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
It seems that the acrimonious civil war embroiling the SNP isn’t merely restricted to Scotland. For amid growing questions about the party’s finance structures, a new front has opened up down in London, with Stephen Flynn, the party’s leader at Westminster, turning on his predecessor Ian Blackford. Flynn admitted to Good Morning Scotland on Monday
It’s a day ending in y, which means another bad 24 hours for the SNP. And as the party’s leading lights all turn on each other like rats in a sack, this morning it was the turn of the party’s former treasurer Colin Beattie to come out swinging. Beattie said earlier that he was not
Oh dear. It seems that Diane Abbott’s antisemitism apology – dashed off on Sunday morning in a failed last-ditch attempt to stave off her suspension – has backfired somewhat spectacularly. The Jewish Chronicle has today published an article which calls into question Abbott’s account of how her letter downplaying racism against Jewish people came to
Another day, another speech on China. Tonight it’s the turn of Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, speaking in all his finery at the Lord Mayor’s Easter Banquet at Mansion House. Clad in his best glad rags, Cleverly is expected to argue that isolating China would be against the UK’s national interest. The two nations instead ought
All change at Murdoch Towers: Tucker Carlson has hosted his last primetime show at Fox News. His departure was clearly a shock: his 8 p.m. show was being trailed on Fox and Friends this morning. In a rather neutral press release, the network announced that: Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We
Is Michael Gove planning to dust off his dancing shoes? Eighteen months after the Levelling Up secretary was spotted throwing shapes in a Scottish nightclub, it seems that the 55-year-old Aberdonian has high ambitions for his return to the dance floor. According to his former wife, journalist Sarah Vine, Gove is ‘desperate’ to take a
So. Farewell then. Dominic Raab. The Justice Secretary might be gone but the debate about office behaviour rumbles on. And, with exquisite timing, Mr S spotted that one government department is doing its own bit for Whitehall workplaces by today publishing details of a £140,000 contract for IT services for a new ‘Bullying harassment and
After thirteen years in office, the Conservatives face an uphill battle to keep their seats come the next election. But don’t despair true blue Tories, for the new party chairman Greg Hands has a cunning plan: endlessly tweeting out pictures of that infamous Liam Byrne note. The 2010 letter by the then Labour minister in
Oh dear. Just when Keir Starmer looked like convincing voters that Labour had changed, along came an unwelcome reminder of the party’s not-so-distant Corbynite past. Diane Abbott, the onetime Shadow Home Secretary, has popped up in the Observer letter pages today to offer her (unsolicited) musings on the issue of, er, antisemitism. There’s a first
Can the BBC ever get it right? Just weeks after the Beeb was embroiled in an impartiality row over the rogue tweets of their star presenter Gary Lineker, another spat over bias has reared its ugly head. In September, the broadcaster hired a new political fact-checker, Oscar Bentley, to comb through political debates in the run up to
Adam Tolley’s report has finally been published, with Dominic Raab firing off an angry letter to mark his resignation. And that sense of anger has not been restricted to just the former Justice Secretary. A steady stream of Conservative MPs have been tweeting their disgust this morning, arguing that the claims in Tolley’s report were
It seems that not even MPs’ offices are exempt from the nation’s employment crisis. Ahead of next year’s general election, Mr S hears that many bright young things on the Tory side are leaving parliament – with their elected members now finding it difficult to hire suitable replacements. Some quitting the Commons fear a Labour
Talk about denying us a grand finale. Moments before the defamation ‘trial of the century’ was due to begin, media giant Fox News announced last night it had settled the lawsuit from the voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election. In a last-minute settlement before trial, the network agreed to
Another day brings another bombshell revelation about Scotland’s ruling party. Yesterday morning the SNP treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested by police investigating the party’s finances. It now transpires that Beattie has quit as the SNP’s national treasurer following his arrest. He also states that he will ‘be stepping back from my role on the Public
Who needs Succession when we have Dominion? A billion-dollar lawsuit involving a media tycoon, the 2020 presidential race and a potential Supreme Court showdown. But for Rupert Murdoch and Fox News this is no fictional drama. They are about to begin one of the most anticipated defamation trials in American history, over the claims that
A new week has come around, and it brings yet more turmoil for the SNP. Calls for Nicola Sturgeon to resign as MSP for Glasgow Southside have grown louder after a leaked video showed the former SNP leader angrily warning colleagues about speaking negatively of the party’s finances. Despite her colleagues returning to the Scottish
Bang goes Rishi Sunak’s big maths speech. Fresh from delivering a paean to the joys of numeracy, the Prime Minister is now facing an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into his outside interests. The probe is understood to concern Sunak’s wife’s shareholding in a business that runs Koru Kids – one of the childcare
‘The simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation’ claimed Robert Conquest ‘is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.’ If that is the case then the Brecon Beacons National Park must be run by a veritable junta of saboteurs. Park bosses have today announced that it will
Following the row over those Labour attack adverts about child sex offenders, it seems it’s open season now on Sir Keir Starmer’s record as Director of Public Prosecutions. Over the weekend the Sunday papers have been filled with stories from when he led the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) including his poor record in, er, prosecuting
Rishi Sunak is back in the headlines today, saying it’s time for greater maths literacy. But when it comes to his own political pledges, how many of those stand up to mathematical scrutiny? A Spectator mug for the first person to complete all challenges.