Steerpike

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

A heart-warming moment at the first day of Wimbledon today. In the crowd to watch matches on centre court was Professor Sarah Gilbert who developed the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine for coronavirus. Having spent much of 2020 working on finding a jab, the scientist was today enjoying a rare day out, having been appointed a Dame in the Birthday Honours earlier this month for her services to science. The crowd may have been there to see players like Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray but there was only one star this afternoon when the Wimbledon announcer declared Gilbert was in attendance. The crowd rose to give the obviously affected scientist a standing ovation to thank her and the Oxford team for all they had done to rid the country of Covid-19.

A belated effort is underway to salvage the remains of Matt Hancock's reputation. The latest line, repeated by a dutiful Brandon Lewis on Sky this morning, is that the former Health Secretary quit for the good of the country – which begs the question as to why he waited 48 hours after the news broke to do so.  A cynic might suggest that Hancock's resignation had more to do with public anger and media pressure failing to subside rather than any high moral principle but for Lewis the answer was clear: Hancock went for the good of his family. The Northern Ireland Secretary told breakfast viewers this morning: His position was untenable and distracting from the wider work that we've all got to do to move forward in the pandemic and out of the pandemic.

Sixth time’s the charm for Sajid Javid who takes up the health brief following Matt Hancock's resignation. Javid, who has previously run the housing, business, culture, Treasury and home affairs departments, resigned from Boris Johnson's government in February last year, following a power struggle with No. 10. The former Deutsche Bank executive quit after being told in a face to face meeting with the Prime Minister to fire all of his advisers at the Treasury and replace them with individuals selected by Johnson's backroom team, led at the time by one Dominic Cummings. Javid declined and left office, claiming ‘no self-respecting minister would accept those terms’ – terms which, presumably, will not be forced on him in his new found role.