Steerpike

Spare a thought for the ladies of Labour. After years spent campaigning for gender equality, they are yet to have a leader who is a woman while the Tories are onto their second female Prime Minister. So, it was an interesting move by Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, today to take a pop at the government's foreign office team over the lack of women in top roles: ET: We do wish the all-male ministerial team well at this crucial time Alas there was a problem with Lady Nugee's accusation -- as Alan Duncan was on hand to point out: AD: May I thank the honourable lady for her warm welcome to me at least, but I would respectfully point out to her that her noble Baroness Anelay, who is also a minister of state at the Foreign Office, was a woman when I last spoke to her.

Oh dear. With nominations for the next Labour leader set to open in a matter of hours, now is not the best time for either leadership hopeful to suffer a PR disaster. Alas, this is exactly what has happened to Owen Smith thanks to an interview he gave to Sky News. In the interview, Smith appears to claim that he is normal because he has a wife and children: https://twitter.com/SuperRetroid/status/755049835938611205 Given that his leadership rival Angela Eagle is a lesbian with no children, his comments are not going down well with liberal Labour supporters. Many have taken his words to show prejudice towards the childless as well as the LGBT community.

With Labour in turmoil, Owen Smith and Angela Eagle have both spent their Sunday explaining why they should be the one to challenge Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership.  So with a leadership contest looming, how has Corbyn spent the weekend? Catching Pokémon, it turns out. In a short film for the BBC, the beleaguered Labour leader can be seen trying out Pokémon Go, the new phone app currently taking over the world. Unfortunately Corbyn hits an initial bump in the road after Seumas Milne -- his director of strategy and communications --  stands in the way of Corbyn's phone. Happily, they overcome this and his efforts are soon rewarded when Corbyn manages to catch the character Krabby; 'our work this morning has not been in vain'. Vive la Revolution!

This week, Mr S made his way to Boisdale to watch his Spectator comrade Rod Liddle give the key address at the fifth annual Freedom Dinner. Hosted by Forest, Liddle stayed on-message at the libertarian bash -- speaking freely on a range of topics from his Labour suspension to the Guardian's Comment is Free section. Here is the speech in full: Many thanks for inviting me here tonight. I have been told that I was picked to deliver this address from among a very large list of people, solely because I have children and am a mother. This gives me great empathy and understanding and also the right to amend my CV whenever the feeling takes me. That was a star which rose and fell rather speedily, wasn’t it? Before we even learned how to pronounce her name.

It's not a great day to be an ambitious Tory who attended a private school -- let alone Eton. After Theresa May promised to work to build a society with a focus on helping the working class rather than the rich, she has started by implementing this approach in her Cabinet. George Osborne, Nicky Morgan, Theresa Villiers and Oliver Letwin are among the privately-educated politicians to face the axe today. Meanwhile, the majority of the high profile briefs have gone to state school educated politicians. Alongside May, the Chancellor -- Philip Hammond -- and the Justice Secretary -- Liz Truss  -- attended a state school. Meanwhile Justine Greening has made history by becoming the first ever Education Secretary to attend a comprehensive.

Today's PMQs have proved to be a lively affair as David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn traded jibes at the despatch box for the last time. While the Labour leader found time to praise the Prime Minister's time in power, Cameron was less obliging when it came to Corbyn. As well as ridiculing Labour for its ongoing row about the leadership rules, he took a leaf from Corbyn's book by reading out an email he had received from a member of the public. The email -- from a woman by the name of Judith -- had been sent ahead of Cameron's first ever PMQs with Corbyn. In it, she warned Cameron to not go hard on his opponent, as if Corbyn left things would look worse for the Tories: 'She said "please, please keep dignity and not triumphalism at the first PMQs with Jeremy Corbyn".

News of Theresa May's coronation as the next Prime Minister is - as you'd expect - emblazoned on the front page of every newspaper today. However, the Daily Mail has gone one step further than its rivals -- claiming, pretty much, that it enstooled May itself. And  judging by its jubilations, if seems that Paul Dacre sees her as a Manchurian candidate programmed from High Street Kensington. In fact, on reading their article 'how the Mail backed May from the start', one could be forgiven for thinking that the paper's editor Paul Dacre was moving into No.10 with May come Wednesday: 'The Daily Mail was the first newspaper to throw its weight behind Theresa May in the race to succeed David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Today the Eagle has landed. After touring television studios yesterday with talk that she would run to be the next Labour leader, Angela Eagle officially launched her campaign this morning. Alas there was a problem. As the launch neared its end, Andrea Leadsom managed to upstage her by putting on a rival press conference to announce that she was dropping out of the Tory leadership race. As hacks raced across Westminster to make it to Leadsom's conference, the Labour leadership hopeful was left red-faced as she tried to take questions from the BBC and then ITV's Robert Peston only to learn that they weren't there.

Oh dear. Today Jeremy Corbyn fuelled concerns that he isn't interested in winning power when he failed to say that winning a general election was a priority, during an appearance on the Andrew Marr Show. Now Jon Lansman, the Momentum chief, has waded into the 'should winning matter to a major political party?' debate. After tweeting his followers to urge them to stand by Jeremy Corbyn in the face of the Labour coup, former Blair spinner John McTernan responded by suggesting that Corbynistas only care about their leader -- rather than the party or country: https://twitter.