Steerpike, Author at The Spectator

Thursday

September 7, 2023

Blundering mandarins forget £3.6 billion

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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?

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

September 6, 2023

Steerpike

Watch: Nicola Sturgeon makes her Scottish parliament comeback

From our UK edition

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)

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

September 5, 2023

Steerpike

Kemi becomes the Tory members’ favourite

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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

September 4, 2023

Steerpike

Watch: Keegan reacts to her hot mic moment

From our UK edition

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

From our UK edition

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.

Steerpike

Starmer’s new media spokesman: ‘Bring down the house of Murdoch’

From our UK edition

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 setting out the party's position on press reform. In their last general election manifesto, Labour pledged to 'address misconduct and the unresolved failures of corporate governance raised by the second stage of the abandoned Leveson Inquiry.' Labour has previously supported the implementation of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act.

Steerpike

Sunak faces another tricky Tory by-election

From our UK edition

It never rains but it pours for Rishi Sunak. Just when a new term loomed, with the encouraging news that UK GDP had been revised upwards, along comes a deluge of bad news to dampen his freshly-raised spirits. First, there was the ongoing row about school roofs potentially collapsing on kids – a 'sub-optimal' spectacle, in the words of one Tory backbencher. And now, the Conservatives look set to face another by-election, this time in their long-time safe seat of Tamworth. For Chris Pincher (remember him?) has today lost his appeal against a proposed eight-week suspension from parliament for groping two men at a London club last year. That will trigger a recall petition for his constituents and the chance to cause a by-election in his seat.

Steerpike

Listen: Ex-mandarin slams Sunak on schools

From our UK edition

Oh dear. With parliament returning from recess today, No. 10 was hoping that this week would be a chance to put the summer blues behind them. But a former mandarin with a grievance has returned to put a spanner in the works. Amid a row over who is to blame in the ongoing schools farrago, Jonathan Slater – sacked over the Covid exam farce three years ago – has now pointed the finger of blame squarely at the government. The former Permanent Secretary for the Department for Education (DfE) told Radio 4’s Today programme that ministers had prioritised new free schools over safety and blamed the 2021 spending review for cutting repair funding. The Chancellor at the time? Rishi Sunak.

Sunday

September 3, 2023

Steerpike

Fact check: would independence cut Scotland’s energy bills?

From our UK edition

Good old Humza Yousaf: the one-man walking cure for imposter syndrome. Scotland's First Minister was out making the case for independence this weekend, telling a Scexit rally that 'the people of this country are not suffering from a cost-of-living crisis, they’re suffering from a cost of the Union crisis.' When asked by reporters to justify his claim, Yousaf – the thinking man's James Dornan – ignored such trivialities as the Barnett formula to claim that: This cost of living crisis is actually a cost of Westminster crisis. The suffering that you're having to endure with high energy bills, being fuel poorer in an energy rich country like Scotland, that is entirely linked to the fact that we are not independent. So, is he correct? The answer, shockingly, is no.

Steerpike

Kuenssberg loses a third of Marr’s viewers

From our UK edition

More bad news for the Beeb. It seems that the Corporation's flagship Sunday politics show has sprung a leak and is losing its audience at an alarming rate. Figures from Barb, obtained by the Sunday Times, show that the number of live viewers for Laura Kuenssberg's show has declined by more than a third since she replaced Andrew Marr a year ago. Marr pulled in an average of 1.9 million viewers each episode during his 16 years at the show. For the final months of 2022, Kuenssberg was getting audiences of 1.5 million but that has now dropped this year to 1.2 million every week. The BBC claims that Kuenssberg’s average is actually more like 1.5 million each week, when figures including those who watch on iPlayer or other devices are used.

Friday

September 1, 2023

Steerpike

Amber de Botton out as No. 10’s director of comms

From our UK edition

It's not just the ministers getting reshuffled. This afternoon, Amber de Botton departed her role as Downing Street's director of communications, having served just 10 months in the role. Does this mean a new comms strategy could be the offing? In a statement, the former head of ITV's politics coverage said: It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications but I have decided it is the right time to move on. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Prime Minister for his support and his leadership. The team he has built around him is dedicated and focused because those are the qualities he inspires.

Steerpike

Labour counts the cost of Corbyn

From our UK edition

He may have lost the Labour whip, but Jeremy Corbyn's shadow still looms over the party’s finances. Following the leak of the Forde report into antisemitism in the party, the Labour party launched legal action against five ex-staffers thought to be the source of the leak, including Corbyn’s former chief of staff, Karie Murphy and Alistair Campbell negative image, Seamus Milne. So far that’s netted legal costs of £500,000 but, according to the Guardian, the final bill could cost £4 million – money earmarked for Labour’s Election war chest. The trouble for Labour is that despite the mounting costs and the enlistment of a KC and independent investigator to unmask the source of the leak, the 'chatty rat' remains elusive.

Steerpike

The Manchester Evening News’s shameful treatment of a hotel employee

From our UK edition

What is the purpose of a local newspaper? Time was, it was to stand up for local people against the tyranny of corrupt councils, daft bureaucracies and badly-behaved businesses. It appears though that the Manchester Evening News has expanded its remit lately: to include tattling on service workers for not toeing the line on identity politics. In a piece yesterday – originally headlined ‘Alleged “transphobic” conversation heard at hotel hosting Pride accreditation’ – the MEN reported that a burlesque performer was ‘shocked’ to hear a ‘transphobic’ conversation when having a coffee at the Malmaison Hotel in central Manchester last Friday.

Steerpike

Watch: Nick Gibb flounders over school closures

From our UK edition

It's back to school for many pupils this week – but it seems Schools Minister Nick Gibb is still in holiday mode. Gibb has been touring the airwaves to try and reassure parents in the wake of the announcement that dozens of schools may need to shut some buildings because of safety fears. But Gibb's interview today on Good Morning Britain was far from reassuring for worried parents and pupils. Host Rob Rinder asked Gibb whether or not be had stuck to a commitment made in the Commons before the summer break to publish a list of 'at risk buildings'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1OUWDvKMbc Rob Rinder: 'When you made that parliamentary statement, was it correct or incorrect?' Nick Gibb: 'I can't remember what that particular thing was about' Oh dear.