Steerpike

It's nice, isn't it. The quiet. Just sixteen months after their landslide triumph, the Labour party is now in full-on meltdown. The decision by Downing Street sources last night to launch a pre-emptive missile at Wes Streeting appears to have backfired spectacularly, as the popular Health Secretary handled today's morning media round with aplomb. Gee, who could have foreseen that eh? Asked to rule out demanding Starmer’s resignation after the Budget, Streeting told Sky News: 'Yes, and nor did I shoot JFK. I don’t know where Lord Lucan is, had nothing to do with Shergar, and I do think that the US did manage to do the moon landings. I don’t think they were fake.

So. Farewell then Tim Davie. The BBC Director General undertook the first leg of his long goodbye tour today, speaking to some of his 23,000 staff in true Corporation style: on a call with the Director of Internal Communications. Talk about the personal touch. Over 35-minutes, Davie answered questions from the Corporation's (many) hacks about the 'tough few days' which he and others have endured. Having revealed that he turned to BBC iPlayer on Sunday night to 'try and find a bit of relaxation', Davie went on to turn his guns on the Beeb's opponents, saying: We are in a unique and precious organisation and I see the free press, I see the weapon and the pressure, I see the weaponisation. I think we've got to fight for our journalism. I'm really proud of our work.

There are just two weeks to go until Rachel Reeves' second Budget. Twelve months after telling the CBI that she was 'not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes', she is now planning to do, er, exactly that. All sorts of various measures are being tipped and touted in the newspapers. But the most eye-catching is clearly the mooted rise in the basic rate of income tax. No Chancellor has dared hike this since Denis Healey in 1975: a decision which was followed a year later by the infamous IMF bailout. An encouraging precedent... Reeves is a history lover, who loves to lecture on Harold Wilson and have pictures of past Labour giants on her wall. But while she is likely to repeat Healey's tax-raising tradition, she is unwilling to join him in having a tipple at the Budget.

Oh dear. It seems that the BBC is once again setting the news agenda - via tales of its own incompetence. The Corporation has spent days battling accusations that it aired a doctored clip of a speech by President Trump in a Panorama documentary back in January 2021. The White House Press Secretary has called the Beeb ‘100 per cent fake news’ while Kemi Badenoch has demanded that ‘heads must roll’. This comes after months of furious denunciations from both the political left and right about the Corporation’s Gaza coverage… Now it seems that heads have, finally, rolled. For Tim Davie, the Director-General of the BBC, has tonight announced his resignation, alongside Deborah Turness, his senior colleague and CEO of News.

The battle on the right is well underway, with competition between Reform and the Tories for attention, ideas and personnel. One front where the Conservatives have had more success to date is on donations, with Kemi Badenoch's party comfortably outstripping Nigel Farage's forces in the first quarter of this year. But with Reform topping the polls for the past seven months, it is no surprise that some Tory donors are now sniffing around and keeping their options open. One donor of particular note is Lord Bamford, the chairman of JCB. A former Boris backer, he gave Badenoch £150,0000 at the beginning of June. But Farage has been building his own relationship with the construction giant.

After a decent conference speech, there was some hope among the Tories that Kemi Badenoch had finally turned the corner. Her PMQs performances are much more assured and there have been some notable Labour scalps secured by the party's fabled 'dark arts' team. But this improvement appears not to have been recognised by the electorate, who continue to turf out Tories in various elections across the country. Last night represented a continuation of this trend. Three Tory 'big beasts' suffered poor results in each of their respective patches. In Devon, Sir Mel Stride's Conservatives saw the third Lib Dem gain in his seat in recent months. Across the country, Badenoch's local branch lost the Shire ward on Saffron Walden parish council to a local residents' group.

They say that pride comes before a fall – and so it proved today at PMQs. In the wake of the Epping sex offender debacle, James Cartlidge, the Shadow Defence Secretary, opted to lead on the accidental release of prisoners. After forcing David Lammy at the beginning of the session to apologise (again) to the family of Hadush Kebatu’s victim, Cartlidge asked five times in a row whether any other aylum seeker offenders have been inadvertently let out since. Cue Lammy's expostulation 'Get a grip man! I know I am the Justice Secretary, that's why I am at the despatch box'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZHGu7YDnPw&feature=youtu.

To Ayrshire, where a former Tory councillor who quit the party in July has defected to Reform UK. North Ayrshire councillor Todd Ferguson has made the leap to Nigel Farage's party, following in the footsteps of multiple independent and former Conservative councillors across Scotland. The blow is even more painful for Scottish Tory party leader Russell Findlay as he is a regional MSP for the area. Another one bites the dust… Ferguson, who has been a councillor since 2017, quit the Conservative party in summer and has sat as independent – until now. He has become the third Reform councillor on North Ayrshire council, alongside Matthew McLean and Stewart Ferguson.

On Sunday, it is one year since Kemi Badenoch was elected Tory leader. The anniversary is expected to pass with little in the way of fanfare – though her supporters were cheered by a strong performance at PMQs on Wednesday. One bright spot of her reign has been a healthy return on the donations’ front. Fundraisers have been quick to tout the Tories’ record in this area, compared to both Labour and Reform UK. The Budget next month should only help party efforts… Still, will all that be enough to keep the party in their swanky Westminster base? Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) has been run out of Matthew Parker Street since the days of David Cameron. But with the lease set to end next year, Steerpike hears increasing chatter from staff about an imminent move away.

To central London, where the Spectator's Parliamentarian Awards are taking place. There were plenty of jibes at Labour from host James Cleverly and a number of Reform digs from politicians of all stripes – but Mr S noticed a rather scathing dig from new Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell at the party leadership. The gloves are coming off… The new deputy leader of the Labour party took to the stage – the disruptor of the year, as nominated by the Spectator – to thank, er, Sir Keir Starmer's campaign team. 'I'm obviously collecting this ward on behalf of a man because I am a proxy for a man, obviously, in this contest,' she remarked crisply.