Steerpike, Author at The Spectator

Tuesday

6 July 2021

Ashworth’s summer flip-flops

Jon Ashworth is one of the great survivors of the Labour front bench, having held the shadow health brief for some four and a half years under successive leaders. But given this morning's media round, how much longer will he be remaining in post? Responding to the government's announcement yesterday of the end of social distancing restrictions, Ashworth gave a tetchy interview on Radio 4's Today programme in which he levelled the charge of 'recklessness' at the government. He told presenter Mishal Husain 'I don't think any avoidable deaths are acceptable, that's why I would always want to put in place mitigating precautions to try to save people's lives.

Steerpike

Watch: Lord Ridley demands Wuhan probe

Most eyes in Westminster are on the future, ahead of next week's looming July 19 unlocking. But for one man at least, attention is focused on the past and how the world became engulfed in the Covid quagmire. Matt Ridley, the journalist, businessman and member of the House of Lords, has been using his pen throughout the pandemic to ask questions about the origins of the coronavirus – including within these own pages. Now the peer's seat in the Upper House has been roped into the cause too.

Monday

5 July 2021

Steerpike

Exams farce chief out at top data body

It's been a busy afternoon in Westminster, with both Boris Johnson's press conference and Sajid Javid's Commons statement absorbing the attention of SW1's finest hacks. In the New Labour era, such a smorgasbord of headlines would be what cynical spin-doctors call: 'A good day to bury bad news' – with all eyes elsewhere, it's the perfect time to take out the trash. So Mr S was intrigued to see Oliver Dowden's culture department quietly issue a letter today, thanking Roger Taylor for his three years at the helm of the little-known 'Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.' The latter is best known as the former chair of exams regulator Ofqual, who quit at the end of last year after the summer's A-level results day fiasco.

Steerpike

‘Hallelujah!’ Tory MP heckles Javid on end of social distancing

As July 19 looms ever closer and the football appears to be (finally) coming home, it appears that not even Tory MPs are exempt from experiencing the feel good factor. There was a boisterous mood in the Commons today as parliamentarians returned to hear the newly appointed Health Secretary read the last rites for the two metre rule after 16 months of Covid guidelines. The usually composed Javid even broke into a smile after one spontaneous heckle. Declaring to the House that 'We will revoke all social distancing guidance including the two metre rule – except, for some specific–' the minister was briefly interrupted when one (unknown) Conservative backbencher cried out 'Hallelujah!

Steerpike

Devi Sridhar: ‘Scotland is a victim of its own success’

Throughout the pandemic, few things have been certain but Devi Sridhar’s omnipresent opining is one of them. The Scottish Covid advisor has rarely been off our screens during the pandemic, becoming something of a pin-up girl to the SNP for her repeated jibes at the Westminster government, her demands for more power which Holyrood already had and her effusive praise for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘wise words’ and ‘strong leadership’. Not to mention of course her suggestion that an independent Scotland would have done better against Covid. The appointment of a new UK Health Secretary in Sajid Javid offered Sridhar a fresh target to aim at.

Steerpike

Watch: UK Africa minister’s Zambian gaffe

Politicians have a long history of embarrassing themselves on trips to foreign lands. Boris Yeltsin famously offended his hosts in Ireland in 1994 when he refused to get off his plane at Shannon airport. The Russian president suggested afterwards that he had simply ‘overslept’ – an excuse the Irish Press suggested should be taken with ‘a large measure of vodka’. But even if a legless Yeltsin was unable to meet the Irish Taoiseach that day, one hopes at least that he knew which country he was offending. The same cannot be said of Britain’s Africa minister, James Duddridge, who was in Zambia this week to attend the funeral of the country’s founding president and liberation leader, Kenneth Kaunda, who died last month.

Saturday

3 July 2021

Steerpike

The SNP’s struggles with sectarianism

It's not been a great week for James Dornan. On Saturday the SNP MSP was forced to apologise (again) for suggesting Lothian Buses' decision to cancel travel services over anti-social behaviour was linked to St Patrick's Day, with the implication that the company blamed Catholics for the problem. Then on Wednesday Mr S showed the lengths the Hate-Finder General had gone to investigate the now debunked Tik Tok video of Rangers players allegedly singing a sectarian song, requesting information for his constituents which he then appears to have not subsequently disclosed. Now one of Steerpike's readers has got in touch to point out Dornan's comments made during the Holyrood election back in May.

Steerpike

Laura Pidcock’s Gulf gaffe

We don't hear much of Laura Pidcock these days. The onetime Corbynista rising star was unceremoniously dumped by her North West Durham constituency at the last election, having managed to turn it from a Labour safe seat into a Tory gain in just over two years. Denied a voice in Parliament and with media appearances drying up, the Momentum heroine has been reduced to opining from her Twitter account on the issues of the day. Now out of the Commons and safely installed in the more comradely surroundings of the CLASS think tank and the People’s Assembly, Pidcock can wage virtual proletarian struggle to her heart's content. Today her choice of target was a gas leak off the Gulf of Mexico, causing a fire on the ocean surface west of the Yucatan peninsula.

Friday

2 July 2021

Steerpike

Michael Gove and Sarah Vine announce divorce

It’s been a bad week for marriages in Westminster. First the revelation of Matt Hancock’s affair with adviser, friend and Pinterest lover Gina Coladangelo led to the ex-Health Secretary splitting from wife Martha. And now today, the minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove has revealed he and his wife Sarah Vine are divorcing after 20 years of marriage. A spokesman released a statement this afternoon confirming the news: Michael and Sarah have agreed to separate and they are in the process of finalising their divorce. They will continue to support their two children and they remain close friends. The family politely ask for privacy at this time and will not be providing any further comment.

Steerpike

A complete history of Galloway’s electoral defeats

Labour’s Kim Leadbeater may be celebrating her triumph in Batley and Spen (though not as much as her leader Keir Starmer) but the by-election was another setback for George Galloway’s efforts to get back into parliament — any parliament. The serial candidate hasn’t been an MP since 2015 and Batley was the 15th time he has stood for elected office, and his ninth defeat. What Steerpike admires most about Galloway is his geographical flexibility: he’s never let attachment to a particular constituency hold him back. From Bradford to Bromwich, Glasgow to Gorton, Comrade Galloway has always gone where the workers needed him. Some call him ‘Gorgeous George’, Mr S prefers ‘GPS George’.

Steerpike

Watch: George Galloway hits out at Batley result

After a long and often unpleasant campaign, the Batley and Spen by-election is over, with Labour managing to cling on to the seat. Labour’s candidate, Kim Leadbeater, won a paper-thin majority of 323 votes over the Tory candidate, with George Galloway trailing around 5,000 votes behind Labour. Galloway was certainly not happy with the result this morning and gave an impromptu speech outside Huddersfield’s Cathedral House after the count was finalised.

Thursday

1 July 2021

Steerpike

Starmer’s critics in pre-Batley booze up

At long last, the bloody, bruising and bitter Batley and Spen by-election is at an end. After eight weeks of campaigning, replete with controversy and allegations of harassment, the results will be finally declared at 5am on Friday morning in this Labour held-seat facing a stiff Tory challenge. If Keir Starmer's party loses tomorrow it will be their third by-election loss in the same number of months. Today's Times carries a front page story that Starmer's deputy Angela Rayner is preparing a leadership challenge, with MPs close to the latter allegedly canvassing support among parliamentary colleagues and trade unions.

Steerpike

Watch: The BBC put Bill Clinton in prison

Yesterday the US comedian Bill Cosby left prison, after the Philadelphia Supreme Court overturned his conviction for sexual assault in 2018. The 83-year-old Cosby had served two years of a three-to-ten-year sentence, before his verdict was overturned on Wednesday because of a ‘process violation’. For a brief moment yesterday though, it appeared that the story could have even greater political implications, after a BBC News at Ten report. Newsreader Huw Edwards began by introducing the story and then cut to the broadcaster’s US correspondent, who was reporting live from Philadelphia.

Steerpike

Fox reds are top dogs for true blues

Dilyn may be top dog in Number 10 but these days there's only breed of choice for the aspiring Tory: a fox red Labrador. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is photographed in today's newspapers clutching his new eight week old puppy Nova. And while his next door neighbour Boris Johnson has an (appropriately) badly-behaved, chaotic and randy Jack Russell rescue mutt, his photogenic Treasury minister prefers a sleek, pedigree type of labrador which has become increasingly popular in recent years. Sunak's daughters are cited as the reason for the new arrival, with a Number 11 source quoted in the Sun as saying 'Rishi was fighting it but finally gave in, and the whole building is cooing over him.

Wednesday

30 June 2021

Steerpike

Poll: 2019 Tories still backing Boris

It's by-election day in Batley and Spen tomorrow. The only constituency polling done in the West Yorkshire seat suggests that the Tories stand a good chance of grabbing it off Labour, with the intervention of George Galloway threatening to turn the seat blue for the first time since 1997. In recent weeks there has been much commentary on how the Conservative party can balance its delicate electoral coalition between the red wall in the north and the home counties in the south, following the Chesham and Amersham upset. Mr S therefore thought it worthwhile to commission some polling on the attitudes of 2019 Conservative voters towards the government.

Steerpike

Fact check: does Dawn Butler have a blue plaque?

It has been a busy month for Dawn Butler. Whether it's joining Cameo, backfiring Twitter polls or even being an apparent contender for the Labour leadership, she has rarely kept away from the headlines. In such circumstances, it's no surprise then that Butler's services have at last been recognised, with the MP herself excitedly tweeting how she was 'honoured to have been dedicated' with a 'Blue Plaque' unveiling near Stratford. Mr S was surprised to see so many rapturous supporters tweeting their approval of this public symbol of recognition – normally the left is keener to pull them down than putting them up. https://twitter.com/DawnButlerBrent/status/1409879353161302020?

Steerpike

‘Racist buses’ SNP MSP in fresh Rangers storm

Much ink has been spilled over the shenanigans of the James Dornan, SNP MSP and amateur Hate-Finder General. Just last week the gaffe-prone Glaswegian was forced to apologise for suggesting that an Edinburgh bus company had stopped services on St Patrick's Day because of 'anti-Irish racism,' an unsubstantiated claim for which Dornan had no evidence. Now fresh evidence has come to light of Dornan's efforts to whip up another sectarian drama. Last month a video of Rangers football players celebrating their league triumph went viral on Tik Tok, with the players allegedly chanting bigoted slurs in an add on to the song 'Sweet Caroline.

Tuesday

29 June 2021

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s football furnishings

The Prime Minister has never been much of a football fan. Unlike David Cameron, who could never remember if he supported Aston Villa or West Ham, Boris Johnson has remained resolutely ambivalent on the subject of personal preferences by opting to choose, err, no side in the English Football League.Tonight Johnson showed his patriotic support by posing delicately on the side of a creaking table to watch the football alongside his newly-married wife Carrie. Mr S could not help but admire the staging of the happy couple, poised melodramatically staring with open mouths at the England-Germany match. https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1409919708107845633?

Steerpike

The curious case of Kate Osborne’s Wikipedia

Since her election to Parliament in December 2019, Labour backbencher Kate Osborne has become something of a transparency campaigner. The Jarrow MP has urged the extension of Freedom of Information laws to cover private companies and criticised Conservative opponent Nadine Dorries for sharing 'fake news propaganda' online. But Osborne seems less keen to divulge information about herself, being one of a handful of new MPs such as Felicity Buchan and Neil Hudson to decline to disclose her date of birth in the most recent Times guide to the House of Commons.

Steerpike

Lib Dem grandees go to war over China

It appears the Liberal Democrats have fallen foul of the Trade Descriptions Act. During the Brexit years, the party did its best to eschew the 'democratic' part of their name by promising to nullify the largest democratic mandate the UK has ever seen. And now Mr Steerpike is intrigued to see that party grandees don’t seem too keen on their 'liberal' roots either. Former party leader Vince Cable has this week written a piece for the Independent arguing that there is no point in the West criticising China for its policies towards the Uighur Muslims. Cable denies that ethnic cleansing is going on in Xinjiang, despite reports of forced sterilisations and abortion, justifying measures against the Uighurs as counterterrorism 'crackdowns'.