Steerpike

Since entering (and losing) successive Tory leadership contests last year, Penny Mordaunt has thrown herself into the role of Leader of the House with characteristic gusto. Her weekly sessions at Business Questions in the Commons have become required watching, as she dispatches SNP goons with a mix of bombast and brio. Indeed, watching her roast of Gary Lineker last month on one of Mordaunt's regular Twitter clips, Mr S felt he was watching a party political broadcast on behalf of the Penny Mordaunt party. And perhaps there are some signs that Mordaunt hasn't yet abandoned her dreams of one day leading the Tories. Over the Easter weekend, she released a glossy video of her touring her Portsmouth constituency, replete with numerous presidential-style shots of Mordaunt.

Oh dear. It seems that there's something of a briefing war in the Sunday papers over who is to blame for Labour's misfiring attack advert. On Thursday evening the party released a hard-hitting graphic which read: ‘Do you think adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison? Rishi Sunak doesn’t’ alongside a smiling photo of the Prime Minister. A series of figures on the Labour left queued up to condemn it, joining a chorus of protest from centrist commentators. So it's no surprise that the shadow cabinet are now all pointing the finger of blame at each other, as the party debates whether to double down on the strategy.

Day three of the row over Labour's backfiring 'law and order' advert. The Keirleaders in party HQ have clearly decided that attack is the best form of attack and have been busy creating another graphic, switching their focus from 'dangerous child abusers' to 'dangerous gunmen.' Labour's latest post cites figures which show that since 2010 some 937 adults have been convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to harm but have served no prison time. It prompted Tom Watson, Jeremy Corbyn's onetime deputy, to take an ill-advised pop at the Tory party deputy chairman, writing on Twitter that 'I'd love to know what @LeeAndersonMP_ thinks of 937 criminals holding firearms with intent to harm not getting banged up. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

The SNP’s week goes from bad to worse. The party’s long-term auditing firm has resigned, according to reports today. Accountants Johnston Carmichael, which has worked with the party for over a decade, said that the decision followed a review of its client portfolio. The firm is understood to have resigned before the arrest of Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell on Wednesday, according to the BBC. The SNP must now present their accounts to the Electoral Commission by early July or else face possible sanctions under political funding laws. The nationalists are currently looking for a replacement firm as political parties with an income or expenditure of more than £250,000 are required by law to independently audit their accounts and include this in their submission.

For all his praising of Nicola Sturgeon’s governance and Peter Murrell as an ‘election winner’, it now looks as though continuity candidate Humza Yousaf is cutting ties with the SNP establishment. Questioned on the raid of his predecessor’s house and the party’s Edinburgh headquarters, Yousaf has, for the first time, dared to criticise his former boss. Speaking to journalists at his official residence Bute House today, Yousaf commented that he was ‘very, very clear that the governance of the party was not as it should be’ and that ‘a review of transparency…is clearly needed’.

Slowly but surely striking public sector workers have agreed to sit down at the negotiating table with the government and hammer out pay deals for themselves. But there is one sector that might prove more of a headache than others for Rishi Sunak to deal with: teachers. In September, the National Education Union (NEU) will have a new leader. New term, new start and all that. But it seems that this general secretary-to-be, Daniel Kebede, has some pretty strong thoughts on the state of British schools. So far this year, the NEU has shut down schools with four days of teacher strikes, and has announced five more to come before the summer is out. As with most of the other unions organising strikes the union has insisted its main reason for striking has been over pay.

Kate Forbes may have lost the battle but will she win the war? Forbes narrowly missed out in the SNP leadership race last month but she has handled her defeat much more gracefully than Humza Yousaf has greeted victory. While the Farce Minister has purged anyone of any talent from his cabinet, Forbes has done the sensible thing: left office without a public fuss while her allies brief the press on her behalf. Following reports that a 15-strong SNP caucus is being set up to keep the Forbes flame alive, the lady herself is flexing her Highland muscles. She has today been announced as the new weekly columnist for the National, the Paisley Pravda which self-identifies as a newspaper.  So why not the Herald or Scotsman?

Where public opinion goes, Sir Keir follows. Tony Benn used to divide politicians into two categories: the Signposts and the Weathercocks, with the Labour leader falling decidedly into the latter group. As public attitudes on women-only spaces and elite sport have hardened in recent years, the Leader of the Opposition has slowly, painfully followed suit, often to the chagrin of Labour's LGBT+ factions. Below is a timeline of Sir Keir's shifting stance over the past three years of his leadership... November 2020 – Five months after being elected leader, Starmer posts on Facebook that ‘Trans rights are human rights, and your fight is our fight too. The Labour Party stands proudly with the trans community.

It's less than a week since Humza Yousaf triumphed in the SNP leadership election by less than 2,500 votes and already his tactical wizardry is bearing fruit. Yousaf's first decision on taking at Bute House was to humiliate Kate Forbes, the woman who took on and almost defeated the entire party machine, by offering her the job of Rural Affairs – a significant demotion from Finance Secretary. She instead quit the government with her replacement, Shona Robison, rubbing salt in the wound by suggesting Forbes told Yousaf that she wanted to spend more time with her family. Such suggestions have clearly irked Forbes, who has come out fighting in an interview with the Holyrood Sources podcast.

The Yousaf terror has begun and already the new regime isn't off to a great start. Day one saw his calls for another referendum brushed aside by No. 10. Day two brought the refusals of Kate Forbes and Ivan McKee to serve in his government. And now on day three, the Privileges Committee have handed Margaret Ferrier a 30-day suspension from parliament, potentially triggering a by-election in her seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West (majority: 5,230). What joy will day four bring? Ferrier of course is the hapless halfwit who admitted travelling down to London after developing Covid symptoms.

It's a hard life in No. 10 – so it's no surprise that Prime Ministers need to relax. Margaret Thatcher had her whiskies; Harold Macmillan went 'to bed with a Trollope'. But for Rishi Sunak, it seems his trusty Peloton is how he takes his mind off the job. He likes to get up at 6 a.m to get on the bike with his favourite instructor Cody Rigsby, a 35-year-old New York dancer, who describes himself to his 1.3 million Instagram followers, as an 'opinionated homosexual'. In 2021, Sunak eulogised Rigsby's classes, telling the 20 Minute VC podcast that 'You do have to listen to a lot of Britney. But you know, no bad thing in trying to get you motivated, I guess.' It seems though that while Sunak is a fan of Rigsby, the celebrity fitness guru is less enamoured with the world of politics.