Steerpike

Donald Trump's former national security advisor John Bolton has made a series of bombshell revelations in a new tell-all biography. Claims that the White House does not want aired in public, with Trump's administration launching a legal bid to block the book's publication. However the volume, which is supposed to be released next week, has been leaked in its entirety to the New York Times and the Washington Post. American newspapers have been plastered full of the most outlandish claims about the embattled President, so Mr S has compiled the five most explosive claims from the disgruntled former staffer:  1.

Oh dear. It seems Matt Hancock has forgotten his own rules. Shortly before PMQs this afternoon, the Health Secretary was spotted slapping a chum on the back in a blatant breach of the two-metre distancing regulations.  Less than a minute later, Hancock again disregarded his ministry's own guidance when he leaned in to have a chat with another MP. Perhaps Hancock could use the Ferguson defence and plead immunity given the fact he has already had the virus. Then again, that didn't end too well for professor lockdown... UPDATE Hancock has now released a statement apologising for the breach, saying:  I'm so sorry for a human mistake on my part.

Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford has caused a bit of a storm in the Westminster bubble this morning – the 22-year-old's plea to the PM to extend free school meals into the summer holiday has not gone unnoticed.  As Katy Balls writes this morning, there is a growing feeling among Tory backbenchers that the cost of the scheme is small compared to the negative PR generated from falling out with a world-class footballer.  But it seems the secretary of state for the department of work and pensions didn't get the memo. Thérèse Coffey decided to fact check one of Rashford's tweets, pointing out that it's illegal for water companies to cut off customers' supply. https://twitter.com/theresecoffey/status/1272789819354161152?

Yesterday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that he was forming a new commission to investigate the landmarks, street names and statues of the capital, to see if they should be knocked down or renamed because of their racist past or links to the slave trade. The announcement came after a statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down in Bristol by Black Lives Matter protestors this weekend. Khan’s ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’ will examine various sites across London to see if they reflect the diversity of its population, and the mayor has indicated that it is not appropriate for certain figures to be memorialised in future.

London mayor Sadiq Khan promised today that he will begin the process of pulling down ‘inappropriate’ statues around London – after Bristolians dumped the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in the river at the weekend. To investigate London’s landmarks, Khan has created a ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’ which will review statues and street names in the capital to make sure they reflect the diversity of its people. Khan said he expected the commission to find that it’s ‘not appropriate to be memorialising, or to be celebrating’ certain figures, especially those with a racist past and links to the slave trade.

Priti Patel was in the Commons today, to be asked about the policing of the recent Black Lives Matter protests across the country. And, it was an understatement to say that the Home Secretary was taking no prisoners when it came to accusations from Labour that she or the government did not understand racism in this country. In response to Labour MP Florence Eshalomi – who asked whether the government and the Home Secretary recognised that there is racism and discrimination in the UK – Patel gave a remarkable speech in which she declared that she would ‘not take lectures’ from Labour about racism, and accused those who expect ethnic minorities to behave in a certain way as racist themselves.

Another day, another BBC apology. But Mr S isn't convinced this one is actually needed. The BBC's new boss was announced this morning and it fell to the corporation's media editor Amol Rajan to fill in viewers about who Tim Davie is. Rajan explained Davie had a 'hellishly, hellishly difficult job' in manning the ship over the next few years. All for £575,000 a year. Poor Tim.  Rajan then told viewers that Davie was privately educated. He explained: 'He’s a father of three, marathon runner, big Crystal Palace fan. Interestingly, he was privately educated before going on to Cambridge and he’s someone who had a career in marketing…' But after coming off air, an urgent clarification was issued: https://twitter.

Last week, the BBC show Newsnight found itself in hot water, after its presenter Emily Maitlis was rebuked by the BBC for not showing due impartiality, when she opened the show with a broadside against Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson. You would think, therefore, that the programme would be on its best behaviour at the moment, and would make sure that it was reporting the facts correctly. Apparently not though. Yesterday evening, the programme included a segment in which it suggested that the UK’s daily death toll from Covid-19 was higher than every other country in the EU combined. The programme even displayed a graph prominently, to highlight the UK’s high death toll. https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1268304147301965826?