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
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
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
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
It’s not been a great few months for standards in Westminster. In February, Neil Coyle MP lost the Labour whip after several drunken rants in the House of Commons Strangers’ bar. Then the following month, Mr S was the first to bring news that parliamentary staff were being told to stop sleeping overnight in the House
For a man who likes to present himself as a Jupiter-like statesman, gliding across the world stage, Emmanuel Macron’s efforts at diplomacy have fallen remarkably flat in recent months. While Britain spent the weeks before the Russian invasion of Ukraine shifting weapons to Kyiv – to demonstrable effect now – Macron instead responded to the troop
It seems that Labour’s bid to recapture Wakefield isn’t off to the best of starts. The resignation of Tory MP Imran Ahmad-Khan last month over historic sex offences gave Sir Keir Starmer’s party a chance to take back the seat it lost in 2019 and prove that Labour is on track to make gains in the Red
Rows in Parliament usually occur on the floor of the House of Commons, between opposing members of different sides. But a fresh storm is brewing elsewhere in the chamber, between the journalists who comprise the parliamentary press gallery and the man who occupies the Speakers’ Chair. After the grandstanding of the John Bercow era, Lindsay Hoyle was hailed
Oh dear. It seems that the sainted Sturgeon has slipped up again. Much as Jesus was betrayed by his disciple, so too has the Blessed Nicola been let down by one of her own. In this case, it’s Fergus Ewing – scion of the First Family of Scottish nationalism. The former rural economy secretary stands accused
Boris Johnson has sought to reboot his premiership this week, unveiling a package of eye-catching measures as he tries to calm Tory tensions about last Thursday’s election results. Such efforts though have been somewhat undermined by the announcement of the Metropolitan Police today that another 50 fines have been dished out to Downing Street staff over partygate. Yet
The art of politics is one thing but what about the politics of art? Over in Parliament, MPs have been fussing about what item to hang in the corridors of power to belatedly mark the 2019 general election. But now, at last, those bigwigs who sit on the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art have finally come
Junkets are like buses: you wait ages for one to come along and then two do at once. For this month, it’s not just London mayor Sadiq Khan on a transatlantic taxpayer-funded jolly: Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon launches her American charm offensive next week too. Good thing that all is going well currently in both parts of
Hurrah! A Scottish Government press release announces, with no small modicum of pride, that it has at last located the mysterious missing documents in the ferries saga. Audit Scotland, the public body which runs the rule over Holyrood’s spending of taxpayers’ money, recently conceded defeat over this matter. It had spent considerable time and effort
To the CPS, the think-tank home of Thatcherite free-thinking. On today’s agenda: a sermon from Frank Luntz, the onetime populist Republican sage now reborn as a crusader for cleaner politics. The master of political vocabulary – responsible for such terms as ‘death tax’ and ‘climate change’ – has seen the light and is in the UK to warn of
Relations between London and Dublin aren’t at their best, given the ongoing war of words about the Northern Irish Protocol. But Mr S was still nevertheless surprised to see that RTE – Ireland’s state broadcaster – has today published a comment piece by a leading academic and Guardian contributor which seriously floats the idea of
It was an unconventional start to the day for Michael Gove this morning. The veteran minister appeared on BBC Breakfast to deny whispers within Whitehall of an ’emergency Budget,’ slapping down such talk by using a bizarre array of accents that ranged from American to Harry Enfield’s infamous ‘Scousers’ impersonation. Gove told listeners across the
After the pomp and circumstance of yesterday’s Queen’s Speech, Tory MPs were on their best behaviour last night as they trooped into Downing Street to attend evening drinks with the Prime Minister. Boris Johnson has instituted a series of these receptions in recent months, as part of a belated effort to ‘love bomb’ his restless backbenchers. Such
It’s Queen’s Speech day in parliament today and in traditional style, two lucky government MPs have been chosen to propose and second the Loyal Address to Her Majesty. This involves two backbenchers – one typically older, the other a newly-elected type – delivering a humorous speech ostensibly on the government’s legislative agenda but which actually
With two looming by-elections, a selection dilemma is facing local Tories in both Wakefield and Tiverton: who do they choose to be their parliamentary candidates? A variety of names have been bandied about but one above all is the commentariat’s choice: David Frost, Boris Johnson’s former Brexit chief, now languishing on the backbenches in the House of
It was Enoch Powell who remarked that ‘the House of Commons without whips is like a city without sewers.’ And it seems that the piping has sprung a leak, given the amount of excrement that’s been flying around Westminster in recent months. In January it was the Tory whips and their chief Mark Spencer, who
There’s a new regime in Downing Street: the City Hall gang is taking over. The arrival of Guto Harri as No. 10 director of communications in February brought with it a fresh approach to media. Out went the broadcasting boycotts: in came a less hostile style willing to take more risks – the fruits of which
