Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
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Last night BBC staff and musicians alike assembled at Portcullis House to back UK Music’s Let it Beeb campaign. As guests including Lord Hall, Sandie Shaw and Anneka Rice raised a glass to the campaign which aims to protect BBC music services from the threat of charter renewal, MPs including Ed Vaizey and Jess Phillips made
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At this year’s Tory conference Jeremy Hunt defended the government’s tax credit cuts, claiming they would make the British people work as hard as the Chinese. While Hunt has since claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, tonight Labour’s Helen Goodman hit out at the Health Secretary for the comments. She says if things are so great in China
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This morning Nicola Sturgeon said in an interview on the Andrew Marr Show that a second referendum on Scottish independence is now ‘inevitable’: ‘I’ve always believed and I still believe today that Scotland will become independent and it will become independent in my lifetime.’ While many unionists were quick to point out that Sturgeon had said
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In Mhairi Black’s maiden speech in the House of Commons, the young SNP MP voiced her opposition to the Tories by criticising George Osborne over his party’s housing policy. However, despite calling the Conservatives ‘a really dangerous party’ in an interview with the Guardian, it appears Black has at least softened in her approach to some members of
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This week’s Tory conference made the headlines after journalists and Tory supporters attending the event were spat at and egged. With Labour MPs quick to condemn the actions of protesters in Manchester, today it fell upon the Guardian‘s Zoe Williams to come to the defence of the spitting protesters. Speaking on the Daily Politics, Williams said
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Earlier this week Mr S reported how Robert Peston’s appointment as ITV’s new political editor had led his former BBC colleagues to place a sign outside their press room at Tory conference making it clear that he was no longer welcome. Now, in a further sign that his new job has not gone down well with his former
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Today Jeremy Corbyn has cancelled his attendance at what would have been his first meeting of the Queen’s Privy Council due to ‘prior commitments’. Of course naysayers have been quick to jump on this, with Alan Duncan claiming that Corbyn snubbing his first chance to be sworn in suggests that he is not a serious political figure.
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In David Cameron’s conference speech this lunchtime, the Prime Minister spoke about a voter who had reached out to him ahead of the election. He said that it was never too late to vote Tory given that an 82-year-old man by the name of Bernard Harris had written to him and said that despite being
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The Prime Minister was feeling in a rather fruity mood when he gave his conference speech today, managing to make not one, but two off-script sex jokes. The first involved his wife Samantha and Richard Murphy, the professor of Corbynomics. Discussing the dangers of a Corbyn-led Labour which believes in ‘renationalisation without compensation, jacking up taxes
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This week it was reported that Robert Peston is leaving his role as the BBC’s economics editor to join ITV as their political editor. As part of the new job, he is expected to be the host of a Sunday morning politics programme which the broadcaster hopes will rival The Andrew Marr Show. Unsurprisingly the news
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Although Tory conference has so far been a rather dull affair with senior politicians sticking to the party line at all times, one of the new intake of Tory MPs did manage to spice things up last night. In an interview with Iain Dale on LBC, Heidi Allen gave surprisingly honest answers when asked who she would like to
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Although Cabinet Ministers are said to be on strict instructions to refrain from insulting or mocking Jeremy Corbyn in their conference speeches, the Chancellor of the Exchequer couldn’t resist taking a dig at the Labour leader on Monday night. As Corbyn was speaking to a packed crowd of protesters across town, Osborne found room in his speech at
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So farewell, then, Jonathan Portes. As CoffeeHousers may know, he was chief economist in the Cabinet Office under Gordon Brown but in recent years he has been director of the NIESR, an economic research institute, which he used as a platform to continue leftist attacks against conservatives. He pretty much lives on Twitter, when he’s not bothering
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer set out his vision for a brighter Britain in his conference speech today, explaining that the party are laying the groundwork for a strong economy in the future. To show his commitment to doing just that, the MP for Tatton opted to use an example that proves how he puts the
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This morning Charlotte Church apologised on behalf of the People’s Assembly to a reporter who was spat at by protesters outside Tory conference in Manchester. The classical-singer-turned-activist says that she will pen an open letter explaining that this is not representative of what the People’s Assembly protests are about. However, she may want to save
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After a Second World War memorial was vandalised during an anti-Tory protest after the election, Laurie Penny was one of the few people to defend the crime, claiming the vandalism was nothing when compared to the ‘destruction of the welfare state’. Now the Guardian feminist has turned her attention to yesterday’s protests outside Tory conference. Several journalists were spat
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Oh dear. With the People’s Assembly organising a week of protests to coincide with the Tory conference, things have got off to a bad start today as protesters have turned their attention to the journalists covering the event. Channel 4’s Michael Crick says that a protester shouted ‘Tory scum’ in his direction, before spitting in
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Earlier this year Raheem Kassam stood down as Nigel Farage’s senior aide after he became involved in a dispute within Ukip over his influence on the party leader following a lacklustre election result. Since then, Kassam has returned to the job he had before he joined Ukip, editing the website Breitbart London. So Mr S was surprised to
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With Zac Goldsmith today announced as the Conservative candidate for the 2015 London mayoral race, the Tory MP will now face Sadiq Khan in the race to succeed Boris Johnson as mayor. However, one man who feels he should not be forgotten as a contender is George Galloway. Galloway — who is running as an independent candidate for mayor
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Last night’s episode of Question Time saw David Dimbleby relocate to Cardiff to join Charlotte Church, Charles Moore, Stephen Crabb, Labour’s Stephen Kinnock and Plaid Cymru’s Leanne Wood for a Welsh debate. While questions were raised about the future of Plaid Cymru after a lacklustre election result, the first topic on the agenda touched on whether Jeremy Corbyn could still