Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
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Oh dear. The Sunday Times is tonight reporting that a Westminster parliamentary researcher has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China. The male suspect, who is in his late twenties, is reported to be linked to a number of senior Tory MPs, including several who are privy to classified or highly sensitive information. Among them are
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To Shoreditch, unlikely terrain for this year’s Tory Reform Group conference. The last such shindig happened in pre-Covid times, with the One Nation Conservatives keen to make up for lost time. Damian Green, Maria Miller and Tom Tugendhat were among a succession of MPs who appeared before the activists, proudly extolling the virtues of the
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Stop the presses: common sense has broken out in parliament. On Thursday, Suella Braverman delivered an update on the anti-terror programme Prevent, following a review into its effectiveness by Sir William Shawcross in February. Among Shawcross’s findings was his criticism about Prevent’s work on supposed ‘right-wing extremism’. An analysis done by Prevent’s ‘Research Information and
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You know it’s bad when the rugby fans are booing you. Poor Emmanuel Macron had his big moment upstaged last night as the World Cup kicked off in Paris. Ahead of the first game between the hosts and New Zealand, the embattled President had to delay his welcome speech from a lectern on the pitch,
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Dear oh dear. It appears Fergus Ewing has exposed one painful truth too many. The nationalist veteran is expected to have the whip removed within days after the party’s leadership decided that his backbench criticisms have gone unpunished too long. Ewing — who is rumoured to be the only Spectator subscriber on the SNP benches — will
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Martin Selmayr, the so-called Beast of the Berlaymont, is no stranger to controversy. During his time as head of European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker’s cabinet and as secretary-general of the Commission, Selmayr became something of a bete noire of Brexiteers, having been accused of wanting to ‘punish’ the UK for leaving the EU. Despite, or perhaps because, of
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Oh dear. Could things get any worse for the fledgling BBC Verify, launched to combat the scourge of fake news? The fact-checking service has already faced criticism for failing to spot the BBC’s own blunders – such as the Corporation’s misfired reporting on Nigel Farage and Coutts. Now though it looks like the service’s star reporter
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Carol Vorderman’s campaign against the Tories suffered a setback today after the ex-Countdown host climbed down from a row with the party’s chairman Greg Hands. Vorderman sent a number of tweets earlier this year over Hands’ alleged involvement in the awarding of a £25 million PPE contract. But Vorderman has now issued a statement appearing
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Oh dear. It seems that Sir Humphrey has messed up again. Perusing parliament’s records this morning, Mr S was struck by a written ministerial statement put down by Kemi Badenoch’s Department for Business and Trade (DBT). The nearly-created ministry came to life back in February, when the old Department for International Trade (DIT) was combined
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To no-one’s surprise, Chris Pincher has now quit as a Tory MP, preferring to resign now rather than drag out a recall petition over the coming months. For more than a year, everyone could see this coming since the infamous evening at the Carlton Club. Everyone that is, except Tory high command. Pincher lost the
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There might be a health crisis but at least the SNP aren’t short on rose-tinted spectacles. It was always going to be interesting to see how Humza Yousaf approached the health service in his new programme for government – given the massive decline in performance on his watch. But rather than adopt a solemn approach
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To Smith Square: scene of Tory triumphs of the recent past. And tonight it was the turn of Gillian Keegan to produce her own bravura display. Amid speculation that the under-fire Education Secretary might not show, Keegan – the much-touted speaker at tonight’s Women2Win event for Tories in Communications – arrived at the inHouse offices
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Nicola Sturgeon is back. The former SNP leader, who stood down as First Minister in March, popped up in the Scottish parliament today to issue a warning on the state of ‘political discourse’. It was Sturgeon’s first appearance in the chamber since she was arrested as part of a probe into SNP finances. Sturgeon, who
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Happy Trussiversary. It’s a year today since Liz Truss entered No. 10. One man who probably won’t be celebrating that milestone is Kwasi Kwarteng, who marked the occasion last night with a grilling on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Morgan kicked things off by blasting the Spelthorne MP for causing ‘genuine financial harm’ to many as a consequence of the
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Staging sit-ins, slow marches and protests throughout the spring and summer, Just Stop Oil (JSO) and Extinction Rebellion (XR) have been doing their best to hammer home the cost of climate change to the planet. But have they ever even thought to consider the cost of their protests to the public purse? Might the slogan ‘Just
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When the king abdicates, who inherits the throne? Following Ben Wallace’s departure as Defence Secretary, it seems that Kemi Badenoch has now seized his crown as the toast of the Tory grassroots. For 18 months, Wallace topped the ConservativeHome league table of party members. But his exit from the political stage means there’s a vacancy
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It’s not just England’s schools that are crumbling. As the new term dawns, MPs have returned to Portcullis House to find work still ongoing to fix the building’s notoriously leaky roof. Water poured into the building’s atrium last month after a ‘huge bang’ which left the area fenced off with scaffolding underneath. A Freedom of
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It’s been quite a day for the Education Secretary. Morning, noon and night, she has been on the airwaves today, having made what is surely the most famous on-air Keegan rant since Newcastle beat Leeds in April 1996. Appearing on Sophy Ridge’s new Sky show this evening, the garrulous minister had to sit and watch
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Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is in hot water. Keegan has been touring the broadcast studios to reassure worried parents in the wake of the schools concrete crisis, but it seems she has had enough. When the cameras stopped rolling at the end of her ITV interview, she let rip by saying: ‘Does anyone ever say,
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It’s reshuffle day today, with Labour’s recently-promoted frontbenchers now beginning the work of familiarising themselves with their new briefs. One who certainly won’t need any introduction to her role is Thangam Debbonaire, a trained classical cellist who now has the job of shadowing the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport. Among her responsibilities is