Steerpike

It's the Glorious Twelfth tomorrow and participants are looking forward to an excellent day of shooting. The Countryside Alliance are expecting a bumper supply of grouse, thanks to excellent weather, with the birds doing their best to avoid the guns of the finest shooters in England. One of those who'll presumably be joining the fray is Sir Nicholas Soames, of whom surprisingly little has been heard since he stepped down from parliament in 2019. His once overactive Twitter account is now largely confined to retweets and there's sadly far less of his familiar face in the media than there once was. Now tipped for a peerage in Boris Johnson's resignation honours list, the longtime grandee and former Spectator wine critic, does still make time for certain favoured media outlets.

It can be difficult now to cast one's mind back to the beginning of last month, when the field for next Tory leader was wide open and an exciting array of candidates were jostling for attention. Among them, of course, was Tom Tugendhat, the great bright hope of the One Nation group. He crashed out in fifth but there is one aspect in which he appears to have been the winner of this contest: his recorded donations have blown his rivals out of the water. According to the register of MPs' interests, the most recent returns show Tugendhat receiving donations worth more than £123,000 for the sole purpose of his leadership campaign.

Outriders are all the rage these days in British politics. Liz Truss has Kwasi Kwarteng and Lord Frost: Rishi Sunak has Dominic Raab and Mark Harper. They act to deliver the messages their candidate can't, launching attacks, fighting fires and speaking home truths. So it's no surprise then that Gordon Brown, the Giffnock grouch, is now unofficially performing that role for Sir Keir Starmer, his beleaguered successor as Labour leader. Brown is close to team Starmer, and performs the role that John Major did for David Cameron in the coalition years, acting as a trial balloon to test how ideas will land. The cost-of-living crisis has been a tricky challenge for Labour: their supporters demand more action but Rachel Reeves and the self-proclaimed 'sensibles' preach prudence.

Boris Johnson is very much the elephant in the room of this leadership race, looming large over both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. And much like an intimidating pachyderm, neither candidate seems completely confident how to handle him without being squashed. Sunak's approach is the simpler one: talk about the defenestrated premier as little as possible and for God's sake don't mention how the ex-Chancellor helped bring him down. Truss meanwhile has opted to praise the former PM while, er, claiming to be the change candidate who'd take a completely different approach in office. This of course begs the question: what do the Tory members actually think? Are they pining once more for Boris? Or are they glad to see the back of him? Polling would suggest something of a mixed picture.

It's a tough time for the arts at present. The cost-of-living crunch means institutes scaling back projects and families cutting back their non-essential spending. Still, over at one Britain's biggest quangos, the good times appear to have kept on rolling. Data published earlier this year reveals how Arts Council England spent more than £100 million of National Lottery money during the 2021-22 financial year. Mr S has been perusing that expenditure and discovered just what exactly such sums are being spent on. Arts Council England, which claims to ‘champion, develop and invest in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people's lives’, gave three tranches of money to the ‘The Family Sex Show.

To Darlington, for another of the endless Tory leadership hustings. Last night's clash covered much of the same old ground but was notable for several swipes which Liz Truss took at the media's coverage of the race. Asked who was to blame for Boris Johnson's downfall, several members of the audience interrupted to shout 'the media!' prompting Truss to smirk and reply 'Who am I to disagree with this excellent audience?' Truss, who once claimed that 'I would die in a ditch' for a 'free press', also took issue with the way in which host Tom Newton Dunn framed his questions. The latter asked the Foreign Secretary about her plans to help people with rising energy bills using tax cuts, when he mentioned 'your handouts' as he sought to pose a question.