Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
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We’re closing 2020 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 5: Steerpike’s questions from April for Neil Ferguson. It was a tale of two interviews on the Today programme this morning. First up on the show was Neil Ferguson, professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London, who has been instrumental in
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Boris Johnson will be hoping for at the very least a brief break after securing a Brexit deal on Christmas eve. So, how will the Prime Minister choose to unwind? Perhaps a clue can be found in a photo recently uploaded to Flickr by 10 Downing Street official photographer Andrew Parsons. There has been much amusement online over
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Oh dear. Nicola Sturgeon has been forced to apologise after photos appeared of her in the Sun breaching Covid rules. The SNP leader had been attending a funeral when she got chatting to three seated women drinking in the public part of the venue. Scottish Covid regulations state that those not drinking in a public venue should
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It seems like a lifetime ago when the Imperial College academic Neil Ferguson was caught breaking lockdown rules to meet his married lover. Since then, a whole series of mad, bad and downright nonsense regulations have come and gone. At the time though, the breach was taken very seriously by both the government and Ferguson
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When schools returned in September, the sudden spike in demand for Covid-19 tests caught the test and trace programme out. Dido Harding, head of NHS test and trace, told MPs back then that demand was ‘significantly outstripping the capacity we have’. It was a predictable situation – but has the government learned its lesson? Sadly, it appears not. With
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The Elysée palace has just confirmed that French President Emmanuel Macron has tested positive for Covid-19, after developing symptoms this week. In a statement, the palace said the President had been tested ‘as soon as the first symptoms appeared’ and will now be self-isolating for the next seven days. It’s not yet clear how badly
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SNP tempers were running high this afternoon, as the Commons debated amendments to the Internal Market Bill, which deals with the UK’s goods and services after Brexit. The Scottish nationalists have described the Bill as a ‘full-frontal assault on devolution’ because it hands some EU powers back to London. That might explain the poor behaviour
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Today, Whitehall departments published their gender pay gaps, as part of a government commitment to ‘transparency’ and its drive to encourage equal pay among the sexes. The gender pay gap scheme is run by the Government Equalities Office, a branch of the Civil Service which sits inside the Cabinet Office, and which is responsible for
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The government has gotten itself in a right muddle in recent weeks about its plans for ‘immunity passports’ for those who have received a vaccine – with ministers seemingly unable to agree whether passports will allow vaccinated members of the public to be free from restrictions. On Monday, for instance, Mr S noted that minister
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After Kay Burley was caught breaching social distancing rules at her 60th birthday party, she and her colleagues in attendance – political editor Beth Rigby, correspondent Inzamam Rashid and presenter Sam Washington – have been the subject of a disciplinary inquiry. The results of which are now in. Burley has been suspended and is off air
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Oh dear. It looks like things are not exactly going well for the Sky News presenters who attended Kay Burley’s sixtieth birthday bash and were caught breaking the coronavirus restrictions. As Mr Steerpike reported yesterday, in total four Sky employees have been taken off air after attending the do, and Burley is not expected to
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Avid PMQs watchers will have spotted an odd occurrence in the Commons just now. Speaker Lindsay Hoyle chastised the Labour MP Chris Bryant, shooing him away and admonishing him for his ‘disgraceful behaviour’. But what was the set-to all about? Apparently, Hoyle’s former opponent in the election for the speakership last year had been standing in
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Keir Starmer was forced to conduct PMQs from his home this afternoon, after one of his staff members tested positive for coronavirus, and he was instructed to self-isolate. The Labour leader’s image was therefore beamed out from the House of Commons television screens as the Prime Minster stood below. Boris Johnson used the opportunity to
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Oh dear. Kay Burley’s 2020 has taken a turn for the worse after she was caught breaking Tier 2 rules with her 60th birthday celebrations. Burley was taken off air while Sky News bosses began a disciplinary process against her to investigate the claims. As Mr S reported yesterday, her colleagues are seething and she is not expected
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There have been some dark days for Britain over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, but thankfully today was not one of them. Tuesday 8 December has been hailed as ‘V-day’ as the UK became the first country to begin its mass vaccination programme. Tens of thousands of Brits received their injections, including Margaret Keenan, 90,
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How would you feel moving into your new home on Diversity Grove? Or what about a shiny new penthouse on Equality Road? Yes, some Birmingham City Council apparatchik has struck upon the genius idea of naming new streets after lefty buzzwords. The absurd project was announced earlier today after a public competition to name the
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The eyes of the world were on Britain today, as the first patients began to receive the Pfizer vaccine, after it was cleared by Britain’s health regulators as safe to use. Unsurprisingly, foreign TV news channels sent their crews to British hospitals to witness the first patients receiving the jab. Outside Guy’s Hospital in London,
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Making the case for the union is a rather uphill task these days. With the SNP on course for a majority in next year’s Scottish parliament elections and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon polling well with the public, many Tory MPs comes across as rather defeatist on the issue. But try they must. So, Mr S was
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Kay Burley is hardly what you would call a ‘sympathetic personality’ – but Steerpike is a magnanimous sort and he can’t help feeling a little sorry for her on this chilly winter’s morning. The poor presenter is having a miserable time because, having spent much of the year berating others for their failings vis Covid,
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It’s a big morning for news in the UK as the first patients receive the Pfizer coronavirus jabs and Brexit deadlines loom. So, one would have imagined Kay Burley would be front and centre of her self-titled morning breakfast show. Apparently not. Mr S was curious to note Burley’s absence on today’s show — with Sky News’s Sarah