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
Since the election date for next year’s London mayoral election was announced, Sadiq Khan has been putting on a show of confidence that his re-election is in the bag with his supporters pointing to polling that suggests Labour enjoy a 40-point lead in the capital. However, the Ulez expansion – which Keir Starmer blamed on
Another month, another resignation honours list. It was a row over Boris Johnson’s peerages that led to Rishi Sunak facing multiple by-elections last month – with one still to follow, should Nadine Dorries ever get round to quitting. But when it comes to Liz Truss’s honours list, the row is not so much about the vetting
Having previously been known simply as ‘that footy pundit off the telly’, over the past year Gary Neville seems to have been trying to manoeuvre his way into politics. The former Man Utd captain signed up as a Labour member, conducted a cringeworthy Q&A with Keir Starmer at last year’s party conference, and has consistently
Taylor Swift mania has hit Los Angeles this weekend as the best-selling songstress takes her sold out Eras tour to the Sunny State. It means local residents are on high alert that there is a chance they cross paths with Swift. So spare a thought for the young woman who headed to an early morning
Labour’s newest and youngest MP, Keir Mather, is fresh out of Oxford – and on a path to the very top of his party. But the 25-year-old, who overturned a 20,000-vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election last month, shares more than his first name with his party leader and boss, Keir
As the earth orbits the sun and leopards avoid changing their spots, so Eddie Izzard is again attempting to become a Labour MP. This time the comedian and actor, who also goes by the name Suzy, is standing to become the Labour candidate to replace Caroline Lucas in Brighton Pavilion. In 2022, Izzard tried unsuccessfully
Oh dear. It seems Health Minister Maria Caulfield failed to get the memo on government lines to take this morning, when she made the fatal error of assuming that her own party would be defeated in the next election. Speaking to Sky News as part of her morning broadcast round, she questioned the consequences of
Dear oh dear. Things haven’t been going well for for the Green party lately and now they’ve just got a whole lot worse. The Green’s first UK parliamentarian and former leader of the Scottish Greens Robin Harper has quit the party, announcing that the Greens have ‘lost the plot’. Mr S wonders how long it
Poor old BBC political editor Chris Mason got a rude awakening during his interview with Donald Trump’s former aide this morning. Sebastian Gorka blasted Mason for putting ‘words in his mouth’ in a fiery appearance on Radio 4’s Today programme. Gorka, who served as Trump’s former deputy assistant, defended his former boss who was charged
Rishi Sunak is jetting off on holiday to California this afternoon, but it seems the Prime Minister couldn’t resist a dig at Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries before he departs. Dorries, a close ally of Boris Johnson, has refused to quit parliament, despite saying in June that she would stand down as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire
Well, well, well. After almost three years of Margaret Ferrier’s Covid breaches coming under the spotlight, the SNP MP has finally been ousted from her seat in Rutherglen and Hamilton West. In the end, 11,896 people in her constituency – 14.7 per cent of eligible voters – physically signed the recall petition to eject her,
The government’s alcohol-duty reform came into force today, which could only mean one thing: the customary press pictures of politicians pulling pints. Earlier on today, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ‘popped to the local’ Two Chairmen in Westminster, while the famously teetotal Prime Minister went to a London beer festival to mark the change in alcohol
Should a healthy young person having a double mastectomy be celebrated? That certainly seems to be the implication of a new advert by Costa Coffee, which features someone showing off their new scars while holding a cup of the chain’s overpriced swill. Less clear though is what the Labour party thinks, given its ricocheting stance
Is Nigel Farage’s war with Coutts finally over? The former Brexit party leader has claimed that the bank – which closed his account over concerns about his political views – has now offered to reinstate his account. The interim chief executive of Coutts, Mohammad Kamal Syed, wrote to Farage to give him the good news.
It feels as if almost every American presidential election is billed as the ‘nastiest in US history’. Steerpike, contrarian that he is, would like to reject this lazy media characterisation. Politics is always nasty and American politics has its own particular viciousness. When it comes to the likely Trump vs Biden rematch in 2024, however,
Rishi Sunak is up in Scotland today, hoping to woo voters with his plan to issue hundreds of new oil and gas licences for the North Sea – but it seems the Prime Minister is not making friends with the presenters on BBC Good Morning Scotland. Sunak turned on host Martin Geissler after he asked
It never stops for Nigel ‘Rocky’ Farage. Having seen off the chief executive of both NatWest and Coutts in successive days, he faces another cancel culture battle: this time involving the media group that employs him. Not GB News, at which he remains the golden boy, thanks to the interest garnered over his bank accounts.
Labour frontbencher David Lammy was today confronted by a furious voter on his LBC show about the Ulez extension. It’s been causing a row over the past week, since the Tories unexpectedly held onto Uxbridge and South Ruislip in last week’s by-election. The caller said: To be honest with you, I’ve had my wife in
It might come as some small comfort to Nigel Farage to discover that it’s not just those on his side of the Brexit debate who have fallen victim to potential ‘debanking’. The former Brexit leader may now have an unlikely ally in Gina Miller, the anti-Brexit campaigner and his arch enemy during the referendum years.
Troublemaking isn’t confined these days to the SNP’s Westminster group. It seems that nationalists north of the border have got the bug for insurrection too. Fergus Ewing, SNP MSP for Inverness and Nairn, has revealed that there is a ‘toxic atmosphere amongst the SNP group in Holyrood’ and that he doesn’t think the Nats stand a
