Steerpike, Author at The Spectator

Tuesday

February 1, 2022

The SNP’s partygate deceit

From our UK edition

For weeks now, much of Westminster has been in full hue and cry of Boris Johnson over partygate. While some of the PM's critics have legitimate grievances; others frankly, do not. Mr S has rarely seen a scandal spawn so much cant, humbug and windbaggery, as life-long opponents of the PM queue up to issue yet another demand for him to go. And what better embodiment of such self-righteous moralising than ardent Boris-basher, Ian Blackford? The SNP leader popped up at yesterday's Commons debate to play another game of Blackford bingo. All the usual buzzwords were there: 'public trust', 'shame', 'dignity'. Honour in public life – drink! Tory sleaze and corruption – have another!

Steerpike

Did Keir Starmer fail to prosecute Jimmy Savile?

From our UK edition

One of the stranger moments of yesterday’s drama in the House of Commons, following the release of the Sue Gray ‘update’, was Boris Johnson’s decision to summon the ghost of Jimmy Savile to defend himself against the partygate allegations. After being lectured by the Labour leader about his alleged lockdown dos, the PM hit back by suggesting that Keir Starmer as a former director of public prosecutions (DPP) had spent the majority of his time ‘prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can make out.’ Boris may have had a point about Keir Starmer locking up journalists (he was DPP when dozens were first arrested as part of operation Elveden).

Steerpike

Rosie Duffield’s Labour woes

From our UK edition

Monday nights are rarely the booziest in Parliament but yesterday proved to be an exception. For Boris Johnson was up before the 1922 committee in the Attlee Suite — an ‘oddly appropriate setting,’ as one right-winger muttered to Mr S darkly. Highlights included veteran Telegraph columnist Chris Hope nearly being diverted into the room last night after security thought he was a Conservative backbencher, while actual MP and alleged 'pork pie plotter' Chris Loder was initially blocked. Despite looking ashen-faced with fear, and protesting that 'they won't let me in,' he was eventually escorted through. Inside the room itself, there was much excited chatter about the return of the Antipodean election extraordinaire Lynton Crosby.

Steerpike

Has Westminster cleaned up its act since the Owen Paterson scandal?

From our UK edition

The enforced resignation of Owen Paterson in November certainly had its consequences. Boris Johnson's efforts to help the North Shropshire MP triggered a sleaze scandal, a Labour lead that the party is still yet to relinquish and the loss of a constituency which had been Tory for more than a century. But, two months on, how hard are the winds of change blowing through the corridors of Whitehall? Paterson's departure was triggered by declarations surrounding paid work consulting for Randox Chemicals. In the aftermath, a number of Tory backbenchers quit their second jobs, but not all those in this world appear to be following suit. For the release last week of updated transparency records show paid consultants are still working at the heart of government.

Monday

January 31, 2022

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May’s pop at Boris

From our UK edition

The release of Sue Gray's summary into the No. 10 parties has meant Boris Johnson is up before the Commons this afternoon, to give his reply. In classic Johnson style, he blustered his way through it, claiming it qas an opportunity to rewire the wiring of Whitehall and create a new 'Office of the Prime Minister.' But while Johnson suffered from Sir Keir Starmer's attacks on his integrity, it was Theresa May's intervention which proved to be one of the most wounding. The former Prime Minister was clearly itching in the House to intervene, removing her mask as soon as she got the nod from Lindsay Hoyle.

Steerpike

Five unanswered questions from Sue Gray’s report

From our UK edition

At long last, it's finally here. This afternoon's release of Sue Gray's report into the Downing Street parties marks the end of weeks of speculation as to the contents of the senior civil servant's findings. Gray's investigation was a mere eight pages, much of which focused on the Covid timeline and her report's terms of reference. Initial reaction is still coming in but it seems that her summary is set to please no one: the belated decision by the Met to open their own investigation prevented Gray from commenting on the most serious potential breaches. This means that Boris-backers are denied the chance to brush off the saga and move on, while his critics are denied the smoking gun they desperately craved.

Steerpike

China’s ‘useful idiots’ keep their honours

From our UK edition

Ministers like to talk a good game on China. But, as the Commons witnessed just two weeks ago, all too often there's a very different reality when it comes to calling out Beijing's abuses. After the Foreign Office declined to describe China's atrocities in Xinjiang as 'genocide,' now it's time for the Department for Education to turn the other cheek. For universities minister Michelle Donelan has ducked the chance to call on Britain's seats of learning to cut their ties with apparatchiks of the communist regime.

Friday

January 28, 2022

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries’s Twitter game backfires

From our UK edition

The current impotence of the Prime Minister can be measured in many forms. But one of them is just how few Cabinet ministers are willing to go out and give Boris Johnson their full-throated support on various media platforms. It’s telling that of the 30 or so ministers attending Cabinet, only two seem to be shouldering most of the responsibility: Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries. But while Mogg tends to focus his energies on traditional broadcasters, Dorries prefers taking to Twitter to proclaim her loyalty and decry the waverers. Unfortunately, the recently-appointed Culture Secretary appears to be embracing her social media brief a little too enthusiastically.

Steerpike

Has Cressida bailed out Boris?

From our UK edition

‘Wait for Sue Gray’ was the ministerial mantra last week. And wait, we all have, as the days have ticked by with no sign of her report into the lockdown parties allegedly held at No. 10. But now, after a week of stasis which has had Westminster on tenterhooks, Cressida Dick and the Met police have dropped another bombshell on a quiet Friday morning. Dick revealed on Tuesday that her officers would be launching a criminal investigation into ‘partygate,’ having previously ignored all calls to do so. And today the Met has issued a fresh statement, saying they want ‘minimal reference’ in Gray’s report to the No.10 parties which they’re investigating.

Thursday

January 27, 2022

Steerpike

BBC advertise for new Laura K

From our UK edition

Roll up, roll up: the biggest prize in political journalism is up for grabs. Laura Kuenssberg is stepping down as BBC political editor after more than six-and-a-half years, which means a bun fight over who gets to replace her. Highly-rated internal candidates include Jon Sopel and Alex Forsyth, after the favourite, Kuenssberg's deputy Vicki Young, ruled herself out of the race. The job advert went live six hours ago so Mr S has been taking a dive into what the corporation wants from its political editor in 2022. Scoop-getting is clearly top of the bill, with the Beeb demanding 'a strong track record of breaking stories first' and 'an extensive contacts book at the most senior level of government.

Steerpike

Boris’s Brexit bonanza

From our UK edition

Tory whips are working overtime to win round waverers as Boris Johnson struggles to rescue his flailing premiership. Among the arguments being deployed to keep the beleaguered premier is that Brexit could be endangered – a claim which Johnson's longtime Remainer critics like Lords Heseltine and Adonis are only too keen to deploy too. So, as Tory loyalists seek to remind their colleagues about Johnson's role in winning the referendum and getting Brexit over the line, what better occasion to do that than on the second anniversary of Britain leaving the EU? Next Monday will indeed mark two years since that faithful day and Mr S hears Whitehall's finest in the Cabinet Office are planning a series of eye-catching announcements to mark the occasion.

Wednesday

January 26, 2022

Steerpike

Six of the silliest ‘cakegate’ defences

From our UK edition

Polls might show that two in three voters think Boris Johnson should quit over No. 10's parties but crucially less than 15 per cent of Tory MPs share that opinion. And, as Westminster awaits the release of Sue Gray's report, it's clear that there are still plenty of backbenchers willing to go out on the airwaves to put their necks on the line. Let the bodies pile high, indeed. Unfortunately, given the number of alleged gatherings and the speed with which details have emerged, some long-suffering Tories have been left looking slightly ridiculous when trying to defend their beleaguered PM. That has been particularly difficult since Monday when ITV reported up to 30 people brought a cake along to mark Boris Johnson's 56th birthday in June 2020.

Steerpike

Did Boris lie about the Afghan dog evacuation?

From our UK edition

With Sue Gray keeping the lobby on tenterhooks, it's a good day to bury bad news. Earlier today, the Foreign Office quietly divulged emails that appear to confirm that, contrary to the Prime Minister's claims, he did intervene to authorise the evacuation of Pen Farthing's animal evacuation out of Afghanistan. The campaign to get Farthing's animals out was of course led by Dominic Dyer — a friend of Carrie Johnson, who features in her cover picture on Twitter. Released to the Foreign Affairs Committee, the files indicate Boris Johnson ordered the rescue of the animals from Kabul, despite the crisis on the ground and repeated denials to the contrary.

Steerpike

Animal lobby turns on Guardian columnist

From our UK edition

The Animal Sentience Bill is the centrepiece of the government's environmental agenda, designed to protect helpless creatures and recognise they can feel pain. But will Guardian columnists be included under the new law? For it seems poor George Monbiot has been the victim of a rather unedifying pile-on in recent days. His crime? Suggesting that controlled trophy hunting should be used to incentivise animal conservation. Monbiot has been the victim of a rather unedifying pile-on in recent days Monbiot, a devoted environmentalist of the public school kind, argued that such activities 'when well-regulated' can provide much-needed funds to poor communities in places like Africa and actually help improve the number of endangered species.

Steerpike

The Daily Mail’s curious partygate U-turn

From our UK edition

The Daily Mail has long been the favoured mid-market newspaper of the masses, as the self-styled champion of Middle England. Its leaders are thumping; its splashes a must-read: so tight is its grip on the public imagination. Not for nothing do ministers live in fear of finding themselves in the paper's crosshairs, given its reputation for having its finger on the pulse. Still, this morning Mr S can't help wondering: has the Mail gone off the boil? For Mr S was curious to see yet another frenzied front page this morning declaiming Westminster's focus on partygate as 'A nation that's lost all sense of proportion'. It follows last week's effort which told partygate plotters 'In the name of God, grow up!

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg offers up another laughable defence of Boris

From our UK edition

It's a mark of the government's desperation that, less than two weeks after his disastrous performance on Newsnight, Jacob Rees-Mogg was wheeled out on the same show again last night. Having done his bit for the Union by dismissing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross suggesting he wasn't a 'very significant figure,' the Somerset MP has now decided to rewrite the British constitution. He told Newsnight that if Boris Johnson goes, 'a change of leader requires a general election' as the UK is now effectively a 'presidential system' and 'the mandate is personal rather than entirely party'. This is news, of course, to Rees-Mogg's Conservative colleagues in Parliament. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Tuesday

January 25, 2022

Steerpike

Commons’ staffers in bonus boost

From our UK edition

Inflation, fuel prices and a looming cost of living crisis: it's a grim economic outlook for many out there. Fortunately, MPs are doing their bit to help, namely by giving extra cash handouts to the staffers in the offices. Steerpike has spotted that almost a million pounds – £951,000 – was shelled out in 'reward and recognition' payments last year, according to the 2020/21 figures from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). A follow up request from Mr S has established the identity of the most generous bosses in parliament, with Sir Keir Starmer in the top ten of the 352 MPs who sanctioned such payments last year.

Steerpike

Watch: Ian Hislop kicks off at Commons committee

From our UK edition

It seems Bonfire Night has come early this year. First there were fireworks in the chamber after Labour tabled an Urgent Question on Sue Gray's investigation into 'partygate.' And this afternoon Private Eye editor Ian Hislop had quite the argy bargy with Tory grandee Sir Bernard Jenkin over at the Standards Committee. Hislop was one of a number of journalists called up before MPs in the aftermath of the Owen Paterson scandal to give evidence on sleaze-related scandals. And the long-serving Have I Got News For You panellist was on feisty form as he locked horns with Sir Bernard, one of those who voted to let Paterson off the hook in November. Hislop was only up for less than an hour but managed to cram in more than his fair share of drama.

Steerpike

Michael Ellis gets another grilling

From our UK edition

Another day, another party, another Urgent Question – and another dreadful outing for Michael Ellis. The Paymaster-General was sent out again, just three hours after the Met Police confirmed it would be probing 'partygate.' Deploying the finest lawyerly evasions and the best of his oleaginous charm, Ellis spent a gruelling 45 minutes fending off a barrage of outraged opposition MPs. Highlights include the Member for Northampton North appearing to indulge in existentialism by questioning the very meaning of the word 'party'.

Steerpike

Extinction Rebellion target MPs’ offices

From our UK edition

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is making its way through the final stages of the parliamentary process — and not a moment too soon it seems. For the legislation, which aims to deter direct action protests, might be called into action to deal with the latest shenanigans of Extinction Rebellion. Leaked documents obtained by Mr S reveal that the 'eco-activists' are planning another 'mass resistance' action day for 9 April, with the group aiming to have at least 3,000 so-called 'Rebels' arrested on that day alongside a demonstration in Hyde Park. According to the 'XRUK Strategy 2022,' the emphasis this spring will be on what XR is calling 'Local Coup D’etat Action.