Steerpike

Another day, another financial catastrophe for the SNP. This time it concerns the recent Rutherglen by-election, which saw the nationalists lose the Westminster seat to Labour in a humiliating defeat. But the by-election wasn’t the only embarrassing loss facing the Nats: their party bank balance took a hit too. It transpires that the SNP spent many thousands of pounds more on their campaign than their competitors. Talk about adding insult to injury… First Minister Humza Yousaf’s party spent £96,000 on their failed by-election campaign, which amounted to a staggering £14,000 more than Scottish Labour. 'What were they spending their money on?' laughed one Labour canvasser. 'They were nowhere to be seen!

And so the backlash begins. On Monday evening Andrea Jenkyns MP submitted a letter of no confidence in her ‘Machiavellian’ Prime Minister. It comes at the end of Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle, which saw then-Home Secretary Suella Braverman sacked and, startlingly, former Prime Minister David Cameron return to government. Will the drama never end? Jenkyns’s letter slammed Sunak for sacking Braverman, with Boris Johnson's former education minister raging that ‘enough is enough’. The MP continued in a rather, er, rambling fashion:  If it wasn’t bad enough that we have a party leader that the party members rejected, the polls demonstrate that the public reject him, and I am in full agreement. It is time for Rishi Sunak to go. ...

Remembrance Sunday traditionally brings with it a pause in political hostilities but not for Nadine Dorries. The former Culture Secretary was out on Laura Kuenssberg's show this morning, three days on from the release of her long-awaited book on the supposed 'plot' to bring down Boris Johnson in which Michael Gove is cast as one of the central villains. And following the bizarre scenes yesterday in which Gove was mobbed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, Dorries showed little sympathy with her onetime cabinet colleague: ND: "But the point on Michael Gove in that, I've got to raise it, what was Michael Gove doing in the middle of Victoria Station on a day when every other sensible politician would not want to make the police's job any harder and would keep away. I mean was he drunk?

Rarely has a protest had so much hype before it has even happened. But today’s pro-Palestinian march had something for everyone. Sadiq Khan has pointed the finger of blame at Suella Braverman over the attempts by right wing protesters to ambush pro-Palestine supporters. Meanwhile, the chants of ‘from the river to the sea’ have led watchers to question whether this was really a march for peace after all. And now a government minister has been thrown into the mix. Footage is doing the rounds on social media of Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, being mobbed by pro-Palestinian protesters at Victoria station this afternoon. Gove appears to have got caught up in the march, rather than having planned to be there.

Ding, ding, ding! The latest round of fighting has just concluded in the weird and wonderful world of Tory WhatsApp groups. In a series of messages obtained by Sky News, various backbenchers turn on each another in the ongoing fall-out from Suella Braverman's row with the Metropolitan Police. Some were supportive; others critical but one thing is for sure – none of them are very happy. Veteran right-winger Sir John Hayes kicked off the exchange by declaring that it was 'so sad to see protests being allowed on the Remembrance weekend', arguing that it was 'wholly inappropriate' and urging colleagues to 'speak for the law-abiding, patriotic majority by saying so'. Others then weighed in.

It would be easy to get the impression that the Covid Inquiry – with its relentless focus on bad language and offensive WhatsApp messages – has so far been a waste of time. But that’s not quite true: it’s been a massive waste of money too. Today the Inquiry released its accounts for up to September 2023, which show that the cost of the lumbering investigation has already ballooned to £56 million, even though public hearings only began in June. As you’d expect, the largest expenses so far have been on lawyers, with the Inquiry shelling out £19.6 million to keep 62 barristers (including 12 KCs) and a team of solicitors on the books. Another £11 million has then gone towards legal representation for key participants in the hearings.

The Holyrood WhatsApp drama can now be upgraded from ‘mystery’ to ‘scandal’. As if not handing over important messages wasn’t bad enough, the First Minister and his deputy have today been accused of misleading the Scottish parliament on the UK Covid Inquiry. It seems pantomime season starts early north of the border… Yousaf and deputy first minister Shona Robison told the Chamber last week that the Scottish government had only been asked for Covid WhatsApp messages in September. It now turns out this isn’t quite the case. After the Covid Inquiry requested the Scottish government set out the timeline of events in full, it became clear that it had first requested messages in February — seven months earlier than Yousaf had initially claimed.