Steerpike

Lobbying was a persistent theme of 2021 as first David Cameron and then Owen Paterson found themselves embroiled in various scandals over their paid activities. So it was with some trepidation that Mr S examined the first register of All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) of 2022. These informal cross-party organisations have been involved in all sorts of shenanigans over the years. What have they been up to in recent months? A close inspection revealed some interesting gems. Theresa May's office is bankrolling the 'First Do No Harm' campaign, being the sole donor of some £20,000 towards the APPG's efforts on securing safer medical devices for women in pregnancy.

Jeremy Corbyn's fans were never the sharpest tools in the box. But even by Corbynista standards, the egg-heads over at Skwawkbox do a disservice to the Magic Grandpa with their constant half-baked witterings. Since Labour was crushed at the 2019 election, Mr S hasn't had to care much about what the left-wing websites says about anything, given Sir Keir Starmer's preference for briefing newspapers, not disreputable blogs. But even he couldn't resist writing about the latest conspiracy which the slavish socialists have now fallen for, hook, line and sinker. For Netflix series The Crown is currently shooting in Westminster, with season five expected to cover the monarchy in the 1990s, with the Queen's annus horribilis, Diana's death and all the rest of it.

As yesterday's attack showed, there's no love lost between Boris Johnson and John Major. Mr S has previously chronicled the many times Major has criticised his successor, with whom he so publicly disagreed over Brexit. The enmity between the two men stretches back to the early 1990s when Johnson was the Telegraph's main man in Brussels and subsequently the paper's chief political commentator in Westminster.  The-then journalist had great fun lampooning Europhile excesses at the time of the Maastricht debate, something which naturally didn't make him popular with the pro-EEC Major as he tried to ram the treaty through Parliament.

Oh dear. Guto Harri's first week as Boris Johnson's new press chief hasn't got off to a great start. First, he took a pop on Twitter at Dominic Cummings. Then he gave an interview in which he offered faint praise to his boss – declaring him not to be a 'complete clown'. Next he rocked up Downing Street wielding a Tesco shopping bag like a samurai sword, bantering with reporters in a somewhat awkward exchange. And now, he appears to have indulged in another social media slip-up. For Harri this evening has retweeted his onetime fellow lobbyist Gavin Devine, after the latter attacked Tory critics of John Major.

Is Boris Johnson’s claim that Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile ‘false’? The BBC certainly thinks so. During the Radio 6 bulletins last night, a BBC newsreader stated:  The Commons Speaker has rebuked Boris Johnson over his false claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile after the Labour leader was targetted by protesters.  It's obvious that the dispute isn't nearly as clear cut as the BBC is making out Last week, the Prime Minister said during a Commons statement that Starmer had spent his time as head of the Crown Prosecution Service ‘prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile’.

Sajid Javid is having a bit of a tough time at the moment. Under pressure from Labour's new golden boy Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary was forced to admit to MPs today that the NHS waiting list in England, which already stands at a record six million, will keep on growing for another two years. In such difficult times, with the health service at breaking point and Tory tensions over tax rises to fix it, 'the Saj' will need every brilliant idea he can seize. So Steerpike enjoyed hearing about Javid's latest initiative to inspire his under-pressure health department. In his desperation for new ideas, the Bromsgrove MP has launched a new pun-based online feedback form for policy 'Saj-estions'.