Steerpike

Parliament has packed up for the holidays, with MPs and peers spending their final days in SW1 desperately dodging the omnipresent Omicron variant. But Mr S was intrigued to see an interesting intervention in the Lords on the day that recess was declared. Crossbench peer Baroness Finlay popped up to grill Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad about China's treatment of Uighurs in Xinjiang, an unusual topic for the professor of palliative medicine to raise.  She told Ahmad that she understood the BBC 'has film evidence of the atrocities' that have been addressed in the Uyghur Tribunal, but that the Corporation has been 'reluctant to show the programmes to date, having set the evidential test so unrealistically high that it cannot be met.

Nicola Sturgeon is continuing her crusade against the Scottish press. Just yesterday, Mr S was pointing out the First Minister's habit of criticising journalists who question her Covid policies, only for her government to then abruptly U-turn a few days later.  Shortly after the article was published, Sturgeon took to Twitter to boast about her latest 'media-free volunteering session' at an Edinburgh vaccine centre, declaring that she was 'not sure I was much help' but that 'it gave me good insight into how it all works.' An apt metaphor for her party's handling of the Scottish health service. https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1473645812328583170?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Steerpike isn't exactly sure how a visit that is publicised to, er, 1.

Nationalism, grievance politics and a refusal to accept results which don't go your way are not the only things Nicola Sturgeon has in common with Donald Trump. For Scotland's First Minister has launched something of a war on the press in recent weeks, repeatedly rubbishing reporters and outlets which dare to question her handling of Covid.  Unfortunately for Sturgeon, this crusade against supposed 'fake news' has worked about as well as the SNP's handling of education, health and criminal justice over the past 14 years. For her hapless Holyrood government has been forced into no less than three U-turns in five days – despite Sturgeon ridiculing journalists who point out the error of her ways, something noted by Sun hack Chris Musson.

It's always difficult to know what to get a politics-mad relative at Christmas. Another Private Eye annual perhaps? Tickets to see Matt Forde's stand-up tour? A Blu Ray box set of The Thick Of It? Or yet another 'hilarious' satirically themed book like 'Five on Brexit Island' or 'The Illustrated Tweets of Donald Trump.'  Fortunately for those long-suffering politicos anticipating several cheeseboards and a 'witty' festive mug, help will be at hand for next year due to the imminent arrival of what will surely be the Christmas bestseller of 2022.For word reaches Mr S that Lord Adonis, Britain's most ironically-titled peer, is turning his quill to a subject very close to his heart: the definitive biography of Tony Blair.

Not many people here in Westminster have a good word to say about the Theresa May years. But down in tiny San Marino, all that appears to be very different. For the landlocked republic recently chose to lavish two of its most prestigious honours on May and her Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, with both flying there in October to have their honours conferred. Hunt received the prestigious Order of Saint Agatha at the rank Grand Officer; May's was even better, receiving the same order at the highest rank: Grand Cross.

Oh dear. It appears that Boris Johnson's love-in with the great British public appears to have well and truly concluded. Let's hope that in the wake of ‘Partygate’, Omicron and various scandals, our under-fire Prime Minister didn’t turn on the darts last night for some much-needed respite. For there, on primetime television, the crowd at London’s Alexandra Palace burst into loud and sustained chants of ‘Stand up if you hate Boris’ that echoed around the 2022 Darts World Championship arena. Others held up signs saying ‘All round to Boris’s for afters’ and with pictures of cheese and wine, branded ‘This is a business meeting.

Whitehall has never been known to be at the cutting edge of technology. The mandarin masters of SW1 have had more than their fair share of tech blunders over the years, from accidentally uploading data about the nuclear subs to the failed NHS 'super computer.' And it seems that, for all the numerous headline-grabbing cock-ups, things are getting little better in the monolithic ministries which govern our lives. For now it transpires that nearly 5,000 laptops, mobile phones, memory sticks and external hard drives have gone missing over the past five years by ten government department departments, according to a series of parliamentary questions tabled by Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney.

Throughout the pandemic there have been frequent demands for more investment in the NHS. In October, Rishi Sunak was forced to announce further investment of almost £6 billion  to tackle England’s record NHS waiting list. Between 2010 and 2025, the health budget is expected to have increased by 42 per cent; with NHS England’s resource budget set to rise to £162.6 billion over that period. But is all that money being spent wisely? For new figures from the Department of Health show that, while the public is crying out for frontline services, the number of well-paid NHS managers now run into the thousands.

George Osborne hasn't been shy to take the occasional pop at Boris Johnson's government and now the reason why seems clear. His family firm Osborne & Little's annual accounts up until 31 March have just been published and they don't make for entirely happy reading. The leading wallpaper manufacturer has been forced to report a pre-tax loss of £106,000, down from last year's profit of £1.4 million, with Brexit cited as having an 'immediate adverse effect on profits.'  Boris Johnson's successful efforts to take the UK out of the EU on 1 January 2021 caused the company 'unforeseen costs' amounting to an extra £400,000, thanks in part to increased shipping charges and higher duties on goods.

Ping! An email in Steerpike's inbox lands, subject line: 'SNP's attack on refs.' Is this, at last, a moment of nationalist self-reflection? Have the 45 per cent-ers finally clocked most Scots don't want another plebiscite? Could some SNP drone finally have switched off the autopilot to question the wisdom of a neverendum? Sadly for Scotland, the answer to all these questions is: no. For it seems that James Dornan, the hard-of-thinking MSP who frequently features in Steerpike's pages, is once again up to his usual tricks.