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
U-turns are seemingly all the rage right now. When it’s not Labour and the Keirleaders backtracking on policy, it’s the turn of the SNP to pick up the slack. Back in, er, March Humza Yousaf campaigned to lead the SNP on a platform of increased ‘progressive taxation’: the idea that in a cost-of-living crisis he
Life in London is going swimmingly right now. Whether it’s the lyrical cries for ‘Jihad, jihad, jihad!’ or Tube drivers leading chants of ‘Free, free Palestine!’ you can scarcely avoid the sounds of success these days. So it’s good to know that the capital’s mayor has his priorities in order. Back in May of last
It’s a tough old time for Rishi Sunak right now. Twenty points behind in the polls, he faces by-election defeats everywhere he looks as well as having to grapple with the ongoing unrest in the Middle East. But as he bids to turn it all around, it seems that the Prime Minister’s task has now
Oh dear. It seems that the wokest police force in all the West has done it again. In the past fortnight, pro-Palestine marches in London have attracted some unseemly elements to their cause. One such example was offered today at an event for Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in central London. After one speaker asked the
Oh dear. It seems that not all have taken the by-elections results well. Tories everywhere are waking up to two of the worst defeats in the party’s history but others involved in the campaign have preferred not to stick around. Among them was Andrew Cooper, the defeated Conservative candidate in Tamworth. Moments after losing a
Ping! An email lands in Steerpike’s inbox. It’s a press release about Labour’s new homes pledge, touted with much fanfare in Liverpool last week. ‘Labour will jump start planning’ it declares, ‘to build 1.5 million homes and save the dream of homeownership.’ The ‘transformational package of reforms’ includes the ‘next generation of “new towns”, new
The Foreign Office is often called the grandest of all Whitehall’s ministries – so it’s just a shame then that so few mandarins appear to enjoy it. New figures unearthed by Mr S show that less than half its staff were working in King Charles Street at the beginning of this month, despite much talk
Is it ageist to suggest that an obviously frail 80-year-old might not be well suited to the task of resolving global conflicts? Even a man in his prime would struggle to fly from Washington to Israel, do a frantic day of talks, greet the suffering, make a speech and jet off again hours later to go
Party conference season is over and now it’s back to school. Ahead of Prime Minister’s Questions today, all eyes were on the former SNP MP Lisa Cameron today as she defected to the Tories. The onetime Nat officially crossed the floor at midday to a hero’s welcome from the Conservative benches. The cheers were so
It’s all very well judging political parties on their polling figures. But what exactly do voters think about their leaders? Look no further: thanks to Savanta polling for the Scotsman, Mr S has discovered just how negatively the people of Scotland view those vying to be their next First Minister. Bottom of the pile is, shock,
The grey suits were out in force today at the launch of the official history of the 1922 Committee’s first centenary. Knights, grandees and peers of the realm all crammed into Committee Room G of the Palace of Westminster to hail the release of Philip Norton’s updated book. As one quote on the blurb put
She’s back! It wouldn’t be a proper SNP jamboree without an appearance from the dear Leader, the self-identifying Chief Mammy of nationalist fervour, Nicola Sturgeon. As hard as she tried to claim her surprise visit to Aberdeen was not overshadowing her successor’s first party conference, Mr S wasn’t convinced that even she believed that… With
Poor Rishi Sunak is stuck in a Sisyphean circle from hell. Each month, he prepares himself for a much-hyped reset, only to find himself fighting yet another by-election not of his own making. This Thursday he faces a brace of defeats in Mid-Bedfordshire and Tamworth thanks to the misdemeanours of Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher
It seems the SNP’s prospects are as gloomy as the Granite City. Day one of the nationalists’ shindig in Aberdeen has already seen a range of, er, unorthodox contributions made on the main stage. It turns out that there are people madder than the SNP politicians: the party’s membership. From furious talk of ‘treason’ to
To Aberdeen, where the great and the not-so-good of Scotland’s independence movement are gathering to pay tribute to that once mighty juggernaut known as the SNP. These days though the Nats are having a tough time, suffering an embarrassing defeat in the Rutherglen by-election and seeing one of their own defect to the Conservative party…
Dear oh dear. The SNP is not a happy place right now. Following yesterday’s spectacular defection from Lisa Cameron, Kate Forbes has today announced she will also be a no-show at SNP conference for the first time since becoming an MSP. Forbes, who narrowly lost hapless Humza earlier this year, plans to shun her party’s
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.