Steerpike

It's tough being a woman in the Labour party. As well as having little chance of becoming party leader, it seems that those who do get close to power are often not treated with the same courtesy as their male counterparts. At least that's what Harriet Harman thinks. Speaking at a Press Gallery lunch to promote her memoir A Woman's Work, Labour's former deputy leader recalled the occasions on which she had fallen victim to seemingly sexist behaviour during Gordon Brown's premiership. After being elected deputy leader, Harman had thought she would get to sit next to the Prime Minister at Cabinet: 'You're elected deputy leader, amazingly -- against all the odds and against the runaway favourite. You get to be deputy leader.

Although Nicholas Soames recently urged the Foreign Secretary to show more kindness and understanding when dealing with one's opponent, he appears to take a different attitude himself. Winston Churchill's grandson was today reprimanded by the Speaker after it emerged that he had barked at a female SNP MP as she spoke in the chamber. The incident occurred as Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh responded to Boris Johnson's statement on President Trump's visa ban. Ahmed-Sheikh later raised a point of order: 'I understand that the right honourable member for Mid Sussex, who has always afforded me courtesy and respect, was making woof woof sounding noises to what I was saying -- which I find extremely disrespectful.

After Isabel Oakeshott co-authored Call Me Dave with Lord Ashcroft, the former Sunday Times political editor became the scourge of the Cameroons thanks to a story involving the former prime minister and a pig. However, despite this, she made a return to Fleet Street as the Daily Mail's political editor-at-large. A year on (and after months of speculation) Oakeshott is on manoeuvres. The paper's political editor-at-large -- from Westminster to Ascot -- is departing the Mail to focus on her book writing: https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/824564786444824578 While the new project is expected to cast a light on defence spending, the fact Oakeshott and Ashcroft are back in action will no doubt have Westminster politicos on red alert.

Oh dear. To describe today's Prime Minister's Questions as bad for Labour would be an understatement. After Jeremy Corbyn was put on the backfoot by Theresa May over the government's Brexit white paper, he was left lost for words as he stumbled around for questions. To make matters worse, he also managed to mess up an attempt to offer his condolences to the police officer 'who lost his life' in Northern Ireland. The snag? The police office in question is not dead. In truth, the police officer is alive after being shot in the arm. https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/824232821531164672 It then fell on Nigel Dodds to correct Corbyn on his error. No doubt Corbyn was pleased to learn of his mistake.

Thanks to the Home Office's crackdown on hate crime, the Home Secretary recently found her conference speech officially recorded as a ‘hate incident’, after an Oxford University physics professor complained to the police that she was ‘picking on foreigners’. However, Mr S can't help but wonder if Amber Rudd will soon be joined by her former colleague David Cameron on the 'hate incident' list. In a speech at Davos, Cameron told the global elite how he tends to spend his days now he is no longer prime minister. The Mail on Sunday reports that Cameron said he had taken up shooting again -- with a specific focus on taking down 'Borises and Michaels': 'I have used the extra time to take up shooting again.

Is there something in the water at BBC broadcasting house? First Theresa May appears on Marr where she refuses to answer a question on Trident four times, then Diane Abbott comes up blank four times on Sunday Politics when asked about Labour's Brexit position. The shadow home secretary struggled as Andrew Neil asked her a series of questions regarding her party's position on exiting the European Union. Although Jeremy Corbyn previously suggested there would be a three-line whip on MPs to vote for Article 50, Abbott refused four times to say how the party will whip the vote.