Steerpike

Oh dear. Trouble is brewing at Lib Dem HQ over Sarah Olney. After losing her seat by 45 votes in the snap election, Olney was quickly appointed as Vince Cable’s Chief of Staff – beating several more conventional candidates (i.e. trained press officers) to the coveted job. At the time, Olney made a verbal agreement with Cable that she would not stand as a Parliamentary candidate – given that this would mean she would be unable to continue as Chief of Staff. So there was much surprise this month when Olney stepped down from the role so she could campaign to retake her old seat.

Oh dear. As resignations go, there has been some tough competition for the most newsworthy in recent years – from Nigel Farage's unresignation to the entire Labour shadow cabinet's to Priti Patel's last week. However, up until now, Mr S had yet to come across a resignation from a job that it is unclear they still held. Step forward George Freeman. This afternoon Labour have gone on the attack over the news that Freeman – as he himself announced in a ConHome blog this morning – has 'stood down' from his role in No 10.

Although Jeremy Corbyn has seen a number of celebrity supporters come and go, Martin Freeman has at least proved loyal. The Hobbit actor has spoken in favour of the Labour leader – and appeared in party broadcasts. Indeed on the Andrew Marr show this morning, Freeman once again endorsed Corbyn. Only this time he added a caveat – making clear he supported Corbyn primarily because he was the leader of the Labour party as given that Labour is his 'team', he would support whoever held that role: AM: You quite like Jeremy Corbyn as a man, don't you? MF: Yes, generally I think most people do, a lot of Tories quite like him as a decent person – they can get their head around that.

Christmas is meant to be the season of goodwill. Alas, no-one at Labour HQ appears to have got the memo. The Labour party have released their Christmas cards – with a distinct Conservative vibe this year. Corbyn's party has used the festive opportunity to make fun of Theresa May's conference speech where the letters fell from the board behind her – meaning the slogan of 'building a country that works for everyone' soon became confused. Yours for a mere £8...

This week, there was a rare sight for the post snap-election political landscape: two Labour MPs having a barney. On the first day of the Committee Stage of the EU Withdrawal Bill, Frank Field and Hilary Benn became engaged in an argument after Field, a 'reluctant Brexiteer', used a house analogy to argue in favour of the government amendment calling for the date of Britain's departure from the EU in the bill. He said he had never bought a house 'without having in the contract the date when it’s mine'. Benn, the son of Tony Benn, hit back by saying the analogy was lacking as 'nobody commits to a date to buy a house before they know what it is that they’re buying'.

The mammoth debate on the government’s EU withdrawal bill has only just started – but already it is turning nasty. Labour’s Frank Field was one of the first to speak and used the opportunity to take a none-too-subtle dig at Hilary Benn, telling his fellow Labour MP: ‘I’ve always bought my houses, never inherited them’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e76Sim6IXDM Unsurprisingly, Benn was not happy, repeatedly telling Field: 'I bought mine too.' Field took his comment back but the damage was done and his colleagues on the Labour backbenchers were none too impressed.

When the EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the House tomorrow, Theresa May is hoping Tory MPs – and some Labour rebels – will be persuaded to play ball. However, an appearance on the Daily Politics by Labour's Frank Field and Nicky Morgan offered an insight into the difficulties ahead. https://twitter.com/daily_politics/status/930045852600508416 Only it wasn't the Labour MP doing the attacking. With little love lost between Morgan and May since Trouser-gate – which saw the former education secretary take aim at the Prime Minister for her extensive choice in leather trousers – today Morgan poured fuel on the fire.

It’s safe to say that Alex Salmond’s decision to host a talk show on Russia Today has not gone down well. The former first minister has been widely condemned for taking the controversial gig on the Russian-funded channel. Nicola Sturgeon has also now joined in, saying that she would have advised her predecessor 'against RT and suggested he seek a different channel to air what I am sure he will be an entertaining show’. But somewhat embarrassingly for Sturgeon, Salmond isn’t the only SNP figure to make an appearance on the channel. SNP politicians have popped up on RT nearly 50 times in recent years. Admittedly, Salmond himself accounted for many of those appearances. But a current SNP MP, Douglas Chapman, has also made several appearances on RT.

Priti Patel’s working holiday to Israel – in which she held secret meetings with Israeli politicians, including the country’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu – has landed her in hot water. Despite the backlash to Patel’s foreign escapade, however, it seems her jet set lifestyle shows no sign of stopping. In Parliament this afternoon, Patel had a chance to defend herself and tell MPs what she got up to on her summer trip. The only hitch? She couldn't make it. In Patel’s absence, it was left to her deputy, Alistair Burt, to fill in. So where was Patel? 'She is presently in the air,' he told MPs to laughter in the Commons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

The big story that British journos are now desperate to break is 'How Russia hacked Brexit'. Once that rolls out, Britain can be like America, where nobody knows if Vladimir Putin is their true master or just the bogeyman of a paranoid elite. But newspapers should be wary: Russia collusion stories can make the press look deeply silly. Mr Steerpike hears, for instance, that this summer the New York Times fell hook, line and sinker for a great Trump-Russia hoax in London. Apparently, an unknown source contacted the Gray Lady to say he had Russia-related kompromat material which could bring down the US President -- but he had to give it to them in person. Where? On the Abbey Road, by the famous zebra crossing.