Steerpike

So much for No. 10 considering the 'case closed.' Matt Hancock has resigned tonight after 48 hours of fury at his fling with his taxpayer funded aide and Oxford contemporary Gina Coladangelo. The Health Secretary decided just hours before the Sunday papers dropped to go, with Mr S understanding further revelations were on the way. Earlier today Mr S himself went to the Department of Health to ask about whether Coladangelo had accompanied her former Exeter College mate back to their alma mater earlier this month to attend the pre G7 health ministers' discussion held, coincidentally enough, on 3-4 July at Exeter College, Oxford. No reply was hence forthcoming.

These days it’s easier to work out who is leaving Keir Starmer’s team than who is still in it. Ahead of the Batley and Spen by-election next Thursday, there have been a series of moves and departures – from one-time political secretary Jenny Chapman’s demotion to a raft of departures in the comms team. After Labour’s top spinner Ben Nunn stepped down, the hunt is on for a new Director of Communications to turn round Starmer’s lacklustre approval ratings. Already the team is on its second interim replacement, with Steph Driver replaced on Wednesday by Blair-era fixture Matthew Doyle. Asked for their thoughts on who'd get the job, one top Labour aide told Mr S 'God knows.

Oh dear. Back in March, Mumford & Sons banjoist Winston Marshall landed himself in hot water after praising a book by conservative American journalist Andy Ngo.  Following the publication of Unmasked – Ngo's recent critique of the antifa movement – Marshall tweeted his praise, declaring: 'Finally had the time to read your important book. You’re a brave man.' The subsequent backlash over Ngo's alleged status as a 'notorious right-wing agitator' forced Marshall to take 'time away from the band' culminating in today's announcement that the latter is leaving his band after 14 years.

Oh dear. While all eyes in Westminster were on the dispatch boxes at Prime Minister's Questions today, it appears an unsightly scuffle was going on just out of sight. Joanna Cherry, the onetime SNP darling sacked from her party's front bench in February, has accused the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey of 'unacceptable behaviour.' In a series of tweets shortly after the session ended, Cherry claimed that Davey, buoyant after last Thursday's by-election triumph in Chesham and Amersham, had tried to dislodge her from her perch on the Commons green benches. She wrote on Twitter that: 'There are no reserved seats in @HouseofCommons at present yet Ed Davey just made me give up my seat for him at #PMQs in a v forceful manner.

After last year's A-level results day debacle and the ongoing saga about catch-up funding, Gavin Williamson is one of the bookies' favourites for the Cabinet chop. The incumbent education secretary has suffered some brutal headlines in the last 12 months and appears to have stumbled on the culture wars as his best bet for ministerial survival, jumping headfirst earlier this month into the Oxford Queen portrait row. https://twitter.com/educationgovuk/status/1406990765906145281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Now though Williamson's department might have overstepped itself in its zeal to promote British values.

The final fortnight of the Batley and Spen by-election has turned ugly up in West Yorkshire. Yesterday, the Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges quoted an anonymous Labour official claiming that  'We're haemorrhaging votes among Muslim voters and the reason for that is what Keir has been doing on antisemitism... he challenged Corbyn on it and there's been a backlash among certain sections of the community.' Predictably such an incendiary quote sparked fury among Labour MPs with the hunt now on for the possible culprit. But as tensions rise in the seat and polls show a narrow six point lead, one familiar face seems all too happy to cause as much controversy as possible.

Oh dear. It was just two weeks ago that Labour’s Naz Shah found herself in trouble for attending a pro-Palestinian rally in Bradford at which a speaker made antisemitic remarks in Arabic. Now the shadow minister for community cohesion appears to be again tempting fate after a scheduled appearance next month at a charity dinner alongside fellow frontbencher Imran Hussain MP. A poster circulated for the ‘Free Gaza, Free Palestine’ fundraiser at the Bradford Hotel on July 3, showed smiling images of the two MPs alongside Imam Asim Hussain for the £25 a head three-course dinner.