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’s not been a great week for Humza Yousaf. The under-fire SNP health secretary has been a fixture of newspaper headlines this week over ambulance waiting times after telling long-suffering Scots to ‘think twice’ about ordering one amid pressure on the country’s health service. Humiliatingly, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has today been forced to call in
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It’s been quite the few months for Michael Gove. The Tory party’s answer to Angela Rayner yesterday bagged himself another new title: Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government with added cross-government responsibility for levelling up and retaining ministerial responsibility for the Union and elections. This comes after a summer where he announced his forthcoming divorce with
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After six hours of speculation, most in SW1 seem ready to re-shuffle off their mortal coil. As the hacks and hangers-on picks over who’s up and who’s down, attention has focused on the newly-appointed Culture Secretary. Former nurse and part-time novelist Nadine Dorries succeeds Oliver Dowden in the post, having served two years in the health
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It’s still some months until awards season gears up but Mr S is happy to announce this year’s winner of the Steerpike ‘Slurp Prize for Sycophancy.’ In a tough field, full of the usual deferential dross, slimy pseudo-babble and glutinous grovelling, one entry has today blown away all competition to clinch the gong, with an entry so obsequious
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It’s amazing what the collapse of a caliphate will do to a girl. Shamima Begum popped up on GMB this morning sporting a Nike baseball cap, pink nail varnish and a sleeveless top to ask the British public for forgiveness. The former London schoolgirl who ran away to Syria in 2015 has spent the past two years, err, trying to
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The BBC has been plunged into a fair few impartiality controversies recently. But while such rows can often be a matter of subjectivity and taste, you would hope that Corporation staff would draw the line at promoting a convicted arsonist accused of orchestrating a ‘terrorist campaign’ against Oxford University. Yikes. This latest BBC East drama
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Oh dear. It was less than a week ago that Nicola Sturgeon mixed up two of her SNP backbenchers in the Holyrood chamber and gave pre-emptive answers to their questions, thus appearing to be clairvoyant. Now the same thing has happened again today. Asked by one of her MSPs for an update on the establishment of a Covid-19 inquiry,
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George Osborne might be famous for collecting jobs but is he having any success with them? Since leaving the Treasury in July 2016, the onetime master of British politics seems to have acquired a reverse Midas touch. Having quit as an MP at the 2017 election – when Theresa May’s setbacks meant he could have
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New York may have the Met Gala but London has Parlioke. As global fashionistas last night crammed into their garish garbs, here in Westminster our political masters were having an evening soirée of their own. Steerpike’s man with a microphone reports that MPs were invited to a select singing bash. Ahead of her speech today
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In the heady days of 2017, all seemed rosy for left-wing news website like the Canary. Founded in 2015 to ‘diversify the media’ the hyper-partisan outfit rode the wave of Corbynism to its height just after Theresa May’s snap election. Its editor Kerry-Anne Mendoza appeared on Newsnight; revenues hit £250,000 while staff boasted of 3.5 million unique
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Labour conferences have been fractious affairs in recent years. Tensions between various factions have often spilled over onto the conference floor, with the Corbyn era being particularly notable for the divides between Labour’s membership and parliamentary party. A particular low point was Luciana Berger being required to have a police bodyguard at the 2018 conference
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From Covid to COP, tax hikes to triple locks, Boris Johnson’s problems are piling up. But now it seems the noble lordships in the Upper House could be about to give him another headache too: a looming crunch clash on the issue of assisted suicide. The House of Lords – where the average age of membership is 70
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It seems Michel Barnier has undergone something of a transformation in recent months. Gone is the starry-eyed Eurocrat who decried the ‘cherry picking’ of Perfidious Albion and insisted that ‘the single market and its four freedoms are indivisible’. In his place stands the defender of national sovereignty, a patriotic champion of French self-interest against Big Brussels.
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Few issues divide the Guardian’s right-on journalists more than transgender rights. Back in November its longtime columnist Suzanne Moore was purged after an internal denunciation about her writings on the subject; in July its (current) columnist Owen Jones took aim at sister paper the Observer for a leader in support of free speech. Plenty of gossip is doing
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Gavin Williamson has been widely mocked after mixing up footballer Marcus Rashford and rugby player Maro Itoje. But Alastair Campbell’s bid to get in on the joke appears to have backfired in rather spectacular fashion. The New Labour spinner – who now spends his time rallying against Brexit – shared a picture of two black waiters alongside
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It’s been a very good year for Serco. The British outsourcing company which runs the Test and Trace service is making some £50 million a month, according to an answer given this week by health minister Jo Churchill. Serco declared in June a 50 per cent jump in profits based off its work on various government contracts. Revenues
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In recent years Steerpike has grown accustomed to watching car-crash interviews of Gavin Williamson. Whether it’s refusing to reveal his A-level results or declaring he wants to shut all schools, the under fire Education Secretary rarely misses a chance to channel his inner Alan Partridge. But now it seems the minister has decided to cross
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Westminster is ablaze with rumours about a long-awaited government reshuffle. Half the lobby think it’s happening; half of them insist it’s not. Scraps of information are compared and scrutinised in pubs and bars across Whitehall; Whatsapps blaze with talk of three line whips and special advisers cancelling leave. One thing’s for certain: tomorrow will be
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It’s Groundhog Day in Holyrood. Amid criticisms about her administration’s underwhelming ‘Programme for Government,’ Nicola Sturgeon has returned to her favourite hobby house: Scottish independence. Much like ABBA’s reunion, the First Minister combined some new tunes with her greatest hits, declaring that May’s election was an ‘undeniable’ mandate for such a plebiscite by the end of 2023
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Boris Johnson may be focusing on the NHS backlog but for some of his parliamentary colleagues there’s another logjam to be addressed: an excess of invites to belated summer shindigs. Among the various soirees flying around, one caught Steerpike’s eye: the All Party Parliamentary Group on China’s reception next Wednesday on the Commons terrace pavilion.
