Steerpike

Talk about an own goal. It seems that Gary Lineker's increasingly aggressive anti-Tory tweets have got the multimillionaire into hot water with nervy BBC managers. Earlier this week, Lineker compared the language used by the government over its plan to tackle Channel crossings to 'that used by Germany in the 30s'. Today it has been announced that the former England star has been asked to step back from presenting Match of the Day until an agreement reached has been reached on social media use. You might be waiting some time Gary... In a statement, a spokesman for the BBC said: The BBC has been in extensive discussions with Gary and his team in recent days. We have said that we consider his recent social media activity to be a breach of our guidelines.

Given the ongoing leadership race, it's easy to forget that the current SNP government isn't the only devolved administration which is seemingly hell-bent on embarrassing itself. Over at Cardiff Bay, Welsh Labour are still merrily fiddling while its public services burn – as two incidents within the space of 24 hours have neatly demonstrated. First, there was the farce of a vote in the Senedd in which Labour politicians voted for a parliamentary motion criticising, er, their own roads review which has recommended that the bulk of upcoming roads projects be scrapped. In a debate in parliament on Wednesday evening, successive members of the Senedd stood up to detail the impact of cancelled projects on their constituents.

It's Rishi Sunak's big moment today as he tries to cut a new deal with the French to stop the small boats crisis. The Prime Minister will meet with President Emmanuel Macron later today at the Elysee Palace alongside senior ministers in the first Anglo-French summit for five years. Such shindigs never happened under Sunak's predecessor Boris Johnson – the man whose tenure created so many of the problems still occupying ministers' time. And that impression of Sunak being haunted by the past won't be dispelled by his latest social media gaffe. The Prime Minister took to Twitter this morning to eulogise the 'deep' partnership between the UK and France, replete with an image of the two smiling leaders striding forward together. Unfortunately no-one in the over-manned No.

There's still nearly three weeks to go in the SNP leadership race and already the clown-car moments are clocking up. A new Ipsos Scotland poll is out today which shows that Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes neck and neck, with the pair on 33 per cent and 32 per cent respectively, followed by Ash Regan on a distant third with 10 per cent. Below is a list of the lowlights so far... Regan invokes 1776 The contest got off to a fairly inglorious start when Ash Regan referred to the American War of Independence as she proof that referendums were not the only way to secede from the UK. Appearing to compare Scotland to a British colony, the Edinburgh Eastern MSP said that this was 'the normal way' for independence to be achieved if Westminster refuses to negotiate.

Another week and another Penny Mordaunt moment. The Leader of the House might not have won either of last year’s leadership contests but she’s positioning herself well for the next one with her forthright appearances in parliament. She used today’s Business Statement to take aim at the difference between ‘what Labour says and what Labour does’ and even managed to throw in a football theme, based on Gary Lineker’s latest shenanigans. She fired off a series of shots at a ‘team captain’ who doesn’t even know what ‘colour shirt’ he’s wearing and accused them of being a ‘party of goal hangers and the occasional left-wing striker’. Mordaunt one, Labour nil… https://youtu.

Oops. Has Suella Braverman accidentally reignited war with the civil service? On Tuesday, after the Home Secretary announced the details of her new Illegal Migration Bill, a triumphant email from CCHQ landed in the inboxes of Tory party members.  ‘We tried to stop the small boat crossings without changing our laws,’ it declared. ‘But an activist blob of left-wing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour party blocked us. So today we’re changing our laws – and bringing the small boat crossings to an end.’ The signature at the bottom of the email: Suella Braverman. Unsurprisingly, the civil service didn’t take too kindly to being lumped into part of Suella’s ‘activist blob’.

So. Farewell then. William Waldegrave. After fifteen years, the great panjandrum is retiring next year as Provost of Eton College in a move that The Spectator first predicted in May. In a letter sent to Old Etonians, Waldegrave declared that 'the school is in very good health, and very well led by [Head Master] Simon Henderson and the leadership team' – a claim with which, er, not all OEs would agree. Indeed, judging by some of the press coverage of Henderson's tenure, Steerpike can't help wondering if he too will be depart shortly... There is a delicious irony to this of course. Waldegrave's post is a royal appointment which means that the name the Fellows recommend will go up to the King from 10 Downing Street.

Ding ding ding! The gloves were off last night as Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan entered the ring, for the first televised debate in the SNP leadership contest. In the end the debate wasn’t pretty, with Kate Forbes going for Humza Yousaf. In the cross-examination section of the debate Forbes launched into a scathing attack on Humza’s track record. ‘When you were a transport minister the trains were never on time. When you were justice minister the police were strained to breaking point. And now as health minister, we've got record high waiting times. What makes you think you can do a better job as first minister?

A typically robust performance by Suella Braverman on Radio 4 this morning. The Home Secretary defended her plans to clamp down on small boat crossings, telling the Today programme that We are within the boundaries of the law but we are trying new arguments, we are testing novel interpretations of the law. But we do not consider that we have crossed that boundary and we do not consider that we are in unlawful territory — we very strongly view our proposals as lawful.

It's six months on Wednesday since Charles became King. So, to mark the occasion, Mr S thought he'd ask his fellow royal subjects what they made of the King's reign thus far. Our septuagenarian monarch had a difficult act to follow in succeeding Elizabeth II but it seems on the whole that he has done a pretty good job. Polling by Redfield and Wilton of 1,500 Britons last week found that some 43 per cent of the public think that Charles III has thus far been a 'good king' – slightly ahead of the 42 per cent who replied 'don't know' but nearly three times as many as those who responded 'no.

Oh dear. Just this morning Mr S was wondering how Labour can justify its job offer to Sue Gray. And it seems Sir Keir is having similar difficulty in doing so too. Appearing on LBC this morning for his weekly 'Call Keir' segment, the Labour leader was asked six times about when the party first approached the senior civil servant but Starmer refused to answer. Quelle surprise... Presenter Nick Ferrari did his damnedest, asking whether Gray was first approached this year or last year. Sir Keir declined to answer, only saying it was a 'recent' approach, following the departure of his previous chief of staff in October. It was, he said, after he had a period 'working through in my own mind what I wanted from a chief of staff.

Who watches the watchmen? That's the question Whitehall is asking after chief panjandrum and sleazebuster extraordinaire Sue Gray's was offered the job of Keir Starmer's chief of staff. The revelation that Gray might not necessarily be quite the bastion of perfect probity has sent shock waves through SW1 – not least in the upper ranks of the senior civil service. Susan Acland-Hood, the permanent secretary at the Department of Education, was so concerned by news of Gray's appointment on Thursday that she reportedly raised concerns in an online Zoom call with colleagues.