Steerpike

Desperate Sir Ed Davey will plead with his party not to launch a coup against him at a showdown meeting in Westminster this evening. A whopping four hours have been carved out for MPs to air their grievances over the party’s failure to cut through with the public – and for Davey to convince his fellow wets why they should stick by him and his juvenile stunts. So far, more than 40 MPs have requested to speak, with Roz Savage, who oversees the parliamentary party, set to chair the gathering. Ahead of the showdown, Davey told MPs: I’ve cleared the rest of my evening so we can go on as long as it takes for everyone to have their say. Sources close to Sir Ed insist he is in listening mode and that the majority of the party remains behind him.

Civil servants never cease to amaze with just how lazy and entitled they can be. Not content with switching on their laptops for a few hours a day from the comfort of their sofas, they are now threatening to strike unless they are gifted a four-day week and a 10 per cent pay hike. You couldn’t make it up… The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union will hold a strike ballot on 20 October, with demands also including greater protection for working from home, more annual leave and the ‘right to switch off’. At least half of PCS members must vote, with a majority backing industrial action, for the ballot to pass. Of course, this isn’t the first time Westminster’s laziest ‘workers’ have demanded a four-day week.

Oh dear. It is polling day in Holborn and St Pancras and the Greens are staring down the face of defeat. Zack Polanski has put his leadership on the line by standing here but it looks as if Andy Burnham has rallied the Labour faithful back to his cause. With Polanski suffering a summer of bad headlines and embarrassing revelations, some whisper quietly whether defenestration might now be on the cards. Rattled! The (self-identifying) man likely to replace Zack is his charming deputy Mothin Ali. As Steerpike's colleague Noa Hoffman has noted, there is a fair bit of bad blood between allies of the Jewish leader and his Muslim number two.

Robert Jenrick is back out on the mean streets of London, taking shoplifters to task while the Met appears nowhere to be seen. In a new video, Reform’s Treasury spokesman confronts a thief in Brixton as he brazenly swipes a bottle of Dr Pepper from Greggs. Challenging him, Jenrick demands to know why he thinks he can ‘take things when everyone else is paying’. The shoplifter tells the Reform MP to ‘relax’ before insisting that stores ‘say yes’ to goods being stolen. Jenrick hits back: ‘Everyone loves shoplifting don't they now. The effect of what you're doing is everyone else's food and drink just goes up in price - do you think other people can afford that round here?

https://twitter.com/AyoubKhanMP/status/2105575220585349466 Pro-Gaza MP Ayoub Khan stooped to a new low today as he cast doubt on the Israeli investigation into the Flydubai cockpit stabbing. The British-Pakistani politician, who has called for Britain to wage war against Israel, claimed to be ‘shocked’ by the speed with which security officials established what had happened on the flight. Sharing a BBC article detailing the jihadist attack, Khan wrote: ‘I am genuinely shocked as to the speed of this enquiry by the Israeli spokespeople!!! Normally it takes them months, if not years. I think I smell a rat!’ He continued: ‘I believe the most powerful MP in parliament is not the PM but the one that can speak without fear or favour!!!!!!!

The Makerfield test was meant to be at the heart of Andy Burnham’s government. When Burnham was elected as an MP back in June, he said: ‘A Makerfield test at the heart of British politics will make sure that the places Westminster has neglected will now get fairness.’ Mr S wonders if Burnham has applied it to his latest pronouncement that the United Kingdom could rejoin the European Union after the Prime Minister told the BBC he will consider ‘going all the way’ after the next election.

The ‘far-left and Islamist’ organisation Friends of al-Aqsa lavished praise on Red Ed Miliband on the sidelines of Labour conference today. The group was banned at the last minute from officially hosting an event on Gaza at the annual socialist jamboree – but simply pressed ahead with a panel near the conference venue anyway. When the Labour conference guide was published earlier this month, Friends of al-Aqsa was listed as holding a fringe event hosted by the group’s founder and chair, Ismail Patel. But it was pulled following a backlash. Friends of al-Aqsa describes itself as an NGO ‘demanding political change for Palestine’. A Home Office-commissioned report in 2024 described it as a ‘far-left and Islamist’ organisation.

A Labour government aide has suggested that Britain should spend billions of pounds compensating developing countries whose citizens come to work in the NHS. Dr Beccy Cooper, a parliamentary private secretary in the Cabinet Office, told a Labour conference fringe event that G20 states should ‘continue’ discussions on an agreement requiring wealthy countries that recruit foreign-trained health workers to invest proportionately in the health systems and workforces of the nations from which they recruit. Cooper said: ‘We have some incredible support workers, some incredible development people, and we really need to say, hang on a second, we very much benefit from people coming to work in our National Health Service.

Ahead of Labour conference, Andy Burnham took to the regional airwaves today for a shameless exercise in pandering to the party faithful. Kicking off by bending the knee to Remainers, the Prime Minister declared that Brexit was to blame for the small-boats crisis. Asked by the BBC about the continuing border farce, Burnham responded: I do point to the loss of collaboration with neighbours that came with Brexit. That hasn’t helped. We had a more cooperative system, if you like, in the past, so we are not able to have the same levels of collaboration that we used to have. But I don’t put that forward as a reason why we won’t keep working until we get the crossings right down.