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
From our UK edition
We’ve all been there. You’re at a work event, you don’t really know anyone so soon you end up talking to the strange fellow in the corner. At least that’s what happened to John Mann a few years back when he attended a conference and ended up having a chinwag with a North Korean dictator. Speaking
From our UK edition
Jeremy Corbyn was given a taste of a Brexit rebellion last night when 90 of his MPs declined his suggestion of abstaining on the single market amendment and rebelled. Perhaps the most interesting aspect, however, was not who backed the amendment but the 15 Labour MPs who rebelled to vote against it. One such MP
From our UK edition
Jeremy Corbyn has promised to deliver ’21st century socialism’ to the UK if elected. Only Mr S isn’t so sure all Corbynistas are on the same page as to what this will mean in practice. With the ill-fated LabourLive festival just four days away, the blame game has already begun on who is at fault
From our UK edition
When Kezia Dugdale stepped down as the leader of Scottish Labour, there were rumours that she was planning to defect to the SNP. Despite Dugdale’s denial, odds were as short as 5/1 on Dugdale – whose partner is an SNP MSP – joining the Scottish Nationalists before the next Holyrood election in 2021. So, after today’s
From our UK edition
Although the Serjeant-at-Arms Kamal El-Hajji has dismissed bullying allegations against John Bercow as a ‘witch hunt’, the Speaker’s problems are not going away anytime soon. Claire Perry, the climate change minister, has today accused Bercow of ‘sexist and demeaning’ behaviour – accusing him of having a ‘women problem’. This video shows the incident Perry is referring to.
From our UK edition
What is it about Brexit campaigners and select committees? First Vote Leave’s Dom Cummings declined an invitation to appear before Damian Collins’ select committee (leading MPs to back a motion demanding he does so by 20 June). Now Arron Banks – of Leave.EU – has cut his time before the committee short. Banks appeared before
From our UK edition
What a difference eight months makes. Back in October, Grant Shapps launched a failed coup against Theresa May after a disastrous Tory conference which saw the Prime Minister cough her way through what was supposed to be a set piece speech. Since then, we’ve had Cabinet feuding, backbench rebellions and a lack of leadership from an
From our UK edition
Oh dear. It seems that not everyone has taken Theresa May’s appeal for party unity to heart. Although Amber Rudd and Iain Duncan Smith penned a Sunday Telegraph article calling for Tories to come together this week for the EU Withdrawal Bill votes, not everyone appears convinced. Over the weekend, former Remain rebel Antoinette Sandbach
From our UK edition
Happily for Theresa May, the main news from the G7 conference wasn’t that President Trump failed to mention her in his G7 ‘friends’ list. Instead, the fireworks arrived after the president left and he struck out alone. Some choice comments from Justin Trudeau on trade saw Trump see red and pull out of a previously agreed
From our UK edition
Theresa May’s cabinet is divided and her MPs increasingly worried over the government’s Brexit plans – or lack thereof. Yet despite all this, the latest Times/YouGov poll puts the Tories seven points ahead of Labour. With many in Westminster left scratching their head over the apparent disconnect, could a clue be found in ITV2’s Love
From our UK edition
Labour’s flip-flopping on Brexit means that many Leave supporters simply don’t trust the party. So Mr S wonders whether it was really such a wise idea for Shami Chakrabarti to heckle a voter on Question Time last night: Audience member: We’re the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We voted to leave so let’s
From our UK edition
While David Davis has hogged the headlines recently, Boris Johnson has been slowly losing his cool over Brexit and lost it, just a little bit, when addressing Tory activists at the Conservative Way Forward on Wednesday. It was a candid speech but, with recording devices built into every smartphone, it was hardly surprising that it
From our UK edition
Paul Dacre has just announced that he is to step down as editor of the Daily Mail in November, having edited the newspaper since 1992. Mr S has been passed a copy of his letter to staff announcing the news. Dacre says he now plans to take on ‘broader challenges within the company as chairman
From our UK edition
Boris Johnson’s critics happily queued up to take a pop at the Foreign Secretary when he said his position on Brexit was to ‘have our cake and eat it’. Yet it seems the Labour party is determined to take the same approach. Keir Starmer says Labour wants ‘full access to the internal market’ while retaining the
From our UK edition
Poor old Jeremy Corbyn. You couldn’t blame the Labour leader for harbouring hopes that the upcoming Labour Live event would enable him to emulate the wild adulation he received on stage at last year’s Glastonbury. But whereas tens of thousands of festival goers chanted Corbyn’s name back then, it seems more likely that Jez will
From our UK edition
It’s fair to say that there is no love lost between Philip Hammond and Gavin Williamson. The chancellor and defence secretary have been sniping at each other for months – and there were claims that the rivalry between the pair even escalated into a full-blown row in the Commons in December, with Theresa May forced
From our UK edition
The cover of this week’s Spectator says “the people vs the EU” and Jean-Claude Juncker is certainly warming to that theme. Just in case the Italians were in any doubt how they are regarded by the president of the European Commission he made it pretty clear yesterday. When asked what the EU could do for
From our UK edition
Gavin Williamson is the unfortunate victim of the Parliamentary recess. With little in the way of political news, the Defence Secretary’s awkward exchange with Richard Madeley over his ‘shut up and go away’ Russia comment has received a lot of attention. Now the Good Morning Britain presenter has decided to prolong Williamson’s turmoil a bit
From our UK edition
Gavin Williamson – who told the Russians to ‘shut up and go away’ – is usually the one dishing out the rebukes. Not today. The Defence Secretary met his match in the form of Good Morning Britain presenter Richard Madeley after he repeatedly refused to answer a question on whether he was right to use
From our UK edition
Oh dear. The Labour party is one of the loudest cheerleaders when it comes to giving 16-year-olds the vote. At PMQs in January, Emily Thornberry was particularly keen to push the cause. The shadow foreign secretary accused the Conservatives – who oppose such a move – of being in a ‘coalition of cavemen’, before going