Steerpike

Is this the Scottish Green conference — or just an anti-Tory one? In his opening speech, co-leader Patrick Harvie laboured the point that he, er, just doesn’t like Prime Minister Rishi Sunak very much. Making some colourful accusations, Harvie didn't hold back… Starting with his favourite fixation, the Scottish government minister seethed: ‘Heat pumps have become the new hate symbol of choice for the extreme far right! The climate change deniers on the far right!' ‘Here in the UK, a Prime Minister desperately clutching anything he thinks might give his party a chance of clinging to power has once again chosen to copy the extremism of the far right!’ he raged at his modest conference audience.

It’s an unlikely face off: the First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf against Twitter/X chief Elon Musk. The pair are currently engaged in an online spat after Musk labelled Yousaf a ‘racist’. There’s never a dull moment with him at least…  The row came about last night after Musk saw a clip of a parliamentary speech Yousaf made two years ago. Speaking just after the murder of George Floyd in the US, the then Justice Secretary remarked that the top jobs in Scotland were all occupied by (horror of horrors) white people. Since making those comments, critics have used the clip to label Yousaf as a bigot — while the FM’s allies defend Yousaf’s speech as being about the need for diversity.

What comes around, goes around. The SNP government has never been slow in condemning the Tories for a lack of transparency in the ongoing UK Covid Inquiry. So it was to Steerpike’s amusement then that Humza Yousaf and his Scottish government are now facing criticism for not handing their key messages over to that same probe. Talk about being hoist by your own petard… This morning Jamie Dawson KC, the legal counsel to the inquiry, said that the Scottish government had been asked to provide ‘all communications related to key decisions made during the pandemic’, including informal messages on WhatsApp, but that ‘no messages’ had been handed over. So much for open government.

Oh dear. The world's wokest media outlet is at it again. When they're not moralising over artists or misattributing quotes, there's nothing more the Guardian enjoys then a ritual round of Israel-bashing. A vintage example has been offered up today on its website. Barely a fortnight after more than 1,400 Israelis were butchered by Hamas terrorists, it has published an article claiming that Israel is misusing the history of the Holocaust. According to Israeli academic Raz Segal, President Biden was wrong to reference the historic suffering of the Jews in his response to the attack of 7/10.

Communication is everything in politics, as Labour's overactive press office knows all too well. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer did an interview on LBC with Nick Ferrari in which the latter asked whether 'A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water?' in Gaza. Starmer replied that 'I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation. Obviously everything should be done within international law, but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has right to defend herself.' Cue much fury within the Labour party about Starmer justifying Israel’s water and electricity blockade of Gaza. His spokesman has since claimed that the comment was in response to a previous question on Israel’s right to defend itself.

Oh dear. It seems that another major broadcaster has slipped up in their coverage of Israel and Palestine. This time it is ITV News, which this week featured in a segment ‘a British Palestinian woman living in London' called Latifa Abouchakra. She was invited on to talk about the Islamophobic abuse she has received in recent weeks, explaining how: I’ve been called a terrorist, I’ve been asked to go back home, I’ve had people in their cars making threatening gestures… it makes me feel as a Muslim woman in this country, that no matter how hard I work, no matter how good I can be, it will never be enough because appearently Mulims and Palestinians are inherently terrorists according to the system here, according to the narrative of the media here.

It’s a tough old time for Rishi Sunak right now. Twenty points behind in the polls, he faces by-election defeats everywhere he looks as well as having to grapple with the ongoing unrest in the Middle East. But as he bids to turn it all around, it seems that the Prime Minister’s task has now got even more difficult – with his top senior civil servant taking time off. Politico today reports that Sunak's Cabinet Secretary is expected to be gone for ‘a number of weeks’ on medical leave. Given the absence is expected to be relatively short (ministers are due to be briefed by the Prime Minister this week) there is unlikely to be a single stand in.

Oh dear. It seems that the wokest police force in all the West has done it again. In the past fortnight, pro-Palestine marches in London have attracted some unseemly elements to their cause. One such example was offered today at an event for Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir in central London. After one speaker asked the crowd ‘What is the solution to liberate people in the concentration camp of Palestine?’ a chant of ‘Jihad, jihad, jihad’ echoed out around the speaker. An incitement for holy war? Surely grounds for a police intervention… Unfortunately not, it seems.

Oh dear. It seems that not all have taken the by-elections results well. Tories everywhere are waking up to two of the worst defeats in the party's history but others involved in the campaign have preferred not to stick around. Among them was Andrew Cooper, the defeated Conservative candidate in Tamworth. Moments after losing a safe seat with a majority of almost 20,000, Cooper left the hall, rather than stick around to hear the victory speech by Labour victor Sarah Edwards. By doing so, he eschewed his chance to thank those Tories who have toiled in his cause these past two months. In fairness to Cooper, it's not exactly been a great week.

Ping! An email lands in Steerpike's inbox. It's a press release about Labour's new homes pledge, touted with much fanfare in Liverpool last week. 'Labour will jump start planning' it declares, 'to build 1.5 million homes and save the dream of homeownership.' The 'transformational package of reforms' includes the 'next generation of "new towns", new communities with beautiful homes, green spaces, reliable transport links and bustling high streets.' All very motherhood and apple pie. But according to an accompanying document, the new towns are not just about homeownership.

Party conference season is over and now it’s back to school. Ahead of Prime Minister’s Questions today, all eyes were on the former SNP MP Lisa Cameron today as she defected to the Tories. The onetime Nat officially crossed the floor at midday to a hero’s welcome from the Conservative benches. The cheers were so loud in fact, that one MP was forced to shut up and sit down halfway through his question.  Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons, was far from impressed. He fumed at the Tories:  Can I just say to the members, the member was in the middle of asking a question. I think it’s disrespectful to your own side. You should think about what you’re doing. Can I just say, people should wait.