Steerpike

Earlier this month, Derek Hatton told Mr S of his dismay after the former deputy leader of Liverpool Council’s application to attend this year's Labour conference was denied. Although he had just wanted to attend in the capacity of a journalist, the former Militant member -- who was expelled from Labour 29 years ago -- was told this was not possible: ‘The Liverpool Echo asked me to write a conference diary but I was told two weeks ago the application had been declined. It wasn’t even for a political journal – it was for the Liverpool Echo. It’s not surprising though with the way the party are excluding people at the moment.’ Now with Corbyn's mandate increased it seems times are a'changing.

Although David Cameron's political career took a nose dive after the EU referendum result, he has been doing his best to ensure that his old chums don't too badly out of the situation. Take for example, Ed Llewellyn -- Cameron's former Chief of Staff. As well as being given a peerage in Cameron's resignation honours, Llewellyn has been appointed her Majesty’s Ambassador to France. While it had been previously reported that Cameron was lining up his mate for the plum job, the news has been confirmed today with a statement from Boris Johnson: 'Ed Llewellyn is hugely well qualified for this post and I look forward to working with him. He has served his country in Bosnia and Hong Kong and has extensive experience of Europe.

It's difficult being a Lefty. You come up with principled positions and stances and then people expect you to stand by them. So, spare a thought for Caroline Lucas. Although the Green Party has campaigned for a £10 per hour minimum wage, today the Green MP's team placed a job advert looking for a press assistant for the not-so-princely sum of £9.23 per hour. https://twitter.com/MitchellAT/status/778192445792194560 When brains at Green HQ clocked the error of their ways -- apparently down to an admin error -- they came up with a simple work over.

There’s a great scoop in The Times today. A political columnist, former chief leader writer of a national newspaper was, unbeknown to readers, acting as David Cameron’s chief stenographer for six years. In his columns he’d present himself as a former Tory official, retired and out of action. Full of self-deprecating anecdotes about what happened back in the day when he was working for William Hague. What he failed to disclose was that, in between writing opinion pieces for his newspaper and acting as its Executive Editor, he was scurrying off to Downing Street to take dictation for the Prime Minister on a monthly basis. He recorded Cameron’s ramblings, hoping a to use them for a memoir for which the PM is keen to bag a million quid.

Any Britain politician of note will at some point in their career face the question: what is your favourite biscuit? While David Cameron opted for oatcakes, Gordon Brown had to take a recess to consider his options -- before returning to say that anything with 'a bit of chocolate' would suffice. Today it was Jeremy Corbyn's turn to step up to the plate. Although the question was inevitable, the Labour leader showed little enthusiasm for any type of biscuit. Instead, he launched into a lecture on the danger of sugar: 'I'm totally anti-sugar on health grounds, so eat very few biscuits, but if forced to accept one, it's always a pleasure to have a shortbread.' Alas, Mr S doesn't quite buy this. After all if Corbyn has such an issue with sugar, how does he make all that jam?

In recent months, Derek Hatton has been taking to the airwaves to wax lyrical about Jeremy Corbyn. Although the former deputy leader of Liverpool Council's request to rejoin the party 29 years after they expelled him was turned down, he remains a supporter of the Corbyn regime. So, with this year's party conference in his home city of Liverpool, Hatton was keen to attend the event. What's more, Mr S understands that the Liverpool Echo decided it would be a good idea to get Hatton to write a conference diary for the paper and so he applied for a press pass. Alas brains at Labour HQ have deemed Hatton to not be suitable press pass material.

Although Alex Salmond is Scotland's First Minister no more, luckily the public still have a chance to hear the SNP politician's thoughts on a weekly basis thanks to his LBC phone-in. Today Salmond led the charge for Nicola Sturgeon blocking Brexit: 'If Scotland could block Brexit, then I think Nicola Sturgeon should do that. I think Nicola Sturgeon should take her instruction from the verdict of the Scottish people; she's Scottish First Minister. If you remember the Scottish people voted decisively to remain.

Although David Cameron's resignation honours were widely criticised for cronyism, it's fair to say that Jeremy Corbyn's one appointment to the House of Lords caused just as much upset. The Labour leader was accused of a conflict of interest for giving Shami Chakrabarti a peerage after she chaired his anti-Semitism inquiry. Apparently unfazed by the negative publicity, Baroness Chakrabarti of Kennington was introduced into the Lords today. Alas, it seems she couldn't find reason to smile.

Since the nation voted to leave the European Union in the referendum, Brexit has been described as a lot of things by a lot of people. However, until now Mr S had not heard it be described as sexy. At today's European Union Select Committee, David Davis -- the Brexit secretary -- claimed that his brief is the 'sexiest area of politics'. He made the comments as he answered a question on the possibility of establishing a 'clearing house' where interested parties can get in touch with the department: 'As you can imagine -- because this really is the sexiest area of politics at the moment -- everybody writes to us. And my department at the moment is actually quite tiny, it's quadrupled in one month.