Steerpike

It appears there was a nasty atmosphere down on Whitehall yesterday, where an anti-lockdown demonstration took place. Footage has emerged today of the BBC Newsnight presenter Nick Watt being pursued by an unpleasant mob at the event, with a group screaming at the journalist and calling him a ‘traitor’. Eventually, Watt was forced to run away from the group and finally found refuge behind a line of police. Mr S can only hope that Watt is well after the disgusting incident... Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1OK1K4o_p0 Update: Earlier footage of the incident appears to show that the police did nothing to protect Watt from being harassed. Instead, officers stood by as the presenter was chased on the doorstep of Parliament: https://www.youtube.

The Speaker was not holding back this afternoon when asked by Sir Edward Leigh about Boris Johnson's 6 p.m. Covid press conference. Lindsay Hoyle laid into the government from the Speaker's chair, accusing ministers of disrespecting parliament for failing to inform the House first of all changes to Covid restrictions. Indeed he even claimed that parliament was originally not going to be updated on the changes until tomorrow before the Speaker put his foot down and ordered a statement tonight. The mild-mannered Hoyle did not hold back, telling members: 'This House needs to know first. I find it totally unacceptable that once again, we see Downing Street running roughshod over members of parliament.

At long last GB News is here. After months of speculation and excitement, the first national TV channel to launch in 21 years finally launched at 8 p.m. on Sunday night with chairman Andrew Neil appropriately being the first to speak on air.  He subsequently introduced various GB News stars ranging from archaeologist Neil Oliver and columnist Mercy Muroki to the unabashed 'naughty corner' duo of former BBC anchor Simon McCoy and ex Brexit party MEP Alexandra Phillips. Declaring 'we are proud to be British' Neil told viewers: It's 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, June the thirteenth, 2021.

Having pledged to 'level up' the country during the last election, it seems that CCHQ are determined to practice what they preach. With Treasury civil servants set to move next year across the country to a new campus at Darlington, party apparatchiks in Tory central office are following suit. Party co-chair Amanda Milling announced plans for a new hub in Leeds at October's virtual conference 'in the heart of the blue wall.'  Now CCHQ has stepped up recruitment, advertising yesterday for its first party apprentices in Leeds in the fields of 'finance and marketing.

Tala Halawa, the BBC journalist who was found to have tweeted ‘Hitler was right’, is out at the Corporation. Almost three weeks ago, Steerpike highlighted how media watchdog organisation Honest Reporting and others had uncovered a string of tweets posted on Halawa’s Twitter account from 2014. These included pronouncing that ‘Israel is more Nazi than Hitler’ and ‘Hitler was right’. Halawa had also declared ‘ur media is controlled by ur zionist government’ and tweeted a graphic of a child being burned on a menorah, the Jewish ritual candelabrum.

Jeremy Corbyn has spent the past few weeks going on something of a road trip of British universities. Now sitting as an independent for Islington North, Corbyn spoke at the Oxford Union last month where he was asked if he had any regrets about his time as Labour leader to which he replied: 'Regrets? I’m really with Frank Sinatra on regrets actually – I’ve got a few but too few to mention.'  Sangfroid that will be of little comfort to the 46 MPs who lost their seats 18 months ago... Today it was Cambridge who played host to Corbyn for an hour.

Tomorrow Gordon Brown is set to release his latest messianic tome. Grandly titled Seven Ways to Change the World: How to Fix the Most Pressing Issues We Face – presumably from some of the problems he first caused – it is set to be released exactly one week after his successor Ed Miliband published a rival guide: Go Big: How to Fix our World . Mr S wonders whether actually winning an election could be the answer to any of these questions? Other Labour books out include the ironically titled The Dignity of Labour by Jon Cruddas and Jess Phillips’s Everything You Really Need to Know About Politics – a surprising title for a candidate who had to withdraw last year from the Labour leadership race after 18 days owing to a lack of support.

The end of lockdown and the dawn of summer has seen Westminster's finest emerge once more in their best cricket whites. On Sunday two lobby teams turned out at Bromley common ground to see Harry Cole's Chatty Bats face off against Brendan Carlin's Cincinnati cricket club. The latter eventually triumphed by 48 runs and now have the honour of facing off against the best talent banded together from the Lords and the Commons as part of an all-star parliamentary XI. Ahead of the crunch tie, peers and MPs themselves took to the field in a warm up game against Marylebone cricket club as part of the dozen or so fixtures the side play a year.