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
After thirteen years in office, the Conservatives face an uphill battle to keep their seats come the next election. But don’t despair true blue Tories, for the new party chairman Greg Hands has a cunning plan: endlessly tweeting out pictures of that infamous Liam Byrne note. The 2010 letter by the then Labour minister in
Oh dear. Just when Keir Starmer looked like convincing voters that Labour had changed, along came an unwelcome reminder of the party’s not-so-distant Corbynite past. Diane Abbott, the onetime Shadow Home Secretary, has popped up in the Observer letter pages today to offer her (unsolicited) musings on the issue of, er, antisemitism. There’s a first
Can the BBC ever get it right? Just weeks after the Beeb was embroiled in an impartiality row over the rogue tweets of their star presenter Gary Lineker, another spat over bias has reared its ugly head. In September, the broadcaster hired a new political fact-checker, Oscar Bentley, to comb through political debates in the run up to
Adam Tolley’s report has finally been published, with Dominic Raab firing off an angry letter to mark his resignation. And that sense of anger has not been restricted to just the former Justice Secretary. A steady stream of Conservative MPs have been tweeting their disgust this morning, arguing that the claims in Tolley’s report were
It seems that not even MPs’ offices are exempt from the nation’s employment crisis. Ahead of next year’s general election, Mr S hears that many bright young things on the Tory side are leaving parliament – with their elected members now finding it difficult to hire suitable replacements. Some quitting the Commons fear a Labour
Talk about denying us a grand finale. Moments before the defamation ‘trial of the century’ was due to begin, media giant Fox News announced last night it had settled the lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election. In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to
Another day brings another bombshell revelation about Scotland’s ruling party. Yesterday morning the SNP treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested by police investigating the party’s finances. It now transpires that Beattie has quit as the SNP’s national treasurer following his arrest. He also states that he will ‘be stepping back from my role on the Public
Who needs Succession when we have Dominion? A billion-dollar lawsuit involving a media tycoon, the 2020 presidential race and a potential Supreme Court showdown. But for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News this is no fictional drama. They are about to begin one of the most anticipated defamation trials in American history, over the claims that
A new week has come around, and it brings yet more turmoil for the SNP. Calls for Nicola Sturgeon to resign as MSP for Glasgow Southside have grown louder after a leaked video showed the former SNP leader angrily warning colleagues about speaking negatively of the party’s finances. Despite her colleagues returning to the Scottish
Bang goes Rishi Sunak’s big maths speech. Fresh from delivering a paean to the joys of numeracy, the Prime Minister is now facing an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into his outside interests. The probe is understood to concern Sunak’s wife’s shareholding in a business that runs Koru Kids – one of the childcare
‘The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation’ claimed Robert Conquest ‘is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.’ If that is the case then the Brecon Beacons National Park must be run by a veritable junta of saboteurs. Park bosses have today announced that it will
Following the row over those Labour attack adverts about child sex offenders, it seems it’s open season now on Sir Keir Starmer’s record as Director of Public Prosecutions. Over the weekend the Sunday papers have been filled with stories from when he led the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) including his poor record in, er, prosecuting
Rishi Sunak is back in the headlines today, saying it’s time for greater maths literacy. But when it comes to his own political pledges, how many of those stand up to mathematical scrutiny? A Spectator mug for the first person to complete all challenges.
Oh dear. It seems that another police chief is making headlines, for all the wrong reasons. Perusing his copy of this week’s Spectator, Steerpike was bemused to read in Charles Moore’s notes about Wiltshire Police’s latest edict. No officer may join the force’s rural crime team if he or she has any link with hunting,
Three cheers for the Sunday Mail, which has today got its hands on footage of Nicola Sturgeon which is, er, sub-optimal, to say the least. The newspaper has been sent a video of the then First Minister furiously insisting that the SNP’s finances had ‘never been stronger’ in a meeting of the party’s ruling body
There’s more trouble in Scotland’s nationalist paradise. A storm is brewing amongst members of the SNP’s innermost ruling group as it is revealed that party secrets have been kept from its very own National Executive Committee. The resignation of the party’s auditors, details on finances and the exodus of party members all came as much
Even the most skilled politician would struggle with the legacy left by Nicola Sturgeon – and Humza Yousaf is very far from being skilled. The new First Minister has been forced to do an awkward interview today, outlining what he knew about the recent raid on his predecessor’s home. Yousaf has now admitted that a
Is Humza Yousaf set to repeat his predecessor’s mistakes? He’s certainly not doing much to avert fears: today, his government has confirmed that it will be launching a legal challenge against the UK government’s section 35 order that blocked the bill. Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Cabinet secretary for social justice, wrote in response to a parliamentary
Earlier this week, Elon Musk caused a fit of the vapours inside Broadcasting House when his social media site labelled the BBC Twitter account as being ‘government funded media’. The Beeb insists it is ‘publicly funded’ – even though not paying the licence fee is a criminal offence backed by the state – and duly kicked off
Over at Labour HQ, there’s a mood of triumphalism about the party’s string of attack adverts. Newspapers are full of gloating quotes about the success of its strategy, as sophisticated as, er, accusing Rishi Sunak of being indifferent to paedophilia. Glee is in the air at Friars House, with the Tories expected to lose up