Steerpike

Nicola Sturgeon was able to indulge in a small spot of schadenfreude today, as A level results were announced in England, and UK ministers were criticised for the downgrading of some students’ results. The Scottish first minister has had a hellish week defending her own disastrous handling of exam results north of the border, which culminated on Tuesday with the SNP U-turning on its decision to downgrade thousands of students’ exam results – a decision which has been widely criticised by Scottish Conservatives.

The UK government has seemed flummoxed in recent days about how to best stop migrants and asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in inflatable dinghies – with ministers particularly concerned about the failure of the French authorities to prevent people traffickers organising journeys out of Calais. Immigration minister Chris Philp travelled to Paris this week in an attempt to strike a deal with the French about the return of migrants. Both sides have since expressed a ‘shared commitment’ to stemming the rise in Channel crossings, and Philp has promised to unveil a ‘joint operational plan’ in the coming days, to completely cut off the route.

Last Friday, Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard, was celebrating his nomination for a peerage. But while the future looks bright for soon-to-be Lord Lebedev (son of the former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev), there is bad news for some of those who work for him. Today it was announced that the Standard will sack nearly half of its journalists after its business model was shredded by the Covid-19 crisis. Up to 69 poor hacks at Derry Street are said to be up for the chop, with 46 who work in other roles in the company also losing their jobs.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has shown an increasing willingness to venture into political debates lately. In June, during the Black Lives Matter protests, he suggested that portrayals of Jesus as white should be reconsidered in English churches. And ahead of the December election last year he accused Boris Johnson of pouring petrol on a divided Britain. Clearly not content with the controversy about his new role as a political consultant, Welby decided to go a step further this evening, when he willingly joined the most hellish fight in politics: Labour’s eternal civil war.

Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent and the Evening Standard  – and son of the former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev – has been nominated for a peerage by Boris Johnson today. The appointment has certainly raised eyebrows in Westminster, and perhaps suggests that Boris will be hoping for slightly more positive press in the tycoon's papers in the months and years to come. Perhaps the appointment is not too surprising though. The Prime Minister attended a lavish party thrown by Lebedev in Regent’s Park the day after winning the 2019 election, as well as attending one of the media owner’s Italian parties in 2018.

Another Labour leader, another role for Lord Kerslake. The former head of the civil service has been appointed to lead a review into the Labour party's organisational structure. Bearded Bob has been charged with transforming Labour into a more 'agile, cohesive and purposeful' organisation to ensure the party can 'fight and win the next general election in 2024', according to a leaked letter from Starmer's new gen sec David Evans. That would be the same Lord Kerslake who so successfully transformed Jeremy Corbyn's office in the run up to the 2019 general election... The problem, as Mr S has pointed out on numerous occasions, is that Kerslake is a crossbench peer, and as such is supposed to remain 'non-party political'.

Much of Westminster is now off for the summer, but it seems someone forgot to tell the noble lords of the upper chamber. Earlier this afternoon, the Labour peer Lord Rooker took aim at the PM, accusing the Tories of taking suspect Russian donations. Lord Rooker had initially asked about UK-Russian trade following the release of the Russia report last week. When  the international trade minister Lord Grimstone updated the house on the latest figures, Lord Rooker shot back:  Will those figures be improved by the Prime Minister prostituting himself and his office in the interests of getting Russian money through the London laundromat into Tory party funds?

Poor Grant Shapps. Having hopped on a flight to Spain on Saturday morning, the transport secretary discovered that his family's holiday hotspot would be placed on the government's Covid quarantine list from midnight. Shapps tells the Sun that he has spent the last 48 hours of his summer hols locked in emergency calls with industry bods and transport officials to try to ease the disruption. No doubt to the annoyance of Mrs S... Now Shapps has announced that he will be returning the UK on Wednesday to better deal with the burgeoning crisis, presumably from the comfort of his own home given the newly imposed 14-day quarantine rules.

#BorisFarewellTour. That’s the hashtag that has been trending on Twitter all morning as the Prime Minister headed north of the border to try and salvage the Union. His journey around Scotland began this morning in the Northern Isles of Orkney to a less than enthusiastic response. So how does a leader go about a tour to ‘save the Union’ in a country where your net approval ratings are -100? Mr S thinks Boris’s team has found the answer: https://twitter.com/BurnBanksy/status/1286259141858799617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Find safety in the serene (and empty) countryside of Orkney to deliver his press conference.