Steerpike

Fresh from mingling with Bully XL owners, 'Stop Brexit Man’ Steve Bray has popped up again – this time at a conference fringe event asking 'Can the Tories win?'. Mr S thinks he knows what Bray's answer to that question might be. During the event, Bray stood up to unveil his ‘Stop The Tories’ top. But before he could yell ‘BREXIT’, one of the crowd decided to take matters into his own hands. The delegate tackled Bray into the corner before attempting to wrestle him out of the room. ‘This is assault,’ screamed Bray as security rushed to intervene. ‘Losers!’ he bellowed as he was hustled from the room. ‘No, you’re the loser mate,’ retorted an elderly gentleman to delighted laughter.

Rishi Sunak’s first Conservative party conference as prime minister is off to a roaring start. Never one to miss a chance to stick it to his opponents, he marked the occasion by ribbing his opposite number Keir Starmer.  This evening in Manchester Sunak was guest of honour at the 1922 committee and ConservativeHome’s drinks reception. Taking to the podium, the Prime Minister couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke fun at the Labour leader.

There’s just over a week to go before what might be the Labour party’s last conference before the general election. But while the mood in the wider party might be one of optimism, it seems that caution is the order of the day on Keir Starmer’s front bench.  Appearing on a panel called ‘Is Labour’s election triumph inevitable’ at the Cliveden Literary Festival, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy revealed that during Starmer’s party leadership campaign in the spring of 2020, he had some words of warning for the future leader. ‘I cautioned Keir not to suggest that Labour could win the election in one cycle,’ he said, ‘He didn’t accept that advice and decided to go for it.’ At least Lammy still managed to bag a place in the shadow cabinet.

It’s safe to say that this hasn’t been GB News’s finest week and there’s no sign of the drama stopping any time soon. First Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton were suspended from the channel for their, er, discussion about political commentator Ava Evans. Now Calvin Robinson has become the third presenter to be disciplined after posting a lengthy defence of Wootton online. Robinson’s defiant post appears to have set off alarm bells at GB News HQ. The Deacon’s fury at his colleague’s suspension was channelled into a 326-word long Twitter rant about the ‘pandering’ of his bosses to the ‘woke mob’. Wootton, he raged ‘brought so many people on board… including the careerist ambitious ones who are currently gunning for his job.

To the Parlimentary Press Gallery dinner, held in the splendour of the National Liberal Club. This event hasn’t been held for four years, with Press Gallery chair Sam Lister joking that ‘Boris Johnson locked the country down’ to avoid attending while Liz Truss resigned the day her invitation to this shindig arrived. Lister gave the opening speech, turning her wit on a series of politicians including Tom Tugendhat whom she quipped had gone from a ‘security minister to a security risk’ in record time. But the highlight of the night was undoubtedly the speech by the Prime Minister. And Rishi Sunak took to the stage with aplomb, contrasting Lister’s rise with that of her counterpart Hugo Gye, the chairman of the lobby.

The GB News row rumbles on, with its enemies seeing the perfect chance to call for its closure. A genuinely indefensible blunder from two of the channel's regulars, Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton, has seen both suspended. But questions are now being asked about the overall culture – and even whether it should be banned entirely. Adam Boulton, former political editor of Sky News, was on Newsnight last night saying that it’s time for GB News to be taken off air, even going so far as to compare the station to Russian state media: I have to say I think the complaints have piled up against GB News. I think there is a delicate and important broadcast ecology in this country.