Steerpike

The government’s alcohol-duty reform came into force today, which could only mean one thing: the customary press pictures of politicians pulling pints. Earlier on today, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt ‘popped to the local’ Two Chairmen in Westminster, while the famously teetotal Prime Minister went to a London beer festival to mark the change in alcohol duty. Mr S wonders though if these PR pub visits may soon become a thing of the past – after the PM failed to get the reception he was presumably hoping for. As Sunak pulled a pint of Black Dub stout at the festival, the Prime Minister was heckled by an onlooker, who shouted ‘Oh the irony that you're raising alcohol duty on the day that you're pulling a pint.

It feels as if almost every American presidential election is billed as the ‘nastiest in US history’. Steerpike, contrarian that he is, would like to reject this lazy media characterisation. Politics is always nasty and American politics has its own particular viciousness. When it comes to the likely Trump vs Biden rematch in 2024, however, all bets on civility are truly off. It was deeply unpleasant in 2020 and will be even worse this time. Here’s Donald Trump in Pennsylvania calling his rival, the President of the United States, a ‘dumb son of a b****’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgWxXinCaVw Not satisfied with dissing Biden, Trump also called Ron DeSantis a ‘son of a b****’ – though he rather tellingly left out the word ‘dumb’.

It never stops for Nigel 'Rocky' Farage. Having seen off the chief executive of both NatWest and Coutts in successive days, he faces another cancel culture battle: this time involving the media group that employs him. Not GB News, at which he remains the golden boy, thanks to the interest garnered over his bank accounts. But rather Reach, which owns Express Online, for which he is writing a column on the upcoming American presidential race. It seems that not all within Reach have taken too kindly to their latest signing: hardly surprising perhaps, given the company owns the Daily Mirror too. A group called Reach Culture has now dissolved themselves in protest at Farage’s appointment as a columnist at one of their publications.

Labour frontbencher David Lammy was today confronted by a furious voter on his LBC show about the Ulez extension. It’s been causing a row over the past week, since the Tories unexpectedly held onto Uxbridge and South Ruislip in last week’s by-election. The caller said: To be honest with you, I’ve had my wife in tears on the phone now. This has done us. It’s finished. We have £150 to £200 a month to spare. Some months, on a good month. That’s now going to go on a tax. I really weren’t gonna vote anymore because obviously the Tories and how much they lie… I was actually going to give Mr Starmer a go with the support  backing them now. They lost my vote immediately. I urge everyone to vote Tory now… Watch the full clip below.

Troublemaking isn’t confined these days to the SNP’s Westminster group. It seems that nationalists north of the border have got the bug for insurrection too. Fergus Ewing, SNP MSP for Inverness and Nairn, has revealed that there is a ‘toxic atmosphere amongst the SNP group in Holyrood’ and that he doesn’t think the Nats stand a chance of winning another indyref just now thanks to the party's ‘extremist’ policies. The son of late nationalist legend Winnie Ewing told the Holyrood Sources podcast that things are not all hunky dory in Edinburgh:  The atmosphere in Holyrood is not particularly happy now within the SNP group. There’s many people in the cabinet and the leadership that haven’t uttered a word to me or vice versa for well over a year.

Nigel Farage blasted Nick Robinson for his 'condescending tone' during a fiery interview on the Today programme. The BBC host asked the former Ukip leader whether he was planning a political comeback following his run-in with Coutts bank. But Farage lashed out at Robinson, telling him he was 'sick to death' of his line of questioning: 'I'm really not going to have this. I am sick to death of your condescending tone. No, no actually you weren't. What you should say to people is, "you're the only person in British history who has won two national elections leading two different parties." Let's try that for size shall we.

Sorry doesn’t seem to be the hardest word over at the BBC. The Corporation has had to issue another grovelling apology – after a BBC reporter asked Morocco’s captain Ghizlane Chebbak whether any of the Women’s World Cup Squad are lesbians. In Morocco, it is illegal to have a gay relationship. Do you have any gay players in your squad and what’s life like for them in Morocco? https://www.youtube.com/embed/JU-ZokjFjks Same-sex sexual activity is punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment in Morocco, which is the first Arab nation to quality for the Women’s World Cup. A Fifa official intervened following the question: ‘Sorry, this is a very political question so we will just stick to questions relating to football’.