Steerpike

The Russell Brand revelations have prompted much soul-searching in recent days from hand-wringing hacks fretting about the norms of the noughties. Leading the charge today is Marina Hyde, the toast of centrist dads everywhere. She has written in the Guardian about her angst concerning the infamous ‘Sachsgate’ episode of Brand's career. Back in October 2008, Brand and his Radio 2 show co-host Jonathan Ross phoned Andrew Sachs – Manuel from Fawlty Towers – and left lewd messages on his voice machine, boasting about Brand's past sexual relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. Battle lines were drawn. Charles Moore was so appalled at this that he said he refused to pay his TV license until Brand had been fired.

With the polls pointing to a Tory thrashing, how many of the 2019 Red Wallers will win their seats next time? One who isn't hanging around to find out is Dehenna Davison, the 30-year-old MP for Bishop Auckland. She announced back in November that she was standing down from parliament and today she has also declared that she is quitting her post as a junior minister for Levelling Up. In her resignation letter, Davison said it was 'impossible' to stay in the job while battling chronic migraines and that she wants to spend more time on constituency work. She now intends to focus her efforts on campaigning for one punch assault victims; her late father died after a single punch in a Sheffield pub.

If only more politicians were like Rory Stewart. That is pretty much the gist of his book Politics on the Edge. While Stewart is the man called into politics to serve the people, the same isn’t true of his colleagues. Stewart’s memoir has a short list of ‘goodies’; namely, himself. But there is a long list of ‘baddies’ who, by Stewart’s account, have brought British politics into disrepute. Mr S has read Stewart’s book so you don’t have to – and here are seven of the worst people on Rory’s naughty list: George Osborne: There’s no love lost between Stewart and Osborne. The former chancellor, who is now doing his best to single handedly solve the labour market crisis, is painted as a cynical Cameron stooge who can’t be trusted. Mr S is shocked!

The Labour party is on a charm offensive – not with Brits, but with our European cousins over the water. Keir Starmer has unveiled plans to drop the Rwanda deportation programme and cosy back up to Brussels in the hope of striking a new asylum deal. But it seems Labour’s plans to present themselves as the party who will kiss and make up with the EU following Brexit might be much grander still. Taking to the airwaves, Labour shadow foreign secretary David Lammy lined up to take a pop at the Tories and woo the EU all in one fell swoop. ‘There are two visions of Britain’, he said, speaking to Nish Kumar and Coco Khan on their Pod Save the UK podcast.

Ding ding! Over the river at City Hall things got heated this morning with London Mayor Sadiq Khan forced to apologise for labelling a Tory rival ‘thick’. Khan was being grilled over the expanded Ulez zone during Mayor’s Question Time, with Conservative London Assembly member Peter Fortune trying repeatedly to pin Khan down on when reports on the scheme’s expanded zone might be published. Frustrated by the Mayor’s refusal to give a straight answer, Fortune continued to probe Khan and said: ‘You know, you can be a bit slippy. You’re very good at this!’ After a bit of back and forth, the Mayor shot back, claiming his exchange with Fortune was ‘like being back at sixth form’.

So. Farewell then. Tobias Ellwood. For more than three years, the Bournemouth East has run the Defence Select Committee with the tact of Alan Partridge and the foresight of Michael Fish. But today his luck finally ran out after committing a gaffe too far. Ellwood's now-infamous Taliban video proved too much even for some of his fellow long-suffering Tories on the panel. Mr S first broke the news back in July that Ellwood's colleagues joined forces with Labour MPs to table an unprecedented motion of no confidence. And this afternoon the former minister finally fell upon his sword, resigning rather than facing the ignominy of being the first elected select committee chair ever to be defeated in such a vote.

The name's Lammy, David Lammy. With Labour cruising in the polls, all signs point to the Shadow Foreign Secretary taking over at King Charles Street. And along with Chevening and 1 Carlton Gardens, comes responsibility for the Secret Intelligence Service and the nation's overseas spooks. So Mr S was surprised upon tuning into LBC last night to hear Lammy say the following about allegations of a Chinese spy at the heart of Westminster: We will find out, as this investigation follows all its leads, to how serious it got on this occasion. It is true to say that, you know, countries spy on one another and we spy on other countries, that is true. The work of MI5 and MI6 is well-known of course.

All eyes in Westminster are on the chamber today, amid talk of MPs potentially using parliamentary procedure to name the alleged Chinese spy. First up after prayers at 2:30 p.m was the Speaker, who had tantalisingly teased the media with talk of 'a brief statement' in 'relation to weekend media reports relating to allegations of spying.' Was Lindsay about to name names? Sadly, not. Like a schoolmaster chastising unruly children, the Speaker sternly told MPs that 'this is an ongoing, sensitive investigation. Members of course understand that public discussion will be wholly inappropriate.' Boo!