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
From our UK edition
Back in February, Mr S pointed out that Steve Baker was on manoeuvres. The ‘Brexit hardman’ is returning to the playbook which won the war over vaccine passports by teaming up with Covid Research Group consultant Ed Barker. It’s part of a planned relaunch next month of the moribund Conservative Way Forward, at a suitably
From our UK edition
Oh dear. Is Boris Johnson’s bid to rip up the Northern Ireland Protocol over before it really began? First, Simon Hoare, the chair of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, lobbed a grenade at Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, asking whether her support for the government’s bill was merely ‘a muscle flex for a future leadership bid?’
From our UK edition
Speak to any disaffected Tory these days and the conversation quickly turns to one of leadership. Who should be next to wear the Conservative crown? Rishi? Damaged goods. Liz? Always self-promoting. Jeremy Hunt? Come off it. With question marks hanging over each of the main contenders, one name increasingly doing the rounds is that of
From our UK edition
They’re the by-elections all of Westminster is talking about. No, not the race for Tiverton and Wakefield in the Commons but the battle to replace two vacant seats in Lords. For, following the retirement of Lord Brabazon of Tara and the death of Lord Swinfen, hereditary peers who take the Tory whip are gearing up
From our UK edition
It’s not just Ed Miliband making a comeback under Sir Keir: now the former Labour leader’s biggest fan has signed up to join the Starmer army too. Back in 2015, ‘Milifandom’ briefly swept the internet when it looked like the Doncaster MP could defeat David Cameron in that year’s general election. The cult movement was
From our UK edition
Goodbye then, Roe v Wade. The US Supreme Court’s decision this week to overturn its ruling on abortion will effectively ban the practice across swathes of America. Millions of Americans are angry; politicians have been quick to proclaim their shock and dismay. But this is Britain, home to some of Europe’s most liberal abortion laws,
From our UK edition
The Conservative party has a rather funereal air about it this morning, following this week’s two bruising by-election losses in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton, which saw the party get walloped in both the ‘red wall’ north and true blue south. And since the losses it appears that Tory animosity towards the PM has been building
From our UK edition
Mick Lynch has become something of a break-out star since his round of media interviews on Tuesday. The boss of the Rail and Maritime Transport union has won many fans on the left for his uncompromising views on the industrial action which brought chaos across the country this week. But it seems that, for all
From our UK edition
So. Farewell then Oliver Dowden. The Hertsmere MP resigned as co-chairman of the Conservative party this morning, following last night’s by-election defeats in Tiverton and Wakefield. He was appointed to the post in September and was tasked with guiding the Tory machine through the mid-term blues and focus CCHQ on winning the next general election. Now
From our UK edition
The partygate scandal has left a long hangover. Westminster is waking up to the news that Tory seats in both the ‘red’ and ‘blue wall’ have fallen respectively to the Lib Dems and Labour. In true form, Sir Ed Davey is claiming the Tiverton result is the ‘biggest by-election victory we’ve ever seen’ (it wasn’t)
From our UK edition
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s war on Whitehall continues apace. The Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency has embraced his new role with relish, firing off notes to officials refusing to return to the office and launching his new ‘EU law dashboard’. But it’s his intention to trim the size of the state which has caused most
From our UK edition
To Bristol, the right-on Remain capital of liberal Britain. The local Labour mayor Marvin Rees has been having a bit of a bad time recently. Elected in 2016, his constituents think he’s done such a good job that they, er, voted to abolish the mayoralty in a referendum last month. Awkward. Since then, Rees has
From our UK edition
It was with great excitement that Steerpike learned that Jeremy Hunt had (finally) made public what many had privately long-suspected: he’s running. Yet the more Mr S read of the politician’s bid for high office, the less it sounded like the Tory Remainer that we all know and love. For Hunt’s prospective manifesto included support
From our UK edition
Like the first swallow of spring, the sound of chinked glasses in the sun signals the beginning of summer. It’s the annual party season and Mr S has been doing the rounds this week. Normally, buying and selling is left to the City but if Steerpike had to invest sums in anyone it would be
From our UK edition
In his search for gossip, Mr S has few qualms about perusing other august publications for inspiration. So it was in that spirit that his eye alighted on a story in a recent edition of Private Eye which noted that ‘food bank clients in Liverpool’ were left ‘not impressed’ after 90 city councillors recently tucked
From our UK edition
Poor Rishi Sunak. The Chancellor was once the golden boy of British politics: the free-spending, Insta-loving, charm-oozing toast of the Wetherspoons’ bartenders. But now Sunak has lost his shine after a disastrous three week period in which his Spring Statement was lambasted, his ratings went into free fall and he ended up being fined by
From our UK edition
Londoners have today been cursing the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) trade union for the misery that its 24-hour walkout has inflicted across the capital. The strike is about a dispute with Network Rail and Transport for London (TfL) over pay, jobs and working conditions, with the RMT asking for a pay rise of seven
From our UK edition
In Westminster these days, WhatsApp and Twitter are decidedly old school. Now the current craze is TikTok where MPs compete to gain followings through video clips. Zarah Sultana, the Coventry Corbynista, has the most TikTok supporters but the irresistible online app also has fans in at least two different Cabinet ministers’ households. Not all in
From our UK edition
It’s a tribute to the geniuses within Downing Street that they’ve managed to take a three-month-old story about a four-year-old incident and make it one of the most-discussed issues in British politics. The story is, of course, a report by the Times that Boris Johnson tried to appoint his then-lover Carrie Symonds as his chief-of-staff
From our UK edition
Whether it’s crumbling rooftiles, weekly fire alarms being activated or bacteria in the water supplies, the creaking Palace of Westminster is all too often a perfect state-of-the-nation parable. Everyone agrees that the place needs fixing: the question is, should MPs move out to allow restoration projects to happen unencumbered? It’s currently costing an extra £2
