David cameron

After David Cameron's former speechwriter Clare Foges kicked off her new career outside of No.10 with a blistering editorial in the Times criticising her former employer over a range of issues including the bedroom tax, doubts began to surface that she was not a true blue. Still, even Mr S was surprised to read in an interview with the Evening Standard that the Prime Minister's old political advisor is 'rooting for Jeremy Corbyn'. What's more, the gesture is not simply part of the jovial #ToriesForCorbyn movement: 'Foges lives alone in Archway where Jeremy Corbyn is her MP (she’s rooting for him because she lives in the area, not as part of a Tory plot).

Water cannons at the ready: the Tory leadership contest is officially underway. How does Mr S know this? Well, in a clear sign that George Osborne means business, he has changed his Twitter profile picture. Osborne is now in Conservative blue, offering a confident grin as he embarks on his campaign to move into Number 10. The new photo also displays a slimline Osborne in contrast to the old photo, which depicted a more laid back Chancellor. While Mr S will of course keep readers updated as Boris Johnson and Theresa May develop their online presences, Steerpike can't help wonder why Osborne didn't opt for this week's cover image of Octo-Osborne...

With the newspapers frequently filled with tales of former public schoolboys misbehaving abroad, Mr S was unsurprised to hear reports that a Westminster School alumnus had enjoyed a rather lively flight from Asia to Britain. Still, given that the man in question was aboard the Prime Minister's private jet, perhaps he ought to have known better. Step forward Patrick Wintour. Word reaches Steerpike that the Guardian's political editor has become the talk of David Cameron's Malaysia trip after being the life and soul of the party on the flight back to Britain. According to Mr S's mole the journey got off to a bad start when Cameron failed to call Wintour by his name on board, instead opting for simply 'Guardian'.

Over the weekend, CCHQ selected the four Tory candidates for London mayor who will proceed to an open primary in September. Playing it safe they opted for experience over celebrity, with Andrew Boff, Zac Goldsmith, Syed Kamall and Stephen Greenhalgh all chosen. This means both Sol Campbell and Ivan Massow have not been selected. While the footballer has been notably quiet since the news, Massow appears to be taking it less well. The businessman -- who is openly gay -- has issued a statement on his Facebook page in which he speaks of his disappointment. In this, Massow -- who once accompanied Margaret Thatcher to Tory conference -- asks if his history with the party over Section 28 may have held him back.

Although Nick Clegg is under increasing pressure in some quarters to write a tell-all book about his time in coalition, the closest he has got to this so far is by signing up to an agency that has advertised his services for up to $55,000 per speech. Happily, Clegg's former speechwriter comes at no such cost. Phil Reilly has started a blog detailing his time working for the former deputy Prime Minister. In this, Reilly recalls a phone hacking joke he wrote for Clegg back in 2010: 'For days, Nick Clegg had been toing and froing over whether he could tell a joke about Andy Coulson. It was September 2010 and I was writing my first ever speech for him, which he would give at the opening rally event of the party’s autumn conference.

Lord Sewel has announced he is taking a ‘leave of absence’ from the House of Lords. In a statement sent to the Parliamentary authorities this evening, Sewel says he will be stepping out of the limelight until the investigation into his alleged behaviour is complete: ‘I wish to take leave of absence from the House as soon as it can be arranged. I also wish to make clear that in doing so I have no intention of returning to the House in any way until the current investigations have been completed, when in the light of their outcome I will review my long term position. I believe this is compatible with due process.

No one can deny that the SNP has made Westminster pay more attention to Scotland. Five years ago, it was surprising—and, in many ways, shocking—how uninformed most MPs were of what was happening in Scottish politics. That is one of the reasons why the independence referendum was treated as a second-order issue - until people realised quite how close it was going to be. But that has all changed now with the 56 SNP MPs making their presence felt in the Chamber. This is particularly true of Downing Street because with Angus Robertson having two questions at PMQs each week, David Cameron—who prepares assiduously for these sessions—needs to know what is making news in Scotland and what the record of the SNP government up there is on various issues.

The Prime Minister’s Birmingham speech on radicalisation and Muslim communities in the UK given earlier today is a rather important one. Regular readers will know that I’m not easy to please in this area, but it seems to me that David Cameron has come to understand the real problem of Islamic extremism and has been developing his attitudes towards that problem. There might be any number of reasons for this, but the most likely one is simple observation. Anybody can see that there is a problem, and a Prime Minister who has oversight on the intelligence and security threats that never come to fruition as well as those that do has a starker confrontation with the scale of the challenge than most.