Steerpike

Emily Thornberry has had a busy day in the Commons. Labour's shadow foreign secretary heckled her counterpart Dominic Raab this morning after he claimed Jeremy Corbyn wanted Britain to withdraw from Nato. Now, she's been at it again: apparently yelling the word 'bollocks' at international development secretary Alok Sharma during a testy exchange. John Bercow then stepped in to calm things down. Only for Tory MP Hugo Swire to accuse Thornberry of being sexist. Mr S wonders whether Boris Johnson might have been right to prorogue parliament after all...

As tradition dictates, at every Queen's Speech and State Opening of Parliament, Black Rod (the House of Lords official) will knock three times on the House of Commons door before entering, and leading MPs to listen to the Queen's speech in the other Chamber. And every year, like clockwork, the Labour MP Dennis Skinner will heckle the official when she enters the Commons. As expected, this year was no exception. Although, it seems to Mr S as though the quality of Skinner's 'jokes' are deteriorating quickly. As Black Rod finished her speech in the Chamber this time, and invited MPs to follow her to the Lords, the Beast of Bolsover could be heard shouting something similar to: 'I'm not coming'. Watch here:   https://twitter.

When Michael Gove was welcomed back into government this year and appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, some wondered if Boris Johnson was really wise to trust his old nemesis with the serious business of government. After all, Gove both ran against the PM in the recent leadership contest and, infamously, stabbed him in the back after the Brexit vote in 2016. But if Boris is looking for inspiration about how to handle his colleague, it appears that there are other prime ministers who might be able to help. David Cameron for one apparently distrusted Gove so much he developed his own protocol for managing his Chief Whip.

Elections are a busy period for most politicians – the time when they hit the streets of their constituencies, knock on doors and hand out thousands of leaflets – all in an attempt to keep their seats in the House of Commons. And while some undoubtably do work hard for every ballot slip, some MPs are inclined to exaggerate their own heroic efforts when it comes to winning a tightly-fought vote. It appeared that the Labour MP Jess Phillips may have fallen into that trap this afternoon, when she appeared on the BBC's Politics Live.

To the launch of the final volume of Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher at Banqueting House. A mix of cabinet ministers, government aides and hacks descended on the Policy Exchange bash to hear both Moore and Boris Johnson speak. With the climate change Extinction Rebellion protests shutting down Whitehall, a number of ministers arrived via an underground tunnel to minimise disruption. Taking to the stage to pay credit to his former boss Charles Moore for his work on the biography, the Prime Minister said that he had been advised against attending by his own team: 'I am afraid that the security people didn’t want me to come along tonight because they said the road was full of uncooperative crusties and protesters of all kinds littering the road.

Poor John Bercow is suffering from a lost voice this morning, which is somewhat unfortunate for a Speaker. But fortunately he has Peter Bone watching out for him. The Brexiteer Tory MP has taken to his feet in the Commons to express his concern for Bercow, suggesting he takes some time out to recover: 'The Speaker is clearly suffering from his voice and he does put enormous hours into the chair. Would it be appropriate, or would the leader recommend whether the Speaker is asked not to chair those sort of debates, particularly so on the European Union, to protect his health?' 'The expression 'dream on' springs to mind,' said Bercow. Oh well, you can't fault Bone for trying...

Oops. The Conservative party is meant to be focusing on law and order today at its party conference, with Home Secretary Priti Patel taking to the stage to announce new money for tackling country-lines drug gangs and a new fund for the roll-out of tasers among the police. But only metres away from the main stage, one MP was getting in hot water with security staff. This afternoon, the press area of the conference venue was briefly shut down after police were called to deal with an altercation in the International Lounge. It is believed that the Tory MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown clashed with staff when he tried to enter the closed-off area, and police were called to settle the dispute. Clifton-Brown was then asked to leave the conference.

Mark Francois, Arlene Foster and John Redwood have just taken part in a panel discussion on Brexit at Manchester's Comedy Club (where else?). Francois quoted Robert Frost's poetry as he made his plea to the audience that he wanted 'to live in a free country' outside the EU. It won't come as much of a surprise that there was no love lost for Brussels' bureaucrats at the event, but there was a bigger bogeyman in the audience: Francois's former Tory party colleagues. The Tory Brexiteer and self-declared 'Spartan' reeled off a list of names of those who he said would never support Britain leaving the EU.

The judiciary has come in for a hard time following the Supreme Court's decision that Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament was unlawful. But Lady Hale and her ten fellow justices found a staunch defender at Tory party conference this evening in the form of Robert Buckland. The Lord Chancellor hit out at critics who said their decision was politically motivated. And he told those gathered at the fringe event to ignore anonymous briefings from 'unaccountable' people: It's been quite a few weeks as a member of Cabinet, but I can tell you as well that our judiciary is in good heart, too, because whatever one thinks about the merits of decisions that are made, one iron rule has to apply: We have an independent judiciary. We have respect for the rule of law.