Steerpike

Steerpike

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

Sunday

Steerpike

Coming soon: Liz Truss’s book

First it was Nadine Dorries, then it was Theresa May. Now Liz Truss has become the latest female Tory MP to announce that they're writing a book. Britain's shortest-serving premier has today revealed details of her forthcoming work, titled Ten Years to Save the West. It is set be published next April by Biteback in the UK and Regnery in America, offering the ex-PM the chance to do a Thatcher and speak on both sides of the Atlantic. The book promises to be 'a timely warning about the perils facing conservatism in the years ahead'. Well, she ought to know...

Saturday

Steerpike

‘Chinese spy’ arrested in the Commons

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 Tom Tugendhat, the, er, security minister, and Alicia Kearns, chairman of the influential Foreign Affairs Committee. Oops. Counterterrorism police are reported to have swooped on the researcher and another man in his thirties on suspicion of espionage-related offences back in March.

Steerpike

Tory Treasury minister takes the fight to Labour

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 centre ground and common sense conservatism.  Mr S was in attendance and particularly enjoyed the reaction of the MP who, upon finding out the result of the Met manhunt, delightedly exclaimed ‘We’ve found Khalife? Thank fuck for that!

Steerpike

Braverman backs Douglas Murray

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 Communications Unit’ (RICU) in 2019 investigated social media users described as ‘actively patriotic and proud' – gasp! – with warning signs including those who absorbed information or opinions from ‘pro-Brexit and centre-right commentators’. These included Jacob Rees-Mogg, Melanie Phillips and The Spectator's own Rod Liddle and Douglas Murray, who wrote about the surreal experience here.

Steerpike

Watch: Macron booed at World Cup opening ceremony

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, such was the booing, whistling and jeering from around the stadium. Macron – a self-made man who worships his creator – has suffered a dramatic fall in popularity since his unpopular pension reforms, with a current approval rating of 31 per cent. It wasn't just in the Stade de France that he was booed: the President's appearance on screen was also greeted with a similar reaction at special rugby fan zones in Paris and Marseille, according to news reports. Talk about having Les Blues...

Friday

Steerpike

SNP to purge rebel backbencher

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 face severe disciplinary action after a series of rebellions, senior party sources revealed to the Times. From voting in favour of a no confidence motion against Green co-leader Lorna Slater to opposing the gender bill to physically tearing up government legislation on Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs), Ewing doesn’t exactly, er, toe the party line.

Steerpike

Martin Selmayr in trouble over ‘blood money’ jibe at Austria

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 this reputation, Selmayr had a habit of floating to the top of EU politics. But now, it seems, Selmayr may have pushed things too far. Selmayr, who is now head of the European Commission’s office in Vienna, has been rebuked by Brussels for accusing Austria of paying 'blood money' to Russia for gas supplies.

Steerpike

BBC disinformation correspondent accused of embellishing her CV 

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 could be in a bit of hot water.  According to the New European, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent Marianna Spring was allegedly caught embellishing her CV when applying for a job in 2018.

Thursday

Steerpike

Carol Vorderman suffers a blow in her scrap with the Tories

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 to back down from her earlier claims. She wrote on Twitter: 'I'm happy to accept Mr Hands’ assurance that his role in the process was simply to refer the approach to the JACT, and that there was no impropriety on his part.' Hands told Mr S he is 'delighted' the tweets were removed but called on Vorderman to go further and say sorry.

Steerpike

Blundering mandarins forget £3.6 billion

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 with Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The merger went off without a hitch at the time but it appears that no-one remembered to check the books. Among DBT's responsibilities is guaranteeing Covid loan guarantees.

Steerpike

Tory MP Chris Pincher quits and triggers another by-election

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 party whip back in July 2022, with a by-election likely ever since the Standards Commissioner began an investigation.  So who did the good Tories of the Tamworth Association select to replace Pincher? Eddie Hughes, the incumbent MP for Walsall North. That selection raised the possibility of a scenario whereby Hughes won the Tamworth by-election but then triggered a second contest in his current, more marginal, constituency.

Steerpike

Fact check: has Scotland’s NHS improved as much as Yousaf claims?

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 (or even, gasp, apologise for the health service failings), Yousaf struck a somewhat triumphant tone. ‘The National Health Service is already making progress in recovering from the pandemic,’ he declared. ‘We have the best-performing accident and emergency departments in the UK!’ He continued: ‘In the last year, the number of people waiting more than 18 months for treatment has almost halved’. It’s decreased by 40.

Steerpike

Gillian Keegan defies the press critics

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 to deliver a defiant retort to her critics in the Fourth Estate. 'One of the very first people who helped me in the media was inHouse Communications' said Keegan, before pausing and adding: 'I think I might need another session' and after laughter: 'I don't want to learn how to stop swearing but maybe the mic thing...

Wednesday

Steerpike

Watch: Nicola Sturgeon makes her Scottish parliament comeback

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 was released without charge and denies any wrongdoing, called for politicians to engage in a more 'mature debate'. She also insisted that 'things look(ed) a bit clearer' from the backbenches. She told MSPs: 'Let me say that I accept my share of responsibility for the state of our political discourse. But if anything that makes me more determined to play a part in trying to change it. Polarisation in politics is much maligned.

Steerpike

Watch: Kwarteng apologises for mini-Budget chaos (eventually)

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 mini-Budget last Autumn. Claiming that Kwarteng and Truss would ‘go down in history…as disasters in that period’, Morgan wondered out loud why the former chancellor was finding it so difficult to ‘just say sorry’. Kwarteng said he didn’t believe his strategy in the Treasury ‘was the wrong strategy. I don’t apologise for the strategy’.

Steerpike

Just Stop Oil protests cost Met police more than £9 million

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 stop wasting our money’ feel more apt? Dealing with the antics of JSO and XR between April and June this year have cost the Met over £9 million, according to police data seen by Mr Steerpike. Nearly 24,000 police officers were roped in to deal with climate activists – and more than £1.2million was paid out in overtime.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Kemi becomes the Tory members’ favourite

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 and with a satisfaction rating of +59 points, it seems that the Business and Trade Secretary has filled his place. Just in time for Tory conference too... Most of the other ratings are broadly in line with the last ConHome table, though the Prime Minister will be disappointed to see his name fall into 25th place with negative ratings of -3.8 points. Always a bad sign when you're polling below the Leader of the House of Lords.

Steerpike

Parliament shells out another £190k for leaky roof report

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 Information request by Steerpike found that the annual cost of fixing the roof has now jumped to more than £10,000 over the past decade. So what's to be done about the building, which opened in 2000 and was expected to last, er, two centuries? Well, a major report into the Portcullis House roof defects is expected within the coming weeks, with MPs hoping that it will, at last, find a solution to the ongoing costs.

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Keegan reacts to her hot mic moment

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 as her 'hot mic' interview was played back to her. A poker-faced Keegan barely betrayed a hint of emotion while watching the clip, before cooly explaining to Ridge that her comments about doing 'a fucking good job' were actually a reference to her industrious civil servants. 'I wasn't talking about me, I was talking about the department', she explained.

Steerpike

Watch: Gillian Keegan apologises for letting rip on camera

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, you know what, you've done a f***ing good job while everyone else has sat on their arses and done nothing? No signs of that, no?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVtnpxpIY6g Mr S thinks it's unlikely this will go down well with mums and dads worried whether their children's schools are in danger of collapsing, or with teachers preparing for a new term.