Steerpike

Labour are very keen these days to be seen as the natural party of government. And it’s in that spirit that Sir Keir and his aides have hit upon a brilliant wheeze: singing the national anthem on the first morning of their annual Party conference. It’s intended to mark the death of Her Majesty and show that the Starmer Army is A Serious Party once more.Unfortunately for the onetime republican, not all his fellow socialist are happy to play at being merry monarchists. Delegates arriving in the Liverpool conference hall are greeted by leaflets from the Labour for a Republic campaign, who are none too happy at pledging fealty to Charles III. And it seems that Labour HQ are worried that not all attendees share their leader’s patriotic fervour.

Oh dear. Liz Truss’s team were hoping for a welcome reaction from the markets as Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a whopping £45 billion in tax cuts from the dispatch box this morning. The Chancellor is placing a bet on growth with this mini-Budget, and hopes that this will take the edge off increases in government borrowing. Mr S wonders though whether the Treasury’s keenness to find silver linings may have ended up backfiring. As the pound rallied against the dollar this morning while Kwarteng announced his tax cuts, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp declared that it was ‘Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan’. https://twitter.com/CPhilpOfficial/status/1573240072060682240?

After a brief hiatus during the course of the country’s morning period, it appears that the British broadcasters are back to doing what they know best: namely, trying to catch out politicians. Mr S wonders though if some of them may need a bit better material. This week the new Secretary of State for Digital, Michelle Donelan appeared on the broadcast round where she was grilled by Sky’s Kay Burley. In the interview, clearly thinking she was onto a winner, Burley quizzed Donelan about her brief 36-hour period as education secretary before she resigned over the Chris Pincher scandal, which entitled her to a severance payout of just under £17,000. In the interview Burley asked whether Donelan had given the money to charity as she had originally promised.

There'll be corks popping in Horseferry Road tonight. Following the Queen's funeral yesterday, normal politics has now resumed with gusto. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan was duly wheeled out on Sky this morning, where she revealed that the government is now 'reexamining the business case' over the privatisation of Channel 4. It comes after extensive lobbying from the arts industry, with hundreds of producers, directors and stars urging ministers to call off the sale. Donelan's appointment to the post follows the departure of Nadine Dorries, an ardent advocate of flogging off the right-on broadcaster, arguing it will struggle to survive in the era of Netflix. Now it seems that the change of minister has brought with it a change of policy too.

Poor Liz Truss. While Boris Johnson is recognised the world over thanks to his famous ruffled hair, Britain's new Prime Minister isn't quite as well known overseas. As the great and the good arrived at Westminster Abbey for Her Majesty the Queen's funeral service earlier today, Truss was shown with her husband entering the church. Unfortunately, two Aussie commentators, broadcasting on the country's Channel Nine, had no idea who Truss was. 'Who's this? Maybe minor royals,' said presenter Peter Overton. 'We can't spot everyone unfortunately', said his colleague Tracy Grimshaw. 'They look like they could be local dignitaries,' she added.  https://twitter.com/Shahryar_Sultan/status/1571811768946642946?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Oh dear.

It’s been an eventful few weeks for Liz Truss. Our new Prime Minister has faced a baptism of fire not seen since by an incoming premier since Churchill and the fall of France in 1940. War, inflation, a-cost-of-living crisis and the death of the Queen: so much for a honeymoon. Still, Her Majesty’s passing has meant a brief hiatus from normal politics, which is expected to resume with gusto on Tuesday. And one issue which we can expect Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to probe with relish is Truss’s newly appointed Chief of Staff, Mark Fullbrook.

Since becoming the Tory leadership favourite early last month, Liz Truss is used to all sorts of people coming out of the woodwork. Old friends, former allies and even the odd foe have been very keen to share their opinions on Truss, the onetime Lib Dem radical turned Brexit-backing cabinet mainstay. But one person who we haven't heard much from is Mark Field, her fellow former Conservative MP, with whom Truss had a headline-grabbing affair in the mid-2000s. But now the Camden New Journal have set tongues wagging with a cheeky little piece in this week's edition about what Field has been up to since leaving parliament in late 2019.

First it was Brexit, now it's the Queen. That the New York Times has a near-pathological loathing for Britain is nothing new at this point; but it seems that the motivating factor for the 'Gray Lady's' Anglophobia has switched in recent days from the 2016 referendum result to the passing of our beloved monarch. Barely had the Queen's death been announced then the NYT was furiously publishing opinion pieces denouncing the woman as a symbol of British imperialism. This was just hours after her death and ignored the salient facts that Elizabeth's reign coincided with the end of the British Empire and that she loved the multi-racial Commonwealth. Even Cyclops would struggle to write something so one-eyed.

What better way to mark the death of the monarch than via some good old royal disinformation? Twitter users have been in a strop today about Prince Andrew, the black sheep of the Windsor mob. Apparently, his brother, King Charles, has taken it up on himself to appoint the Duke of York as a 'Counsellor of State', to whom the monarch can delegate royal functions. That certainly was the view of the the Twitter handlers at ‘PoliticsJOE’when they claimed that Prince Andrew will ‘carry out Royal duties’ as a Counsellor of State; implying that he wasn’t one already, and that this appointment had been signed off by the new King. Naturally, the usual rent-a-mob seized on this claim with gusto, with Guardian columnist Owen Jones leading the charge.

It's a grim old time in Westminster at the moment. The Queen is dead, prices are up, inflation is rampant and a winter of discontent beckons. But, from the Big Apple itself, a ray of light at last. For the New York Times, the world's worst newspaper best known for Brit-bashing Anglophobia, is embroiled in something close to civil war. The casus belli of this? A directive from on high that the paper's hard-of-thinking hacks return to the office part-time, now that Covid has banished to the history books. Unfortunately, not all at the 'Gray Lady' seem too pleased with this development. The paper's local rival reports that more than 1,300 journalists have signed a pledge not to return to the office, even though bosses expect staff in only three days a week.

Preparations for Her Majesty's Lying-in-State in Westminster Hall are continuing and all is not well in the Houses of Parliament. After yesterday's news that MPs' staff are unhappy at their exclusion from those given priority access to pay their last respects, now Mr S can tell his readers that at least two other fresh rows are brewing. The first is about whether former Members of Parliament who are not sitting members of the House of Lords will be allowed priority access to avoid predicted queues of up to 30 hours to file past the coffin. Unfortunately, the special phone number which former Members have been given to arrange such visits to Westminster Hall is not working, according to one ex-MP who phoned Mr S to convey his disappointment.

As Her Majesty the Queen embarks on her final journey south, many in Westminster are preparing to attend the Lying-in-State for the monarch. This will take place in Westminster Hall, the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster, at the heart of British government. The Queen will lie in state here for four full days before her funeral on Monday 19 September, allowing members of the public to file past and pay their respects. The last member of the Royal Family to lie in state in the hall was the Queen Mother in 2002, when more than 200,000 people queued to view her coffin, all of whom had to wait hours in line to pay their last respects.