Steerpike

Oh dear. It seems Michael Heseltine ought to prepare for a visit from the RSPCA in the next week or so. The former Deputy Prime Minister has admitted to a crime, in an interview in this month's Tatler. The 83-year-old conservative makes the confession that he strangled his mother's pet dog, by the name of Kim. The incident occurred after Kim, an Alsatian, started biting Heseltine when the politician attempted to stroke him: ‘I went to stroke him and he started biting me. If you have a dog that turns, you just cannot risk it. So I took Kim’s collar – a short of choker chain – and pulled it tight. Suddenly he went limp.

Michael Gove has been keeping himself busy this week with his non-apology apology tour. He came close to saying sorry to Boris Johnson and admitted he made mistakes during the party’s summer leadership contest. But he has saved his biggest about-turn for this morning. In his column in The Times today, the Brexit backer has admitted he's fallen head over heels for an unlikely person: Ed Balls. Where once the pair traded blows across the despatch box, Gove has now changed his tune and declared his true feeling for his former adversary. He said that ‘against (his) better judgement...

Spare a thought for John McDonnell. The shadow chancellor was up and about early this morning to criticise Theresa May on the airwaves for her stance on Brexit. But while McDonnell was eager to get his message across, Mr S wonders whether he might have forgotten something before he left the house. It seems by the time he got around to delivering his actual speech this morning, it was breakfast, rather than Brexit, which was on his mind. Here's what he said: 'The Government is hurtling towards a chaotic breakfast that will damage our economy and hurt the poorest and most vulnerable most of all.' Still, at least McDonnell can console himself with the fact that he isn't the first politician to confuse breakfast and Brexit.

Poor old David Cameron. His defeat in the referendum campaign left critics saying he was the worst Prime Minister ever. Now, it seems, it’s not only his legacy which falls short of some of his predecessors. Having quit Parliament, Dave was planning to use the next year to cash in on his memoirs. When his book was first touted, there was talk of the former PM earning a multi-million pound payment. Some said his advance could even match - or beat - that of Tony Blair, who picked up £4.6m for his book ‘A Journey’. Instead, the actual amount Cameron will earn is something of a disappointment. It’s being reported today that he'll get an advance of £800,000 for his book.

Just when you thought it was confined to political folklore, the EdStone returns again to haunt Labour. Mr S was interested to learn this morning that the Electoral Commission has fined the party £20,000 for failing to declare the money spent on the doomed eight-foot tombstone. Labour failed to declare £7,614 worth of receipts for the stone plinth, which form part of 74 payments worth £123,748 that appear to have been missed out of the declaration of expenses from the 2015 electoral campaign. The commission's fine is the largest of its kind since it was set up in 2001. Were the receipts lost in the post? Or were they ripped up at the same point that the EdStone was smashed to pieces by Miliband's loyal political flunkeys?

Steven Woolfe has said Ukip is in a ‘death spiral’ and on the basis of the latest candidate to join the party’s leadership contest, it seems like he might be right. John Rees-Evans announced this morning that he was throwing his hat in the ring to replace Nigel Farage at the top of the party. Rees-Evans is a relative outsider in the race and few know quite what he stands for. But what is known about the Ukip leadership candidate is that he once accused a ‘gay donkey’ of trying to ‘rape’ his horse. And during his leadership pitch on the Daily Politics, he was keen to try and move on from what he called ‘playful banter with a mischievous activist’.

During the EU referendum, there was a fierce contest between Vote Leave and Grassroots Out over which would win the official designation to campaign for Out. In the end, it went to Vote Leave -- after it was decided that they held the widest cross-party support. Part of the issue was that the majority of eurosceptic Conservative MPs backed Vote Leave. This was down -- in part -- to an unhelpful interview, Grassroots Out's Arron Banks gave to the Times. The Ukip donor struck a low note when he accused David Cameron of using his late disabled son Ivan as a prop over NHS policy. At the time, the comments were put down to the Ukip donor having one too many during the interview. So, has time healed old wounds? Apparently not.

Although Chuka Umunna was widely tipped to succeed Keith Vaz as chair of the home affairs select committee, in the end it was Yvette Cooper who proved triumphant. In fact, Umunna came a distant third in the election -- with Caroline Flint coming second. So, what went wrong? The word being put round Westminster is that the vote was split between Cooper and Umunna until the Tories -- allegedly worried that Umunna would prove too great a threat as chair and then have a springboard to become leader -- conspired to thwart the New Labour darling. Alas, this version of events fails to ring true in the Conservative camp. 'Let's just say no Tories were losing sleep over Umunna's bid,' Mr S's mole retorts. 'He might want to look closer to home'.

Theresa May’s track record of telling jokes in the Commons isn’t good. Last month at Prime Minister’s Questions, her wise cracks went down badly and she was criticised by a Labour MP for telling ‘silly jokes when asked serious questions’. At today’s PMQs, she was at it again - and Mr S is pleased to report she had much more luck in making her fellow MPs laugh. Backbencher Peter Bone has long been a thorn in the side of Tory leaders. But ever since the Brexit vote, he's been somewhat more upbeat about life. And on his birthday today, he had an extra reason to be happy. Yet despite his good mood, he probably wouldn’t have been bracing himself for Theresa May’s risqué reply to his question about prisons.

Another day, another piece of embarrassing data for those who predicted that the Brexit vote would trigger an immediate recession. Their foundation was based on the belief that confidence would plunge. As things turn out the Deloitte Consumer tracker has hit an all-time high. It has only been running for five years, so the real story could be even more impressive. And while George Osborne was talking about half a million jobs going as a result of the Brexit vote, the Deloitte survey found a strong increase in confidence of job security, up from -10 per cent to -4 per cent. [caption id="attachment_9651592" align="alignnone" width="560"] Source: Deloitte[/caption] And how does this compare with what was being said about consumer confidence before the vote?

Emily Thornberry put in a memorable performance on Question Time last night. Unfortunately for the shadow foreign secretary, it was an appearance that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons. Thornberry was heckled after sucking up to Corbyn, and she managed to make the audience groan when she claimed what united Labour was ‘so much more than what divides us’ (Mr S suspects there are many Labour MPs who might disagree with that view). Thornberry also tried to claim Labour were more grown-up than the Tories, saying her party fought ‘in the press’ rather than ‘in closed rooms’. But she saved her biggest clanger for when she was talking about Brexit.

With Seumas Milne on the way out as Jeremy Corbyn's director of communications, he is widely expected to return to the Grauniad. The columnist and associate editor has been 'on leave' from the paper since he moved to the Leader's Office last October. However, Mr S hears there is a slight hiccup delaying his much anticipated return. While bosses at the top of the paper are keen for Milne to return as a columnist -- complete with inside knowledge of the Corbyn regime that would make for essential reading --  some have reservations over Milne coming back as an 'associate editor'. They feel that if Milne were to take on a role overseeing the the editorial line of the paper this could lead to 'complications'.

Since the -- fast depleting -- SNP 56 descended on Parliament last year, there have been a number of incidents -- from clapping in the Chamber to trespassing through the Chancellor's office -- that suggest the majority are not taking to Westminster etiquette like ducks to water. However, could it be one of the SNP's longest standing MPs who has the most to learn? Today Angus MacNeil -- the MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar since 2005 -- was taken to task in the chamber by the speaker over his unstatesman-like behaviour. Bercow accused MacNeil of chewing gum while contributing to the Brexit debate: 'Mr MacNeil, you are an exceptionally boisterous fellow and in the course of your boisterous behaviour you appear to be chewing some sort of gum.