bald men scrapping over a single broken comb’ before turning to reports that Rishi Sunak wanted to scrap the
When he’s not grovelling to the House for his latest error, there’s nothing that Chris Bryant likes more than a bit of Tory-bashing. Whether it’s popping up in parliament or firing off posts on his ever-active Twitter account, few Members bill themselves as being better at holding ministers’ feet to the fire than our Sir
Immigration minister Michael Tomlinson is a KC so is good at thinking on his feet – or so you might expect. But this morning the Tory MP was caught out when it came to what should have been a straightforward question: what does he watch on TV? ‘I watch very little,’ Tomlinson told Sky News’s
No. 10’s latest effort to convince Tory rebels to vote for its Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill has collided with that regular ministerial inconvenience, the independence of the judiciary. According to a report in Tuesday’s Times, ministers plan ‘to move 150 judges from the first-tier tribunal to the upper tribunal, the body that
Bumping up politicians’ pay seldom goes down well, especially in times of economic hardship. But the news that members of the Scottish parliament are to receive a 6.7 per cent salary hike will not be greeted with much enthusiasm among taxpayers north of the border. The rise takes the annual pay of all 129 MSPs
A tough week for Rishi Sunak just got even more difficult. For Lee Anderson, his own deputy party chairman, has tonight gone public to confirm that he will be voting for the rebel amendments on the Safety of Rwanda Bill on Tuesday. The red wall rottweiler took to Twitter/X after 24 hours of speculation about
This is Sir Ed Davey’s worst week in politics since last week – and it’s still only Monday. The Liberal Democrat leader is enduring a torrid time at present, amid continuing questions about his handling of the Horizon scandal when he was the postal affairs minister. This morning, the Daily Mail went heavy on profiling
A new year has seen the resumption of Westminster’s favourite parlour game: endless Tory infighting over the Rwanda Bill. But ahead of Rishi Sunak’s flagship legislation to ‘stop the boats’ returning to the Commons tomorrow, some Tory MPs spent the weekend arguing over a similarly thorny issue: where to house the 50,000-odd asylum seekers who
It’s blue Monday today for Tory MPs as they read the findings of the Daily Telegraph’s mammoth new poll. The paper splashes today on a YouGov survey of 14,000 people – the biggest such poll since the 2019 election. It points to the Conservatives suffering an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat by
For all the talk of a Tory ‘war on woke Whitehall’, more examples just keep cropping up. In an article for Fathom Journal, Anna Stanley, a former civil servant, this week painted a vivid picture about the kind of counter-terrorist training which is being given to her colleagues. Stanley writes that she recently attended a
Another day, another U-turn from Keir Starmer. Or to be precise, two new U-turns from the Labour leader before midday. Appearing on BBC1’s Laura Kuenssberg show this morning, Starmer tried to make clear his support for the UK military strikes on the Houthis after Sunak sanctioned action on Thursday. However, the part of the interview
It would be fair to say that Sir Ed Davey has had better weeks in politics. Having missed PMQs this week due to family commitments, the Lib Dem leader decided that the best way of putting questions to bed over his role in the Post Office scandal to bed would be a time-honoured TV interview.
The Rwanda Bill comes back to parliament next week which means a return of Westminster’s favourite parlour game: Tory blue-on-blue. The left of the party has had their say this week, with Matt Warman’s jibes on Tuesday and Damian Green’s warning that ‘the Prime Minister looked me in the eye and said that he doesn’t
Once, Sir Keir Starmer liked to claim that the Welsh Labour government was the ‘blueprint’ the UK. Yet now, like so much else, he has u-turned even on that, declining to repeat the promise when asked repeatedly three months ago. And perhaps that’s no surprise when one considers the record of Mark Drakeford’s ragtime regime
They say it’s a difficult change of gear when you leave government. Still, it seems Zac Goldsmith has had no problem keeping his foot on the pedal since he resigned last year, after complaining about Rishi Sunak’s ‘apathy’ towards environmental issues. Today, the former environment minister and eco-champion was temporarily banned from driving after being
Take a bow Humza Yousaf. Just two months after his government opted out of a UK-mainland-wide ban on XL American bully dogs, SNP ministers have today caved in and admitted defeat. Yousaf threw in the towel today at First Ministers’ Questions, telling MSPs that – surprise, surprise – Holyrood will now ‘in essence replicate’ UK
Even as the credits rolled on ITV’s Peston, the row between Tory MP Jake Berry and Private Eye editor Ian Hislop showed no sign of ending. The pair had a furious bust-up over the Post Office scandal, with Hislop accusing the Tories of failing to act sooner to help innocent postmasters whose lives were ruined.