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
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In the Tory leadership race both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been keen to talk tough on China. Truss has pledged a ‘crack down’ on Tiktok and announced a ‘New Commonwealth Deal’ to unite nations against Beijing. Sunak wants a ‘new Nato-style alliance’, an end to Confucius Institutes at UK universities and has dubbed
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Dodgy donors, crumbling conventions, crooked kickbacks and sexual shenanigans – it’s a tough old time for decency in public life. So it’s a good thing then that we have Chris Bryant, the honourable member for Rhondda, to act as a one-man sleaze buster, battling heroically against those dastardly Tory tyrants. Everywhere Mr S looks, Bryant
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Dirty tricks, planted stories and anonymous briefings – they’re all part and parcel of a party leadership contest. But now the bigwigs over at Conservative Central Headquarters (CCHQ) have brought in some experts to stop anyone hacking Tory members’ ballots: namely experts from the National Cyber Security Centre, which works closely with GCHQ’s finest in
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Things are tough these days at the BBC: stars are leaving, budgets are tight and the licence fee future looking uncertain. Still, in their desperation to plug some holes, it seems the Beeb has developed some questionable new corporate partnerships. One of them is with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant which was sanctioned by the
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Oh dear. It seems that Liz Truss’s winning run has come to an end. After a week of riding high, the Foreign Secretary’s campaign for leader has hit a bit of a bump in the road. Her campaign last night sent out a press release declaring: ‘Truss: I’ll wage a war on Whitehall waste to
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‘Mermaids must fall next.’ That was the response of Professor Kathleen Stock to the news that last week that the NHS was closing its Tavistock gender identity clinic for children. Stock, who quit Sussex University over what she called a trans rights ‘witch-hunt’, added that it was now time for ‘a no-holds barred journalistic dive’
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The sound of screeching gears could be heard across Westminster this morning as Team Truss executed a dramatic U-turn from their headquarters in Lord North Street. A midday press statement confirmed that the Foreign Secretary has now dropped her policy adopted, er, just last night, to introduce regional pay boards. The move would have seen
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If a week is a long time in politics, then a fortnight is an eternity. Two weeks ago, Penny Mordaunt was the bookies’ favourite to be our next Prime Minister, riding high in the polls and second among MPs. Now, after a bruising campaign, the vanquished candidate has opted to back the woman who defeated
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With most signs pointing to a Liz Truss triumph, team Sunak have been pulling out all the stops in a bid to make up lost ground. Tory membership ballots go out this week and although the rules technically allow members to vote a second time online if they change their mind, neither camp expects this
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It’s time for another round of crackpot Russian sanctions. Still smarting from the latest package of western measures, Moscow has retaliated by hitting us where it hurts: banning our best and brightest from visiting Vlad’s kleptocratic empire. In April it was Nadine Dorries and Grant Shapps: this month it’s Huw Edwards and Robert Peston. Bemused
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Given the Scottish political establishment’s misty-eyed myth-making about Scottish nationalism — it’s civic! Joyous! Inclusive! — Mr Steerpike admires the commitment of the grassroots to saying the quiet part out loud. The National has published a missive on its letters page this morning that calls for the English to be banned from owning land in
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Amid all her remarks about tax cuts, freedom and, er, Don Revie, some of Liz Truss’s comments were overlooked on Thursday evening. Speaking at the LBC hustings, the Foreign Secretary was asked by Nick Ferrari as to what she had learned from her four years at Shell. Truss paused and then replied: What I learned
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Steerpike’s favourite cabinet minister is at it again. In her vindictive rage to try to avenge Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries has turned the full force of her rage against Rishi Sunak. She’s accused him of leading a ‘ruthless coup’ against the Prime Minister, being the ‘chatty rat’ behind the lockdown leak, of ‘not working hard’,
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The Tory leadership races is a tale of two approaches: Liz Truss appears to be campaigning to win the party membership, but Rishi Sunak is is campaigning to win a general election. And its’ Truss’s approach that appears to be working, given YouGov’s survey of the Tory grassroots which shows her leading by 20 points.
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Yesterday it was Ben Wallace who backed Liz Truss: tonight it’s Tom Tugendhat. All the big-name endorsements are coming out and at the moment there’s only one candidate they’re supporting. In a piece for the Times, Tugendhat praised Truss’s economic policies, writing that her plans to cut taxes were ‘founded on true Conservative principles.’ The
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One of the more amusing aspects of the Tory leadership race has been various reminders of Liz Truss’s misspent youth. Whether it was leafleting for the Liberal Democrats, running for the party’s student executive or causing trouble at the university, Truss certainly had something of a political journey before opting for a conventional route into
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‘Privacy’ was the reason given for Harry and Meghan upping sticks and leaving Britain in early 2020. The dilettante duke and his Hollywood beau were supposedly fleeing this sceptred isle to find sanctuary in Canada, away from the beastly British press. So it’s such an awful shame that the right-on royals keep finding themselves embroiled
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Liz Truss was widely perceived to have won last night’s LBC hustings with Rishi Sunak. The Foreign Secretary impressed with her tough talk on Putin, China and defeating Labour’s Keir Starmer. And she certainly knew how to play to the Leeds crowd, making the most of her upbringing in the area and dropping in plenty
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Soaring prices have again reignited one of the long-running debates in British politics: should the energy companies be re-nationalised? The Trades Union Congress (TUC) certainly seem to think so, having produced a pithy film which purportedly compares the two sectors in the UK and France. It features a rather baffled looking Brit and a smug
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Steerpike is fond of a periodical check-in with modern Renaissance men. And they don’t come much more multi-talented than Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, Mr. Meghan Markle, formerly HRH. Following his departure from official royal duties, the people’s prince has kept busy by locking himself into lucrative positions at some of the planet’s most prestigious