Steerpike

Bumping up politicians’ pay seldom goes down well, especially in times of economic hardship. But the news that members of the Scottish parliament are to receive a 6.7 per cent salary hike will not be greeted with much enthusiasm among taxpayers north of the border. The rise takes the annual pay of all 129 MSPs to £72,195 and comes after the method for calculating Holyrood salary increases was switched from the ONS annual survey of hours and earnings (ASHE) to the more generous average weekly earnings (AWE). A spokesperson for the Scottish parliament said the previous method 'has been increasingly out of sync with other wage inflation indices to the point that MSPs received 1.5 per cent last year when general inflation was running at 10 per cent'. The poor wee dears.

A tough week for Rishi Sunak just got even more difficult. For Lee Anderson, his own deputy party chairman, has tonight gone public to confirm that he will be voting for the rebel amendments on the Safety of Rwanda Bill on Tuesday. The red wall rottweiler took to Twitter/X after 24 hours of speculation about his intentions to confirm simply that: The Rwanda Bill. I have signed the Cash & Jenrick amendments. I will vote for them. These amendments seek to disapply international law from the Bill and curtail asylum seekers’ rights to appeal against flights to Kigali.

For all the talk of a Tory ‘war on woke Whitehall’, more examples just keep cropping up. In an article for Fathom Journal, Anna Stanley, a former civil servant, this week painted a vivid picture about the kind of counter-terrorist training which is being given to her colleagues. Stanley writes that she recently attended a Kings College London (KCL) course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. It was, in her words, a ‘deeply, existentially depressing experience.’ Examples were reportedly cited on how such educational institutions are delivering what Stanley called ‘politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination’.

It would be fair to say that Sir Ed Davey has had better weeks in politics. Having missed PMQs this week due to family commitments, the Lib Dem leader decided that the best way of putting questions to bed over his role in the Post Office scandal to bed would be a time-honoured TV interview. Unfortunately his car-crash performance with ITV (who else?) means that they won't be going away any time soon. In the interview, released today, Sir Ed was repeatedly asked to apologise by Paul Brand for his inaction when the Horizon issues were brought to his attention, yet repeatedly declined to do so. 'I've said time and time again that I deeply regret that I was lied to on an industrial scale,' he said.

They say it’s a difficult change of gear when you leave government. Still, it seems Zac Goldsmith has had no problem keeping his foot on the pedal since he resigned last year, after complaining about Rishi Sunak’s ‘apathy’ towards environmental issues. Today, the former environment minister and eco-champion was temporarily banned from driving after being caught speeding on four separate occasions. Appearing in Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Goldsmith pleaded guilty to the four counts of speeding in Chelsea, Paddington and Twickenham between April and August last year. In April, he was caught doing 29 in a 20 zone on Chelsea Embankment. In July, he was 8 mph over the limit in Kensington.

Lee Anderson kicked off today's session of PMQs with a jibe at the Lib Dems' leader's expense. The Red Wall rottweiler rose from his seat to suggest that, in light of his failure to act on the Post Office scandal, the under-fire Ed Davey take his own advice on resignations from public office and 'Clear his desk, clear his diary and clear off.' Today's Times carries a similar call from the usually-sympathetic columnist Danny Finkelstein. Davey's absence from parliament for family reasons meant he was not tasked with responding to the subsequent Urgent Question on the Post Office. Shortly after Kevin Hollinrake had spoken at the despatch box, an email arrived in Steerpike's inbox with a response from the lucky Lib Dem assigned that honour.

Bright young things mixed with old survivors at the Reform Club tonight. From the backbenches to the cabinet, the great and the good of the Tory left were out in force at the One Nation Conservatives’ new years’ drinks. With the Rwanda Bill returning to the Commons next week, all eyes are on the group in their battle with the Tory right. And doing his bit for Conservative relations was Matt Warman MP, who began the night with a few jokes at the expense of certain colleagues. He told the 200-strong audience that, unlike other factions, the One Nation caucus doesn’t have to pretend they’re ‘five families’ to ‘make ourselves look bigger than we are’.

Labour might be ahead in the polls but it’s not all plain sailing. With an election looming later this year, members of the shadow cabinet have been reticent about setting forth their policy platforms for fear that the Tories either trash or nick their ideas. And a perfect demonstration of the perils of a flagship policy was demonstrated yesterday by Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, when she appeared on GB News. The Sunderland MP was keen to talk up Labour’s plans to levy VAT on independent schools. Such a move, she claims, will raise between £1.3 to £1.5 billion – money that can be invested in funding further mental health support for children in state schools.

There's nothing so ex as an ex-Prime Minister. But while the likes of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and David Cameron are busy off respectively writing columns, making speeches and, er, running the Foreign Office, Theresa May has been content to quietly reside on the backbenches. As MP for Maidenhead, she has spent much of the past year promoting her new book – Abuse of Power – which proved to be the best-seller at October's party conference. But such a low-key approach continues to reap dividends. For recently-published accounts show that in the year up until March 2023, the former PM’s eponymous company declared more than £1,540,000 in net assets – some 30 per cent up on £1,186,000 that she registered in March 2022.