Steerpike

It seems that some people really can’t take a joke… In the magazine this week, Rod Liddle wistfully contemplated the idea of nuking Glastonbury, pointing out that a small-yield nuclear weapon dropped on the festival ‘would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying.’ Rod added, for good measure: Given our current lack of a working missile programme, the good city of Brighton is safe – for now I am not saying that we should do this, of course – it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do. I am merely hypothesising, in a slightly wistful kinda way. One on Glasto, one on Brighton, and the UK would soon begin its recovery, with only a few chunks of gently glowing cobalt 60 left to remind us of what we are missing.

What a week it has been in British politics. After the welfare rebellion on Tuesday and then the shambles of PMQs on Wednesday, life in CCHQ must now seem a little easier. This week, it was the turn of Kemi Badenoch to address the Conservative Group dinner at the Local Government Association annual conference. And the Tory leader delivered a rather risqué line about Reform, according to a recording sent to Mr S. Badenoch told her audience on Wednesday that: Sometimes it's really challenging when we have opponents to the left and the right of us promising people things that we know that they can never do. And a man sent me an email the other day. He said that "There are liars in politics and that there are bullshitters.

Oh dear. Reform UK has made much of its recent progress. Having lost Rupert Lowe at the beginning of this year, Farage's forces then gained Sarah Pochin at a stonking set of local elections. But now the parliamentary party is backed down to four MPs again, after James McMurdock chose to resign the whip, amid allegations surrounding his 'business propriety during the pandemic'. McMurdock, the MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, will sit as an independent in the Commons while the claims are investigated.

It's been a tumultuous first year for Sir Keir Starmer, and with backbenchers and opposition politicians alike becoming far more vocal, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? The party, always in early July, is typically a scene of political drama: it comes just days after Labour's latest U-turn on Labour and the Chancellor's tears in the Commons. From Sir Paul Marshall to the SNP's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn, there are a number of notable faces. And despite all the Labour drama, Mr S has noted a Labour presence while Reform UK and the Conservatives turn out in force. Several Cabinet ministers appeared, including Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Environment Secretary Steve Reed.

Just when the SNP thought Operation Branchform had disappeared, the curious case into the party's funds and finances has reared its head again. Now it transpires that former SNP chief Peter Murrell – and ex-husband of Dear Leader Nicola Sturgeon – has been granted legal aid after being charged with embezzlement, meaning the taxpayer will, um, fund his legal bills. Good heavens… As reported by the Daily Record, the onetime chief executive of the Scottish National party had his application for solemn legal aid approved by the Scottish Legal Aid Board. The 60-year-old will receive support which is usually granted to those who cannot afford to pay for legal help themselves – however in some cases they still need to make their own contribution.

Well, well, well. It appears that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has managed to secure yet another notable donation – and this time from Tory donors who backed Boris Johnson. According to the MPs' register of interests, the Tory party leader has received a £150,000 donation from Lord Bamford, who was a generous donor to Johnson before rumours began to swirl that he was moving to Reform UK. It's certainly a well-needed win for the current Conservative leader! The donation entry notes that JC Bamford Excavators Limited donated £150,000 to Badenoch at the start of June. It's another coup for the Conservatives, after recent Electoral Commission figures revealed that the Tories received a whopping £3.

Pro-Palestine demonstrators on the streets of Britain have been led in a chant of 'Death, death to the IDF' – in a sick imitation of punk duo Bob Vylan's performance at Glastonbury. Protestors who gathered in Leicester on Sunday shouted the slogan during a speech by controversial activist and ex-Guantanamo inmate Moazzam Begg. Begg, now a director at CAGE, told the crowd: 'One of the beautiful chants you made today was death to Zionism...You know yesterday at Glastonbury what was said? Shall I say the words? Death, death to the IDF'. At a protest in Leicester today, protestors chanted "Death to Zionism!”Speaker Moazzam Begg also repeated the chant heard at Glastonbury yesterday: "Death to the the IDF.

How low is too low? Kneecap seem determined to find out, judging by their never-ending mission to troll the UK. But last month even the West Belfast trio seemed to go too far, after a video emerged of them calling for the death of British MPs. It prompted a grovelling statement from the band, insisting that they would not incite violence against any individual. Real hard men, eh? Of course, cynics suggested that Kneecap's capitulation had less to do with genuine remorse and concern for the likes of David Amess's family, and more to do with an effect on ticket sales.

Is this year's Glastonbury line-up the worst ever? There's Kneecap, of course: those tough-talking IRA cheerleaders who simply LOVE revelling in the imagery of terrorist violence, right up until the point it risks costing a British state grant – or actually serving some jail time. But it seems they now have some fierce competition in the moron stakes from Bob Vylan, an English punk duo. Their music (predictably) focuses on being black in the UK and how terribly tough it is to live in one of the most prosperous, peaceful and established democracies on Earth. So with all their penetrating insight and profoundly original thought, it is no surprise that they brought their Socratic wit to the Glastonbury stage today when they entertained the crowd with their musings on the Middle East.