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
Like a reverse Macavity, the Cabinet Secretary is back in the headlines, at the centre of another Whitehall scandal. Today it was the Covid inquiry – the longest-running farce since Charley’s Aunt. As part of the inquiry’s ongoing hearings, it today published evidence about how decisions were made back in the dark days of 2020
It’s tough at the top. A new poll out today from the Times shows that for all the hype around Rishi Sunak’s conference speech, his popularity has now fallen to a record low. According to youGov, only 20 per cent of voters believe Sunak would make the best Prime Minister, down five points in a
The SNP exodus continues. Only hours after Lisa Cameron MP defected to the Tories, nationalist councillor Kairin van Sweeden has now quit too after being accused of racism. The spat broke out with Labour colleague Deena Tissera after van Sweeden suggested her fellow councillor was unaware of the bedroom tax as, er, a ‘new Scot’. Blood
Just when we thought we’d heard the last of Captain Tom’s family, the pandemic hero’s disgraced family have been at it again. Subjecting themselves to a grilling at the hands of Piers Morgan, Captain Tom’s family admitted they would still keep the £800,000 his books generated – despite the public outcry over their flashy spending.
Oh dear. It seems that Humza Yousaf’s first conference as party leader has been spectacularly upstaged. Three days before the big SNP shindig in Aberdeen, one of Yousaf’s MPs in Westminster has decided to cross the floor to join, of all parties, the Conservatives in the House of Commons. Lisa Cameron – by common consent,
Oh dear, Keir Starmer’s speech didn’t get off to the best start at Labour conference. As he began to open his speech, a heckler, in a massive lapse of security, was able to get on stage and throw glitter over the Labour leader. The protestor – who was shouting platitudes like ‘true democracy is citizen led’
With Labour ahead in the polls by around 15 points, and the party seemingly on course to win a general election next year, you would think it would be all sunshine and smiles at the Labour conference, held in Liverpool. It appears though that some of the party are less than happy with the current
Oh dear. Jeremy Corbyn is at it again. The onetime Labour leader is currently contemplating the end of his political career at the next election, since losing the party whip three years ago. And he will have done little to endear himself to the Starmer army these past 24 hours. First he posted a statement
Tragedies are often the moment when statesmen are at their best. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen from the response to yesterday’s attacks by Hamas on Israel, they can also show politicians at their worst. Below are five of the more insensitive, tone-deaf and even downright offensive reactions to the tragedy that is unfolding in the Middle
To Green conference, where the party is thrashing out its policy platform ahead of next year’s general election. All too often in British politics, the smaller parties are distracted and held back by internal rows and feuds. So Mr S was intrigued to hear how the Greens would walk the delicate line between broadening the
Oh dear. It seems that Layla Moran has done it again. As Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman, she has chiefly served to undermine her party’s carefully calibrated equivocations on tactical voting and rejoining the EU. But today the Oxford West MP has outdone herself with her response to the unfolding horrors in the Middle East,
It’s day two of the Green party conference today in Brighton. There’s an air of expectation at this year’s jamboree as first-time attendees mingle with veteran eco-activists, clutching their pro-Palestine leaflets and tupperware lunchboxes. Mr S is a regular on the political conference circuit but even he didn’t expect the shindig to chime with his
If there’s anything consistent about Scottish politics, it’s that sooner or later the conversation will always return to independence. After winning a striking number of nationalists’ votes in today’s Rutherglen by-election, it was only a matter of time before Labour were quizzed on their constitutional stance. Sir Keir Starmer and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar
As if Starmer Chameleon hadn’t done enough U-turns this year. Ahead of his party conference in Liverpool, the Labour leader has defended his decision to write for a newspaper despised in Liverpool and across swathes of the North West of England. Speaking to ITV Granada yesterday, Sir Keir spoke passionately of his collaboration with the Sun newspaper:
Irony was pronounced dead this morning after Time magazine proclaimed Humza Yousaf as one of its top ten ‘trailblazers’ around the world. According to the august Bible of liberal America, the flailing First Minister of Scotland is one of the ‘next generation leaders’ who will ‘shape our future’. God help them all. In the simpering,
The papers might have welcomed Sunak’s conference speech but others aren’t so accommodating. First, the pro-independence Alba party reported the Prime Minister to the police for contempt of court after making fun of Nicola Sturgeon’s legal woes. And this morning, Sky presenter Kay Burley floated the idea that Sunak could have beached equalities legislation after telling
Rishi Sunak’s conference speech yesterday, in which he sought to claim the mantle of change, has received a reasonably welcome reception in the papers this morning. The Times front page says this ‘son of a pharmacist’ is casting himself as Thatcher’s heir, while the Telegraph focused on the PM’s ‘huge decisions to change Britain’. It
It’s been a mixed fortnight of fortunes for GB News. Their party at Tory conference attracted a galaxy of right-wing stars, with Liz Truss and Priti Patel among those toasting the self-proclaimed ‘People’s Channel.’ But as the Manchester meet-up draws to a close, the thorny question of the Ava Evans scandal has reared its head
The blue-collar Conservative Common Sense Group’s event at Tory conference yesterday evening felt more like a celebrity visit than a political fringe. Following her conference speech, Home Secretary Suella Braverman was met with chants of ‘BRA-VER-MAN’ and rapturous applause from her Tory fanbase as she came on stage at the event, hosted by the Daily
Dogs bark, cows moo and Lee Anderson shoots his mouth off. The firecracker that is the Tory deputy party chairman took to the ConservativeHome stage on the Tory conference fringe this afternoon, and he certainly didn’t hold back. Speaking to Anand Menon, director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, the plain-talking Anderson
