Steerpike

Steerpike

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

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Angela Smith blames ‘funny tinge’ comment on tiredness

Angela Smith unwittingly became the story of the day yesterday when she referred to people of a 'funny tinge' on the BBC's Politics Live. Smith apologised – but still the story is dragging on. Today, the MP was asked to explain her comments, and she came up with a new excuse: she was tired. Here's what she said: 'Look, I never meant to say that. I misspoke really badly. I was very tired at that point. I had had six hours of press engagement and I was very tired. I was very tired. I misspoke really, really badly.' Mr S isn't sure that the answer to all this is for Smith to do more 'press engagement'...

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Angela Smith apologises over ‘funny tinge’ gaffe

The Independent Group is only a few hours old but already one of its leading members has made a blunder on air. Talking about race on the BBC's Politics Live, Angela Smith said: 'It's not just about being black or a funny...tin...from the BME community' Oh dear. Angela Smith has since apologised for her comments, saying that she 'misspoke': https://twitter.com/angelasmithmp/status/1097518807357288448?

Steerpike

Len McCluskey: the whole Labour anti-Semitism issue is ‘contrived’

Jeremy Corbyn's supporters in the Labour party have been on the defensive today, following the announcement that a group of moderate MPs have defected from the party. In particular, the Independent Group's scathing description of Labour as 'institutionally anti-Semitic' has left many worried that the charge may harm their electoral chances. But if the Labour stalwarts were hoping to convince voters that the party takes the issue of anti-Semitism within its own ranks seriously, they may want to make sure that Len McCluskey is kept off the airwaves.

Steerpike

The Independent Group’s website woes

Oh dear. When Chuka Umunna announced that he and six other Labour MPs were leaving their party and forming 'The Independent Group', as a new separate political faction, he said that the TIGs would have an extremely simple message: 'Politics is broken. It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s change it.' But if politics is really broken as Chuka thinks, it appears that the party's new website may be in an even worse state. It's only been two hours since the site was unveiled for the first time, and it's already falling apart. New visitors (perhaps hoping to sign up or find out new information about the party), have been met with 503 errors, frequent crashes and rather alarmingly, random website code on display: https://twitter.

Steerpike

Chuka Umunna identifies the Independent Group’s big flaws

Chuka Umunna has quit the Labour party and set up a new political party. Calling itself the Independent Group, Umunna said the party wants to go about 'building a new politics'. But in a Q and A with journalists, Mr S couldn't help but notice that Umunna also managed to spell out quite clearly the new group's big problem. He told reporters: 'The usual way things are often done in Westminster, is a little bit, you know, you have a podium, someone goes up and tells you how it is going to be.' Perhaps this message might have been somewhat more compelling if Umunna had not just been addressing journalists in Westminster...from behind a podium. Umunna then went on to say this: 'The idea that you can cook this up in Westminster is not the way people want things to be done.

Steerpike

Corbynistas go into meltdown over Labour splitters

Oh dear. After months and years of speculation, this morning seven Labour MPs announced that they are quitting the party over Jeremy Corbyn's unsuitability to be prime minister. Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie are among the MPs to say they are quitting the party and forming an independent group which is proud to be British and doesn't blame the world's problems on the West. Unsurprisingly the news hasn't gone down all that well with the Corbynistas. Corbyn allies have been quick to accuse the splitters of ushering years of Tory rule. So, how are the socialists coping with the loss of seven MPs? Mr S will let readers decide: https://twitter.com/YoungLabourUK/status/1097439224310231042 https://twitter.com/AyoCaesar/status/1097421052563648512 https://twitter.

Steerpike

Watch: Luciana Berger’s damning verdict on Labour

Luciana Berger and six other Labour MPs have just quit the Labour party. Explaining her reasons for quitting Corbyn's party, Berger said she had come to the conclusion that Labour is 'institutionally anti-Semitic'. She said she was 'embarrassed' to stay put in Labour. Here is her damning verdict on the party: I have become embarrassed and ashamed to remain in the Labour party. I have not changed. The values which I hold really dear, and which led me to join the Labour party as a student almost 20 years ago, remain who I am. And yet these values have been consistently and constantly violated, undermined and attacked as the Labour party today refuses to put my constituents and our country before party interests.

Friday

Steerpike

Was Jacob Rees-Mogg telling the whole truth about HS2?

Jacob Rees-Mogg often describes himself as a straight-talker who gives honest answers, no matter how unpopular they might be. But did his performance on Question Time last night live up to this billing? It was held in leafy Aylesbury, which lies on the proposed HS2 path thereby hitting house prices in the area - which explains why only a single member of the audience admitted to supporting it last night. The Moggster got perhaps the loudest cheer of the night when he was asked what he thought of the project and replied: 'Oh, it's a complete waste of money. And the costs and costs go up'. Perish the thought that he was playing to the gallery.

Steerpike

Andrew Neil on Winston Churchill: when this country needed a hero, he was there

What would Winston Churchill have made of the hysterical debate yesterday, which tried to boil his legacy down to whether he was a 'villain' or a 'hero'? Mr S wonders if the man who liberated Europe might have been amused at the situation, not least by being called a 'villain' by a shadow chancellor who thought it fit to wave Mao's little red book at the dispatch box. More clear, is that after all the rubbish talked about Churchill's life on the airwaves yesterday, including some awful Question Time responses, one man seemed to get the tone just right. Andrew Neil, introducing the political show This Week, gave this monologue on Churchill's legacy and the difficulty of judging historical figures by today's standards, last night:   https://twitter.

Thursday

Steerpike

Chris Williamson: Churchill was in the ‘right place at the right time’

Winston Churchill is a war hero who saved Britain from the Nazis. At least, that is what many think of a man consistently hailed as one of the greatest ever Brits. Not so Chris Williamson. Instead, the Labour MP agrees with the shadow chancellor John McDonnell that Churchill was a 'villain'. Speaking on the BBC's Politics Live, Williamson also said Churchill was in the 'right place at the right time' when the war was won and whatever Churchill's achievements in stopping Adolf Hitler, 'some of the things he said' meant he was no hero. Mr S thinks it's a shame that Williamson doesn't take the same rigorous assessment of character when it comes to making his mind up about Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro...

Steerpike

Watch: John McDonnell says Winston Churchill was a ‘villain’

It's fair to say that shadow chancellor John McDonnell is no stranger to controversy, but last night he managed to outdo himself when he entered into the debate on Winston Churchill's legacy. At a Politico event, McDonnell was asked by the host, Jack Blanchard, whether Winston Churchill was a hero or a villain. After a dramatic pause, the shadow chancellor replied: 'Tonypandy: villain' McDonnell was referring to the Tonypandy industrial dispute, which took place in the coal mines of Rhondda, Wales. Churchill, who was then home secretary, took the controversial decision to send police and troops to quell the riots that were taking place there. Watch the exchange here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Steerpike

Does Labour’s Wavertree CLP have an anti-Semitism problem?

Tensions between the Labour leadership and some of its MPs reached breaking point once again this week, over the party's failure to deal with anti-Semitism within its own ranks. Key to the dispute has been the treatment of Liverpool Wavertree MP, Luciana Berger, who her colleagues say has been targeted by a hard-left group in her local party because she is Jewish. The latest feud began on 7 February, when Wavertree's Constituency Labour Party (CLP) tabled a motion of no confidence in the heavily pregnant Berger for 'criticising' Jeremy Corbyn. Soon after, it emerged that one of the members who had tabled the motion was, according to Jewish News, a 9/11 truther who had called her a 'disruptive Zionist' in the past.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Steve Barclay’s Jean-Paul Juncker blunder

Given that there have been three Brexit secretaries, those from the EU side could be forgiven for forgetting the name of the latest British minister in town. Unfortunately Steve Barclay has no such excuse for getting Jean-Claude Juncker's name wrong. Asked by the BBC what he was up to in Brussels, he responded by saying: 'It’s to build on the engagement the Prime Minister had last week with Jean-Paul Juncker…' Oh dear. Mr S hopes that Barclay's memory for names is no reflection of his grasp of detail on the backstop...

Steerpike

Watch: Guy Verhofstadt warns Brexiteers may end up ‘on the guillotine’

It was only last week that EU leader Donald Tusk caused outrage across the Channel with an unusual outburst on the Brexit negotiations, when he said that that those who had sought Brexit without a plan deserved a 'special place in hell.'  Now it appears that other EU leaders are falling over themselves to make even more outrageous statements. Today it was the turn of Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament's Brexit coordinator to take a swipe at British parliamentarians. In a press conference in Strasbourg, the MEP referenced an article written by Politico's Tom McTague, which compared a number of Britain's Brexiteers to the leaders of the French revolution.

Monday

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn: the EU must be defeated

Oh dear. Jeremy Corbyn was caught out last week after a video emerged of him claiming that the European Union was creating a ‘military Frankenstein’. It now seems as if that criticism of EU wasn’t a one off. Here is Corbyn making a speech at a rally in 2010 in which he says the EU must be ‘defeated’: https://twitter.com/rosskempsell/status/1095002665061412865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw He told the crowd: 'They – the worlds bankers – the international Monetary Fund, the European Union, are utterly united in what they want. Utterly united in deflation, suppressing the economy and creating unemployment.

Steerpike

Revealed: Quentin Letts’ successor at the Mail

When veteran parliamentary sketch writer, Quentin Letts, announced that he was leaving the Daily Mail to write for the Times, Sunday Times and the Sun last November, talk immediately turned to who would fill his shoes. The move was considered to be quite a loss for the Mail: Letts has been skewering politicians on behalf of the paper for over twenty years. At the time, it was rumoured that his enthusiastic support for Brexit led to a rift with the recently installed editor Geordie Greig. Which may explain why since the announcement, both the date of his departure and the name of his replacement have remained a closely guarded secret at Mail HQ. But now, word reaches Mr Steerpike that Mail journalist Henry Deedes has won the coveted position.

Saturday

Steerpike

Chris Grayling’s shipless shipping contract sinks

Last year, there was much mirth when it was revealed that transport minister, Chris Grayling, had awarded a £14m contract for extra ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend in the case of no deal to ‘Seaborne Freight’ - a company which had no ships, and no record of chartering them. Suspicions that Seaborne might not be the most reliable continued to grow when the company was shown to have no trading history and appeared to have borrowed its website's terms & conditions from a takeaway company. Now it appears that scepticism of Seaborne might have been entirely justified.

Friday

Steerpike

Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party spells trouble for the Tories

Not for the first time, Nigel Farage is back. The former Ukip leader is backing a new Brexit party that has today been officially recognised by the Electoral Commission. The Brexit Party plans to field candidates across the UK and in any European elections, if they are held in the event of Article 50 being delayed or postponed. In the months after the referendum, the prospects for a pro-Brexit party looked to be limited. So, too, at the snap election in 2017, when both Labour and the Tories promised to deliver Brexit. But the backlash to Theresa May's Brexit deal, Labour's Brexit contortions – and Ukip's obsession with Islam – has given a new party breathing room.

Steerpike

John Bercow splashes the cash on canapés

Whether it's free tickets for Wimbledon fixtures, taxpayer-funded flights to Nova Scotia, or simply expensive drinks receptions, it's fair to say that the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, has not been afraid to enjoy the luxuries of his position. But now it appears that the Speaker has recently developed even more expensive tastes. Newly released documents from the Speaker's office show that Bercow's team has managed to spend £5,852 of taxpayer's cash on expensive canapés at two events in the past eight months. In July last year, Bercow's office spent over £3,000 on an 'all inclusive canapés menu' for an event in the Speaker's house, and just before Christmas, they spent a further £2,552 on canapés for a different event.

Thursday

Steerpike

The mission to get the health minister to eat unhealthily

Today, the think tank Resolution Foundation hosted an event which asked, after Brexit 'Where are the Conservatives heading?' Inevitably, the debate quickly turned to a vital issue which has become a battle for the heart and soul of the Party: whether the state should be telling people how much food they eat, and how big their pizza should be - after Public Health England suggested portion sizes be reduced over Christmas. Batting for the big pizzas, was the Treasury's Liz Truss, who argued that people should have the freedom to eat what they like, and as much of it as they want.