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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It’s groundhog day in Westminster, where the leaked images of a No. 10 leaving party have prompted the re-emergence of some of the Prime Minister’s most vocal yet indecisive critics. Cometh the hour, cometh the carpers as veteran Sir Roger Gale and Scottish satrap Douglas Ross returned to their familiar place in the headlines yesterday by attacking Boris Johnson
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As Westminster waits for Sue Gray to release her report, ITV has got there first. The broadcaster released images this afternoon of one of the Downing Street parties during lockdown – specifically the 13 November 2020 leaving drinks for Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s former director of communications. Bottles of alcohol and party food are pictured on
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It looks like Steerpike’s favourite students are it again. Six months after the furore about Rod Liddle’s speech at South College, members of Durham University’s student body have published a fabulously self-lacerating screed about their seat of learning. For on Friday, Durham’s Students’ Union (SU) released a 48-page ‘Culture Commission’ which seeks to ‘articulate what
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The policemen who guard the Downing Street guards are used to rag-tag protesters rocking up and chanting in their faces. But Friday afternoon brought with it a more well-heeled crowd than usual, as a myriad collection of 200 kids and campaigners rocked up in Whitehall to protest the government’s U-turn on the obesity strategy. And
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The Jubilee weekend looms next month. For some, it’s a chance to toast the monarchy; for others, simply an extra day off work. And for a small minority of Twitter-crazed loons, it’s yet more proof that the UK is goose-stepping down the path of fascism. For the unfurling of Union Jacks on London’s Regent Street, ahead of
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Jeremy Hunt is currently enjoying something of a renaissance – all the more interesting in light of Boris Johnson’s ongoing difficulties. The former Health Secretary has been touring the TV studios recently, promoting his new book Zero: Eliminating Preventable Harm and Tragedy in the NHS. It aims to ‘reduce the number of avoidable deaths to zero and in the process
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It looks like Ben Wallace had sugar on his cornflakes today. The Defence Secretary has gone ‘full tonto’ this morning at the Sunday Mirror over a story in today’s newspaper about the amount of cash his department is spending to send the kids of top army officers to leading public schools. The paper says that last year some
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Ah, Jacob Rees-Mogg. The Old Etonian sometimes appears to have been designed by top lab scientists at CCHQ to perfectly antagonise the Sir Humphreys of SW1. Since his appointment as the Minister for Government Efficiency in February, every announcement by the Somerset MP seems calculated to enrage the civil service trade unions, keen to retain Covid-era hybrid working
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There was much joy in Parliament earlier this month at the first in-person State Opening of Parliament since 2019. But the return of pomp and circumstance to the Palace of Westminster wasn’t universally applauded. Some doomsters took to Twitter to bemoan the sight of Prince Charles sat besides the Imperial State Crown while reading the Queen’s Speech
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Twitter may not be the real world, but it sure does set the conversation in Westminster. Commentators once spoke of ‘the ground war’ of activists on the ground and the ‘air war’ of broadcast interviews, but increasingly social media is where battles are fought and won. This week an audit in the States found that nearly
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So, the verdict is in: Boris only broke the law once during lockdown. Like it or not, today’s findings by the Metropolitan police will no doubt be received with delight by those in No. 10, relieved that the PM looks to have got away with it once again. Even if there are nerves over the
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At long last the Metropolitan Police has concluded its four month long investigation into the Downing Street lockdown-breaking parties. A team of 12 detectives working on Operation Hillman sorted through 345 documents including emails, door logs, diary entries and witness statements, 510 photographs and CCTV images and 204 questionnaires. And the results of this are now
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Making his way home from Westminster the other night, Mr S was intrigued to see a new series of eye-catching posters on the Tube. ‘Staring’, it screamed ‘Intrusive staring is a form of sexual harassment and will not be tolerated.’ It’s part of an ongoing campaign by Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London (TfL) to get commuters to behave better:
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Poor David Cameron has had a tough few years since leaving No. 10. Few of his post-premiership ventures seem to be doing well. First there was the collapse of Greensill capital; then his enforced resignation from Afiniti after the firm’s founder was accused of sexual assault. There’s also the flatlining performance of his flagship legacy project,
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The recent turmoil in the Tory party has only been surpassed by that in Boris Johnson’s No. 10. Various faces have come and gone during the Doctor Who style-regenerations these past three years, from Eddie Lister and Dominic Cummings to Dan Rosenfield and Allegra Stratton. One of Johnson’s four director of communications who fell by the wayside was
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Where would we be without Ofgem, eh? Amid soaring energy prices and a cost-of-living crisis, the energy regulator this week unveiled its latest wheeze to help struggling households: updating the energy price cap every three months, rather than six, to try to avoid price shocks. The cap – which is the maximum price per unit that
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To Peterborough, ahead of the local Labour party’s annual meeting there tonight. One of the topics of conversation will likely be who to select as Peterborough’s candidate for the next general election. After all, the seat is a marginal one, with a majority of just 2,580. Four different MPs have served as the borough’s representative in
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Much like the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the post of Information Commissioner is one of those intriguingly named but largely under-explored positions in British public life. Created in 1984, the post brings with it a tidy £200,000 a year salary and an office comprised of more than 500 staff. Its job is to ‘uphold information
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Crisis, what crisis? Beset by domestic problems of their own making, the SNP government at Holyrood now has to face a difficult international climate too, amid rising tensions abroad and economic troubles around the globe. So, what better time for the country’s embattled First Minister to duck questions on ferries and sleaze by jetting off to Washington to
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Liz Truss loves a good party so it’s perhaps no surprise to read that she supports buying a swanky New York townhouse for British diplomats to entertain VIPs. But the nineteenth century mansion is expected to come at a price – £20 million – at a time when the Foreign Office is desperately looking for ways to
