Steerpike, Author at The Spectator

Wednesday

31 March 2021

Stacey Abrams tells London: yes we Khan

Sadiq Khan is all set to win by a landslide in London, so why not allow a failed election candidate a moment or two in the sun? Mr S was intrigued to see Georgian Democrat Stacey Abrams pop up on his timeline this afternoon in a classic Twitter ‘Get out the vote’ campaign message. Steerpike suspects there aren’t many political anoraks in London who have actually heard of the onetime gubernatorial nominee who aren’t already registered to vote but was more interested in Abrams’ call for Londoners to cast a postal vote in May’s mayoral race. Coming from a state long bedevilled by allegations of postal fraud, who better to front up a campaign for mail in ballots? https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/1377310945815494659?

Steerpike

Macron blames the British variant for French lockdown

Tonight President Macron announced a wave of new national lockdown measures across France, following reports that more than 5,000 people across the country are now in intensive care. In a television broadcast he said that schools would move to remote learning from next week, that a 7pm curfew would now be in place and that all non-essential shops will close from Saturday. Macron cited the so-called 'Kent variant' as one of the main reasons for the lockdown, telling viewers: 'This variant which was identified for the first time from our British neighbours at the end of last year and to a certain extent, of course, gave rise to an epidemic within the epidemic and that is greater than last spring.

Steerpike

Labour frontbencher’s unpaid bar debt

Shadow Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer recently hit the headlines for claiming the covid crisis is ‘the gift which keeps on giving.’ Unfortunately, it appears the Blairite millionaire with the bulging wallets and slimmed down waistline is less giving when it comes to settling his own bar bill. The peer was one of nine recorded as have outstanding debts at the House of Lords at the beginning of last month alongside fellow Labour lords Robert Winston and Maurice Glasman, according to a Freedom of Information request sent by Mr S. Fortunately for Falconer, the sums are not too extravagant – a mere £9.15 – which places him just between his fellow New Labour minister Baroness Andrews on £3.20 and serial expenses offender Lord Hanningfield on £9.60.

Steerpike

Boris, Biden and the battle of the badly behaved dogs

They say that dogs are man’s best friend, so it seems ironic that Britain and America are both being plagued by canine issues at the same time. Joe Biden and Boris Johnson are well-known dog lovers – but it appears that their pampered pooches Major and Dilyn are causing no end of trouble for them on either side of the Atlantic. Biden was praised earlier this year for restoring the White House tradition of the president having dogs after a four-year hiatus under Donald Trump. Actor Mark Hamill hailed the 'good news' of their return while Vogue gushed over them as 'wonderfully cheerful and well-trained, able to face a pack of photographers or board a plane in seamless fashion.

Steerpike

John Prescott to stand in Hartlepool by election

Hartlepool is just the gift that keeps on giving. First there was Paul Williams' love for older women of a conservative disposition and then there was the Northern Independence party's meme-tastic bid for a Northumbrian republic. Now Reform UK have topped their 'in out, shake it all about' routine with Richard Tice by instead naming John Prescott as their candidate for the by election with polling day scheduled for 6 May. https://twitter.com/reformparty_uk/status/1377214286561472513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Unfortunately their candidate is not the jaguar-driving, protestor-punching former deputy prime minister but a 'proud father' and 'self-employed businessman' who just happens to share the same name.

Steerpike

Rahman gets the gang back together

Earlier this month Steerpike revealed that Lutfur Rahman has returned to the frontline of Tower Hamlets politics, six years after becoming the first directly elected British mayor to be removed for electoral fraud. Now it appears another old face has re-emerged to join Rahman in his bid to save the Tower Hamlets mayoralty, ahead of a rumoured run for the position next year. An image of Baroness Uddin is splashed on a new ‘Yes for Mayor: Power to the People’ leaflet currently being circulated in Tower Hamlets, extolling the virtues of the current council system which could be abolished in May’s referendum.

Steerpike

Merkel and Macron’s Sputnik U-turn

The last three months have seen a litany of humiliations for Brussels as its leaders try to procure and roll out much needed vaccines across the continent. Whether it's been Ursula von der Leyen almost erecting a hard border in Ireland or Handelsblatt being briefed misinformation from a misread excel table, impounded meningitis jabs in Italy or doctors forced to destroy unwanted vaccines in Germany, every week seems to bring fresh ignominy and embarrassment. But now a new low appears to have been reached with today's news that France and Germany are in negotiations to buy Russia's Sputnik V vaccine from their implacable opponent Vladimir Putin.

Tuesday

30 March 2021

Steerpike

Boris’s Barnard Castle quip backfires

This afternoon the Prime Minister chaired the second meeting with business bigwigs on his 'Build Back Better' council, whose membership includes John Lewis supremo Sharon White, Heathrow chief Lord Deighton and Charlotte Hogg of Visa. The dry-as-dust press release to mark the occasion is replete with the usual jejune platitudes beloved of Whitehall mandarins for the government's 'Plan for Growth' and forthcoming 'Innovation Strategy.' What the dispatch did not mention however was a typically Johnsonian jibe at the expense of his former chief adviser.

Steerpike

Will Lindsay get his chariot back?

As Speaker, John Bercow could never be accused of underselling his position. During his tenure the diminutive parliamentarian attracted criticism for everything from his £37,000 portrait and coat of arms to his £45,000 apartment refurbishment to a £1,000 taxi journey. But one free ride Bercow did decline was the official Speaker’s State Coach, a gilded 17th century carriage traditionally used for coronations.

Steerpike

Is Macron the new Trump?

For the last three months journalists across the world have been missing the curious mix of bombast, arrogance, untruths and showmanship that was President Donald Trump. But is a new unlikely figure now filling that void? As an embattled, insecure incumbent staring down the barrel of defeat in an upcoming presidential contest dominated by Covid, Emmanuel Macron must be hoping his fate doesn't play out like the Donald's. But as France's third wave of Covid gets underway, the country's president appears to be taking tips from his one time counterpart on pandemic leadership. The French newspaper Le Monde today reports a series of fawning quotes from Macron's aides who now call him 'the president epidemologist.

Steerpike

Northern Independence leader fails to whippet into shape

After the melodrama of Milf-gate and the shenanigans of Richard Tice, Mr S was not sure how much farce was left in the Hartlepool by-election. Thankfully, a whole new comedy of errors has now arrived in the form of the recently launched Northern Independence party. In its bid to break the mould of British politics, the party has (naturally) turned to a failed former Labour MP Thelma Walker, a one-time wonder who lost her Colne Valley seat in 2019. A natural choice for Hartlepool then, a mere 90 miles away. The new party was founded in October by Philip Proudfoot, an international development studies lecturer at Sussex University with the goal of making the North of England an independent state under the name Northumbria, with borders based on the historic region.

Steerpike

Europe’s jab jibes at UK rollout

The last ten weeks have been a depressing time for those few believers in the EU's lofty ideals. The saga of the vaccine procurement and roll out would be funny if it was not so tragic, beginning with Ursula von der Leyen trying to erect a hard border in Ireland in January and now culminating in Italy impounding meningitis jabs to America. You would have hoped such incompetence would have made some in Brussels reflect on their hubris. Not a bit of it, judging by the briefing of an anonymous EU official last weekend.

Monday

29 March 2021

Steerpike

Boris puts Barnard Castle back on the map

All eyes were on Downing Street’s spanking new £2.6 million media suite, unveiled for the first time at this afternoon’s press conference. Speaking in front of a sea of blue backdrop, Boris Johnson was flanked by a brace of Union Jacks and his covid lieutenants Professor Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance. Johnson revealed that a deal has been agreed to support the manufacturing of up to 60 million doses of the Novavax coronavirus vaccine in the UK. Big pharma behemoth GlaxoSmithKline will provide ‘fill and finish’ manufacturing capacity from the beginning of May – the completion stage of vaccine manufacturing, preparing vials of the final vaccine and packaging them for distribution and use. And where will such capacity be based?

Steerpike

The Sun sets on toxic masculinity

The Sun newspaper has been on an interesting journey in recent years, ditching its page three girls, drawing up a diversity style guide and launching its ‘Green Team: Road to COP26’ coverage replete with eco badges for staff. Last week, the once freedom loving Sun even declared itself comfortable with the idea of vaccine passports in pubs. Now the paper has toxic masculinity in its sights. Hacks across the Murdoch titles in London Bridge have been invited to a News UK debate tomorrow ‘how we unpick the toxicity of sexually aggressive male behaviour and redefine masculinity to support women’s rights and freedoms.

Steerpike

Cambridge comes unstuck on Winnie the Pooh

Oh dear. Over the weekend, Cambridge University's Twitter account celebrated the graduation of its most recent cohort with some pearls of wisdom that it attributed to one of its former students – AA Milne, the creator of Winnie Pooh. Milne graduated from Trinity College Cambridge with a B.A. in Mathematics at the beginning of the twentieth century and it was to him that the social media staff turned for inspiration, writing in a now deleted tweet: 'Congratulations to everyone graduating from #Cambridge in absence today! Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." – AA Milne (Trinity, 1900) A nice sentiment but unfortunately not quite accurate.

Steerpike

Liz Truss and the war on woke

Earlier this month the usual suspects were out in force for Liz Truss after it was revealed the International Trade Secretary would not be attending Boris Johnson’s summit on violence against women. As the Minister for Women and Equalities, Truss has won plaudits from the right of the party for taking on what she calls the ‘woke brigade’. She now ranks top of the Conservative Home rankings of the Tory faithful – a position she has held since December. This has been helped in no small part by her speech to the Centre for Policy Studies in which she skewered ‘the equality debate’ as being ‘dominated by a small number of unrepresentative voices and by those who believe people are defined by their protected characteristic.

Friday

26 March 2021

Steerpike

Scottish Covid adviser’s vaccine confusion

Oh dear. During the course of the pandemic, the University of Edinburgh professor of public health Devi Sridhar, has become a regular sight on television screens and comment pages – offering her insights on the best course of action over Covid. In her role on the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group, Sridhar has previously caught Mr Steerpike's attention for lobbying repeatedly for more SNP powers which she claims are necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus. The snag? There was nothing stopping the Scottish government from quarantining travellers using their own powers, a move that was already planned at the point Sridhar demanded it.

Steerpike

France accuses Britain of vaccine ‘blackmail’

In some ways you have to admire the sheer shamelessness of the French government. To spend the start of the year slagging off the AstraZeneca vaccine before threatening the seize those very same jabs showed a degree of brazenness that excelled even the usual French standards. But to accuse the UK of blackmailing Paris and her European neighbours must be the peak of Gallic gall. The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to a radio show this week in which he criticised the UK's vaccine programme. He told listeners: 'You can't be playing like this, a bit of blackmail, just because [the UK] hurried to get people vaccinated with a first shot.' He then denounced the British government's plan to ensure that it...

Steerpike

Nat another one: Salmond’s disastrous party launch

The latest episode in Scotland's longest-running soap opera was broadcast today as former first minister Alex Salmond took to YouTube to announce the launch of his new pro-independence party Alba. The new party, Salmond announced, would only contest list seats under Scotland's additional member system, because, as he argued, the SNP is set to win the most constituencies and the more constituency seats you win, the harder it is to win them on the list. This, Salmond claimed, would help create a 'supermajority' for independence. Unfortunately that was the only thing that could be said to be 'super' about the launch.

Steerpike

Prince Albert’s royal reprimand to the Sussexes

Oh dear. While the various bombshells Harry and Meghan rained down on the House of Windsor in their Oprah Winfrey interview have thus far been met by near silence by British royals, apparently one distant overseas relative did not get the memo.Prince Albert II of Monaco – the seventh cousin twice removed of Queen Elizabeth II – appeared on BBC News yesterday where he was asked about the decision of the Sussexes to do a tell all interview with Oprah Winfrey. Appropriate enough perhaps given that Albert is himself the son of both literal and Hollywood royalty, being the product of the marriage between Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier III. Albert said: It’s very difficult to be in someone’s place. I can understand the pressures that they were under.