Steerpike

Another day brings with it another difficult morning with Rishi Sunak. With Labour's lead now stretching to 18 points, the Prime Minister did a tetchy interview with Laura Kuenssberg saw the pair clash over inflation and mortgages. And Sunak will no doubt be delighted to know that the person whose reaction which Kuenssberg sought straight after the interview was none other than longtime Labour supporter and donor Ben Elton. He was sat in Kuenssberg's studio and let rip on the Prime Minister when the BBC presenter asked him for his thoughts on her interview: It's not so much depressed sad, I mean, if anybody was still watching after that, extraordinary Orwellian, meaningless, evasive word salad.

Ah, the perils of hosting an international jamboree. You know what it's like: you stump up for the hotel rooms, roll out the red carpet, shake hands with an assortment of autocrats, only for your own unappreciative electorate to let you down once again. Such misfortune befell Emmanuel Macron this week, when he invited the leaders of the Global South to Paris to hobnob, ching-wag and pontificate on debt relief and climate change. The Republic's young sons and daughters expressed their dislike of the incumbent President at a concert on Thursday night, held to mark the grandly-named 'Summit for a New Global Financial Pact'.

You might have thought that the National had successfully cornered the fiction market among SNP devotees. But now Mr S has discovered the existence of another pro-independence media outlet keen to shake up Scotland’s media landscape. ‘Skotia’ claims it will divert from the ‘obsessive hysteria of Scotland’s political class’ by making ‘life difficult for the architects of Scotland’s political consensus’ and maintaining a ‘constant vigilance on those who sow hate and inhumanity’. Noble stuff. Its launch video features the outlet’s new editor, Coll McCail, an earnest redhead, who proclaims: While the British state looks out for its own, the Scottish establishment is too comfortable.

Penny Mordaunt might be the media darling since wielding the Coronation sword but it wasn't always this way. The Leader of the House has had a fair few run-ins with the Four Estate in recent years, including last summer's leadership election. So it was with great enthusiasm that Mr S attended tonight's Parliamentary Press Gallery summer reception where Mordaunt was billed as the star speaker. Welcoming 'friends – and Lord Frost', Mordaunt introduced herself as 'one of the handful of Conservative MPs not to have their own show on GB News.' The former magicians' assistant was quick to work her magic, referencing the infamous lobby briefing at which Mrs Thatcher's press spokesman described John Biffen as a 'semi-detached' member of the government.

It was rare to find anyone willing to stand up and defend Boris Johnson in parliament this afternoon. But cometh the hour, cometh the Mogg as the Honourable Member for the eighteenth century arose to deliver his best defence of his former boss. Jacob Rees-Mogg described it as a 'deliberate attempt to take the most unfavourable interpretation that the committee can of Mr Johnson's activities.

Will Partygate ever be over? Today’s front page of the Sunday Mirror splashes on leaked footage of Shaun Bailey’s mayoral campaign team enjoying an illicit Christmas party in December 2020. At least two dozen revellers were filmed drinking and laughing while two even twirled past a sign that reads ‘Please keep your distance’. The news hook for this story is that two of those involved – Bailey himself and his aide Ben Mallett – have just been given honours in Boris Johnson’s resignation list. Bailey gets a peerage while Mallett had to make do with an OBE. The latter might be feeling especially embarrassed today because he’s currently running Moz Hossain’s campaign to be the Tory candidate in next year’s mayoral contest.

Not another one. Less than a week after the resignations of Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams prompted by-elections in their respective constituencies of Uxbridge and Selby, another contest now looms in Somerton and Frome. David Warburton, suspended as a Tory MP since April 2022, has tonight said he will shortly stand down from parliament too. Nadine Dorries meanwhile is expected to (at some point) follow through on her promises to quit the Commons and her Mid Bedfordshire seat. It means that Rishi Sunak  now faces the nightmare scenario of losing four elections in North Yorkshire, North London, the East of England and the South West, all within the space of weeks or months.

Boris! Boris! Boris! For a week now, the cry has been incessant among our national media. Liberated from his parliamentary cage, what will the albino gorilla do next? And last night we got our answer: a new column with the Daily Mail, that organ of Middle England sensibility. Eagerly, the whole of Fleet Street awaited Johnson's first column, published at 5 p.m today. What would he write about, they speculated furiously? State secrets, perhaps? A denunciation of Sunak, Gove and all the sinister forces that they embody? Or some great revelation about his future plans? The answer, it turns out, is, er, no. Rather anti-climactically, Boris published his first Mail column on a weight loss drug – two weeks after every other newspaper did a feature on it.

Nicola arrested, Boris now seatless, Nadine's on the warpath and the Tories are in the mire. These days life seems pretty sweet if you're Keir Starmer. You can even U-turn on your flagship policy on the Today programme and have it completely forgotten about by the time of the Six O'Clock news. And now a new survey commissioned by Mr S brings more cheer for the Labour leader. Starmer's first priority upon replacing Corbyn – other than tackling antisemitism – was winning back the Red Wall and it seems his efforts have not been in vain. A new poll for The Spectator by Redfield and Wilton of 1,200 voters shows that if offered the choice of a pint with the two main party leaders, a third (32 per cent) would prefer Keir Starmer with just one in five (20 per cent) opting for Rishi Sunak.