Steerpike

Dear oh dear. Mr S reported on Saturday that former Conservative science minister George Freeman was under scrutiny over Sunday Times reports about his £60,000-a-year adviser gig to GHGSat Limited. Now it transpires that the Tory MP for Mid Norfolk has been suspended from his role as government trade envoy after the allegations he was paid by the eco-innovators to reportedly submit parliamentary questions about the sector the firm operates in. As revealed by the Sunday broadsheet, leaked emails showed Freeman asking the director of the environment monitoring firm GHGSat Limited 'what to ask about'. Submitting tailored queries to ministers about the sector could have handed the company a commercial advantage – and would break multiple rules in the MPs' code of conduct.

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.

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.