Steerpike

Just how many of the 121 Tory MPs elected last summer will be there by the end of this parliament? Already, Patrick Spencer has lost the whip after being charged with two counts of sexual assault. And now, George Freeman finds himself in hot water after the Sunday Times reported allegations about his second job as a £60,000-a-year paid adviser to eco-innovators GHGSat Limited. The former Science Minister reportedly submitted queries to ministers about the sector the firm operates in, potentially handing the company a commercial advantage. He also asked a director at the environmental monitoring company to tell him 'what to ask about', in exchanges that may have breached ethics rules and are likely to see the Norfolk MP accused of taking 'cash for questions'.

It seems that all is not well with the once-mighty Tory ground game. After a thumping set of election defeats last month, a worrying new trend has developed for the Conservatives. They are not only losing more wards in council by-elections; they now seem unable to field candidates, even in seats still represented at Westminster by the surviving 120 Tory MPs. Hardly a healthy sign... Three weeks ago, the party was unable to field candidates for two by-elections in King’s Lynn and West Norfolk – a seat still held in the Commons by the Tory James Wild. Then, this week, the party could not find someone to stand for a vacant ward in Mel Stride's patch on Mid Devon District Council.

Oh dear. While Labour rips itself apart on welfare, it seems that one Tory MP is determined to get the focus back on his party. Mark Pritchard, the Hon. Member for the Wrekin, stood up during Keir Starmer's statement on Nato today to offer some much-needed cover for our under-fire PM. Pritchard took aim at his leader Kemi Badenoch, after she criticised Starmer for taking the UK from being a 'strategic player on the global stage' to 'the sidelines'. He told the House: As far as possible in this place, it would be better to keep partisan politics out of national security issues. And who knows, I may get the whip withdrawn for saying that. But so be it. There are things that go beyond party politics.

It is a year ago next week that Labour won the general election. ‘The adults are back in the room!’ proclaimed Treasury minister Darren Jones, shortly after the result. Yet, 12 months on, it seems governing is proving somewhat more difficult than many first thought. Luckily, a group of wonks, hacks and thinkers are on hand to offer the Labour lot a useful dollop of advice… For tonight sees the launch of a new cross-party group of figures concerned about the state of the country. The ‘Fix Britain’ campaign is the brainchild of Munira Mirza, onetime head of Boris Johnson’s No. 10 Policy Unit. She and a group of likeminded politicos are aiming to overhaul Whitehall practices with accountable methods similar to those deployed in the governments of Denmark and Singapore.

US President Donald Trump is taking no prisoners today. Just hours after Trump announced a ceasefire had come into place between Israel and Iran – following the Iranian strikes yesterday evening on Doha – now the President has sent a message to Israel, warning against further strikes in a rather, um, explicit fashion. Taking first to his Truth Social platform, Trump issued a concise memo: ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW! Speaking to reporters before today's Nato summit in The Hague, the US President then went on to fume that he is 'not happy' with Israel.

Oh dear. It seems that the office of the Hon. Member for Spen Valley has put their foot in it again. Kim Leadbeater might have hoped for a quieter life now that her much-criticised Assisted Dying Private Members’ Bill narrowly scraped through the Commons by 23 votes on Friday. But Leadbeater has started the new week off in the worst possible way in her capacity as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.Leadbeater’s office gaily sent around an email to her Labour comrades this afternoon, giving them their lines to take at this week’s oral questions on Thursday. ‘Dear colleagues’, it began, ‘we’re writing ahead… to share a few suggested questions for tabling.

On Thursday night, a group of Palestine Action protestors managed to enter RAF Brize Norton, spraying paint into a pair of Voyager jet engines and leaving the military base without being caught. The Prime Minister has since called it 'vandalism' and there has been talk of proscribing Palestine Action.  But Mr S wants to know how they managed to get onto the base in the first place. The protesters videoed themselves on scooters, zooming about the runway, seemingly without a single soldier noticing them. It's a major embarrassment, not just for the military but for the country – especially at a time of heightened global tensions. If some keffiyeh-wearing hippies can scoot into our military bases undetected, what of trained foreign operatives hoping to do real damage?

Summer is here! And you know what gorgeous weather means: more small boats crossing the Channel. Get ready for the great Starmada in the coming weeks, as thousands more migrants prepare to sail the 21 miles from Calais to Dover. The current crisis has been going on since 2018, when Sajid Javid – the-then Home Secretary – felt the need to cut short his holiday after 100 migrants crossed in a 24-hour period. Those were the days... Now Mr S has got some polling and it seems that the public are accepting these crossings as inevitable. A survey done by Merlin Strategy of 2,000 UK adults between 17 and 18 June shows that 51 per cent of Brits think that the government will never be able to stop the boats – including 7 in 10 Reform 2024 voters.