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 appears that COP26 are running out of the big guns to wheel into Glasgow. Already David Attenborough, Prince Charles and Boris Johnson have delivered their warnings, with Greta Thunberg boycotting outside and the Queen resting in Windsor. Who better than to take to the stage on day two of the UN climate change summit
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The COP26 summit in Glasgow reaches its climax today, as world leaders try and thrash out a deal to halt climate change. But as well as attempting to find agreement, politicians and other bigwigs are competing to outdo each other in their dire warnings of what might happen if nothing changes. Here are six of
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Steerpike is no prude but even he has been surprised by some of the blue language from green activists at COP. Temperatures are running high outside the official conference zone, where angel-faced iconoclast Greta Thunberg has been leading protestors in a chorus of ‘You can shove your climate crisis up your arse’ and telling her devoted followers
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That didn’t take long. It’s less than four hours since America’s septuagenarian president landed in Scotland and already he appears to have fallen asleep at the summit. Joe Biden was spotted shutting his eyes during one of the many, many speeches this afternoon, not opening them again until an awkward apparatchik ran over to disturb him.
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American network CNN appears to be bringing the same rigour and insight to COP26 that it displayed throughout the Trump administration. The broadcasters rocked up to the UN climate change summit in Scotland this weekend, brimming with their usual brio and bumptiousness at the chance to cover Biden, Boris et al rubbing shoulders. There’s only one problem
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‘COP26: no time for delay’ scream the signs at Euston station. But for hundreds of desperate delegates yesterday it proved to be a cruel irony after dozens of rail services to Glasgow were cancelled thanks to a fallen tree and severe weather sparked rail chaos. Members of HM lobby took to their WhatsApp group to complain
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At long last, COP26 is finally here. Tomorrow, the world’s largest eco-jamboree will begin in Glasgow, with some 20,000 to 25,000 delegates expected to attend. For Alok Sharma et al, it must have felt at times that the ‘last chance’ to save the Earth was being damned by the gods themselves, with strikes, pestilence and
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If you thought Nick Clegg’s career reached its nadir with the ‘I’m sorry’ video then think again. The former Deputy Prime Minister is re-enacting the stunning success of his political career out in Silicon Valley where he’s paid £2.7 million a year to sell his soul to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the rest of the Facebook
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Rising taxes, middling growth, the spectre of inflation – there’s much at present to get Tory MPs annoyed. But it’s not just the Budget that’s got some of them exercised this week; a damning report into Owen Paterson by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has wound up many on the backbenches. The former Cabinet minister has hit back
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Oh dear. Ahead of the UN climate change summit in Glasgow on Sunday, Steerpike can bring fresh news of another COP-related blunder. Plagued by strikes and rejected by Greta Thunberg, the eco-jamboree is now afflicted by a lack of affordable accommodation, with ministers in the Westminster government unable to find rooms to stay. Savvy Glaswegians
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There are few events Steerpike enjoys more than Westminster dog of the year. The competition returned today – post-Brexit and post-Covid – for the first time since 2018, with dozens of MPs entering their pooches. Hosted by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, it aims to raise awareness of canine-related issues and offer parliamentarians a chance to
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With the Pope out, Greta on strike and even the Queen unwell, COP26 is short of much in the way of international glam. So now desperate apparatchiks at the United Nations have come up with their latest ingenious wheeze: creating a 15-foot CGI animated dinosaur to front its apocalyptic warnings about humanity’s looming extinction. The
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Oh dear. Poor Keir Starmer has tested positive for Covid meaning he has to miss today’s Budget. Unlike Boris, he has managed to avoid getting ill until now but it’s the fifth time he has been forced to self-isolate after four previous incidents. Starmer’s absence means that shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be forced to
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After 18 months of Zoom, Westminster is back. Last night hacks, politicians, lobbyists and kebab shop owners came together in the name of kebabs. In what the Prime Minister described in a special video message as ‘Westminster’s most hotly anticipated culinary event of the year’, an unlikely group assembled including the new education secretary Nadhim
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In his bid to reverse Brexit, Lord Adonis has demonstrated few qualms in using any weapon at his disposal. For years now Britain’s most ironically-titled peer has been keeping up a one man Twitter war, stalking the jungles of social media like some Japanese warrior fighting a campaign that ended 30 years ago. Now though, it appears
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Back in July the wedding of Boris and Carrie at Westminster Cathedral prompted Steerpike’s diligent colleague Robert Peston to ask a personal – but constitutionally important – question: is the PM a Catholic? As the head of government in a country with an established church, the Prime Minister and his office are intimately involved in
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Steerpike doesn’t browse Novara Media much these days. The Corbynista website has ceased to have much in the way of news value since the Magic Grandpa stood down as Labour leader early last year. Nowadays the unholy trinity of literal communist Ash Sarkar, under-employed YouTuber Michael Walker and David Brent tribute act Aaron Bastani spend most of their time moaning
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It’s a big week for fans of high politics and hobnobbing. Prior to the launch of Sunday’s COP26 shindig there is first the small matter of the G20 summit in Rome. And while the attention of many attendees – chief among them Britain’s Boris Johnson – will no doubt be on green gambits and climate
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Mr S had not intended to provide a rolling blog of COP26. But with the UN’s green games less than a week ago, things in host city Glasgow go from bad to worse as the world’s leaders prepare to jet in to tell the rest of us how to save the planet. Unite and GMB today confirmed
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For many so-called liberals, Jacinda Ardern seemed to be the perfect premier. Warm, empathetic, progressive, above all – moderate – the New Zealand Prime Minister was lionised by the London intelligentsia as the ideal model of a liberal, centrist leader who saved her country by locking down during the pandemic. But now the shine is coming off