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
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.
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
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
‘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
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
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
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
Talk about a tale of two campaigns. China has been one of the dominant themes this week in the Tory leadership race. Both candidates knocked lumps out of each other in BBC’s Monday debate, with the Foreign Secretary suggesting she could even ban TikTok. But tonight, the issue has reared its head again twice within
Summer recess is here and MPs are competing for the Tory leadership or jetting off on their hols. For some, though, they prefer to remain in their constituencies. Stella Creasy, the right-on MP for Walthamstow Central, chose to go to ‘Drag Story Hour UK’ with her infant son. She wrote on Twitter yesterday that she
She is the current favourite to be our next Prime Minister but Liz Truss hasn’t always been such a staunch Tory. Throughout the current Conservative leadership race, the Foreign Secretary has faced numerous reminders of her student past, back when was a card-carrying Liberal Democrat. There was the footage of a fresh-faced Truss calling for
Away from the Truss/Sunak ding-dong, another long-running drama has come to an end. Barrister Allison Bailey, a friend of JK Rowling, has today won her discrimination case against Garden Court Chambers. An employment tribunal unanimously found that Bailey, a barrister, lesbian, prominent gender critical campaigner and founding member of LGB Alliance, was discriminated against and
Boris Johnson’s imminent departure has been greeted with enthusiasm by all the usual suspects: millionaire celebs, Labour MPs, Tory wets and of course Dominic Cummings. But for one group of sworn Boris-bashers, the departure of their mortal foe offers a useful call to arms: unrepentant Remainers. Perusing the popular ‘Work 4 MP’ jobs site this
Labour might be keen to portray themselves as a government-in-waiting but today’s rail strikes show the problems that still remain. Sir Keir Starmer told his party’s MPs that they should not join the industrial action by the RMT yet his shadow transport spokesman Sam Tarry has directly defied his orders to do a round of
Ah, HSBC. The Asian banking giant has raised some eyebrows in recent years with their endless antics to appear oh so right-on. Back in 2019, they ran a series of adverts proclaiming that ‘we are not an island’, ignoring the fact that, er, we very much are. More recently they’ve rushed to associate themselves with
The last few months have been a godsend for the Labour party. Ten points ahead in the polls, with the Tories mired in the sleaze, its members now get to watch Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss slug it out all summer. Not for nothing then has Sir Keir Starmer sought to grasp the mantle of
When it comes to bullying allegations, Meghan Markle is well versed. But in Tom Bower’s latest book, Revenge, the claims are so damning that even Steerpike was gobsmacked. Reducing a royal aide to tears is one thing, but investigative journalist Bower now claims that Markle’s wrath knows no limits. Meghan reportedly picked on Princess Charlotte, who
Well, that was fun. For an hour tonight Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss danced across a smorgasbord of political issues while the BBC’s Chris Mason and Sophie Raworth demanded to know about a Boris Johnson comeback and, er, Claire’s Accessories. There was, as usual, more heat than light but Truss’s praise for Sunak’s alma mater
Faced with the choice of Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, some Tories are experiencing something close to sellers’ remorse. Was Boris so bad, they wonder, as they compare the blonde bombshell’s proven qualities to his untested would-be replacements? Now some have taken that a step further and demanded that a secondary question be added to
Migration was the dominant theme of the weekend as the two Tory leadership contenders set out how they will resolve the small boats crisis. Both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have pledged to retain Boris Johnson’s Rwanda scheme, even though Kigali claims to, er, only have a capacity for a maximum of 200 migrants from
It’s six weeks to go until voting closes for the Tory leadership and polls suggest that Liz Truss is the firm favourite of the party grassroots – on a two-to-one ratio. Rishi Sunak has to do all he can to make up lost ground, something that has likely motivated the former Chancellor to accept a
