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
Mr S notices that the above video is circulating a lot on social media at the moment. An unfortunate choice of words, from a pro-immigration Chancellor. Perhaps George Osborne was paying homage to Rowan Atkinson's Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch. Or perhaps the Chancellor needs to get a little better at not walking into such traps if he hopes to succeed David Cameron.
Since Jess Phillips was elected as the MP for Birmingham Yardley in May, the Labour politician has become known for her outspoken views -- previously telling Diane Abbott to 'f--- off'. However, her straight-talking approach reached new heights during last night's episode of Question Time after she likened the Cologne sex attacks to a night out in Birmingham. Discussing the refugee crisis on a panel made up of Angus Robertson, Patrick McLoughlin and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Jess Phillips was asked whether Britain could cope with more immigrants in light of the Cologne sex attacks in Germany or the woman who was killed in Sweden.
Oh dear. It's not turning out to be a great week for staff at the Treasury. After George Osborne declared that a £130m tax settlement they had reached with Google was a 'major success', he faced a cross-party backlash as it was pointed out that the internet giant had only paid a tax rate of three per cent. As anger grows over the arrangement, both Google and the Treasury have been attracting negative publicity on a daily basis. Now Treasury staffers have been dealt another blow. Mr S hears that internet at the Treasury cut out on Thursday morning for a number of hours -- meaning staff couldn't even use Google. 'You could call it Karma,' mutters Mr S's disgruntled government mole.
Once the Independent's star columnist, Johann Hari experienced a dramatic fall from grace when he was suspended by the paper on grounds of plagiarism. It was then revealed that as well as lifting quotes from interviews and books, Hari had also found time to amend the Wikipedia pages of his rival journalists. Happily, it seems none of these details were deemed important enough to merit a mention in his new book 'Chasing The Scream' in his author biography.
Although David Cameron has said he will allow ministers a free vote on the EU referendum, only a handful of cabinet ministers have so far taken the plunge and declared themselves to be 'Outers'. While Boris Johnson had at one point been tipped to lead the Out campaign, the Mayor of London has remained rather quiet on the matter of late. However, if his family's movements are anything to go by, he may well be preparing to get behind the Prime Minister on the matter. This week two members of the Johnson clan have suggested that they wish to remain in the EU.
While Hilary Benn has been called a lot of names in recent months by hard-left activists after he voted in favour of airstrikes in Syria, Mr S suspects that the moniker given to him on tonight's episode of Newsnight will be a first. Introducing an interview with Benn on the war in Yemen, Newsnight's Evan Davis appeared to be feeling creative with regards to the shadow foreign secretary's name -- referring to him as 'Hilary Big Benn': 'And a little earlier I spoke to the shadow foreign secretary Hilary Big Benn and I began by asking him what he wants the British government to do now in light of the criticisms in the report.' Mr S commends Davis for managing to keep a straight face until the end.
David Cameron has today come under fire after he used the phrase 'a bunch of migrants' to describe the refugees Jeremy Corbyn met on a recent trip to Calais. Various politicians and columnists have since claimed Cameron's words were 'divisive' and 'dehumanising'. Alex Salmond has gone one step further and accused him of making the controversial comment on purpose as part of a 'dead cat strategy' to distract from the government's ongoing Google tax row. However, Anna Soubry has leapt to Cameron's defence claiming the phrasing was a slip in the heat of the moment -- adding that anybody who says that it was scripted is 'being silly and playing cheap politics'.
Even though Robert Peston has only been in his new job as ITV's political editor for little more than a week, he has already managed to slip-up. On top of experiencing difficulties getting into the ITV building, the former BBC economics editor -- who Marr once described as a man ‘crippled by a sense of his own lack of self-worth’ -- managed to refer to Liz Kendall as 'Liz Corbyn' during one of his first broadcast interviews. However, should any of his former BBC colleagues struggle to take him seriously, they may now need to reconsider. With relations between Labour and the BBC at an all-time low over accusations of anti-Corbyn bias, ITV look set to cash in on their rival's ongoing feud.
Oh dear. It appears that it is time for David Lammy to brush up on his history knowledge. The pro-EU Labour MP appeared on the Daily Politics today to discuss the EU referendum with Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe. During the debate the pair discussed immigration, during which Lammy made the claim that one million Indians had died in the Second World War fighting for the 'European Project'. Happily, Woolfe was on hand to query the claim -- and mention Hitler. DL: One million Indians died fighting for us. They fought for the European project and they're not now going to vote on the basis of whether Granny can come over for a wedding SW: Did you just say they fought for the European project?
Next week the Evening Standard will hold their British Film Awards after a three year hiatus. The exclusive do will be take place at the BBC's old television building in White City where actors including Charlotte Rampling, Michael Fassbender and Dame Maggie Smith will compete for gongs. Happily for those whose invites have been lost in the post, the host of the awards Simon Amstell offered attendees at a comedy gig in Hammersmith a sneak preview of his set last night: 'I don't have any jokes but I am hosting the Evening Standard British film awards next week so I thought that I'd see if some of those jokes are funny.' Amstell then went on to give a run through of his planned awards speech.
It's not turning out to be a great week for the In campaign. Yesterday Britain Stronger in Europe's chairman Stuart Rose failed to remember the name of his own campaign group during a Sky News interview. Now they have been given an unfortunate new nickname by their opponents. Speaking on Today, Vote Leave's Jon Moynihan put forward the argument for leaving the EU. To make his point, he claimed that the In campaign tactics show that the group are clutching at straws. Instead of making a positive case for remaining in the EU, he says they are 'trying to create FUD -- fear, uncertainty and doubt'. Alas, for many north of the border 'fud' has another meaning altogether. The term is Scottish slang for a lady's genitals. https://twitter.
Last year Lord Ashcroft appeared to exact revenge on his old foe David Cameron, with a section in his unauthorised biography of the Prime Minister which suggested that Cameron had once enjoyed intimate relations with a dead pig. While Cameron soon became the subject of much ridicule, No.10 refused to comment on the claims. However, it appears that Cameron's wife Samantha felt more comfortable discussing the claims. The comedian Jason Manford claims that he discussed piggate with SamCam on the set of The Great Sport Relief Bake-Off. Filming began a week after the Daily Mail published the claims as part of their serialisation of Call Me Dave: 'It was the week after - what shall we call it? #PigGate. It was after that had happened.
Although a number of rival groups are currently vying to be the official Out campaign, it seems that some members of the In campaign's Britain Stronger in Europe group appear to be having a harder time remembering what to call themselves. Britain Stronger In Europe's chairman Stuart Rose was unable to name the campaign he fronts, during an interview with Sky News. Instead, Rose listed a number of alternative campaign names in the hope that he would get it right: 'I'm chairman of Stay in Britain.. Better in Britain campaign.. right start again. I'm Stuart Rose and I'm the chairman of the Better in Britain campaign... the Better stay in Britain campaign.
Given that the first rule of spin doctoring is to never become the story, Seumas Milne hasn't had a great few months. First Corbyn's director of comms became the story after several Labour MPs blamed him for this month's reshuffle shambles. Now, Milne is in the firing line over his links with Vladimir Putin. After an inquiry found that Putin 'probably' approved the murder of ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in the UK, a photo of Milne and Putin shaking hands began to do the rounds. Now Labour grandee Lord Soley has hit out at Milne, claiming the former Guardian columnist is a 'friend of tyrants'. The pair met when Milne chaired the Hammersmith Labour party when Soley was the constituency MP.
This week the Prime Minister warned that migrant spouses who fail language tests could be made to leave the UK. Alas David Cameron distracted from his message with two language gaffes this week which led Mr S to ask whether he should be deported. Now it appears the problem has spread, with members of the Home Office also struggling with basic English. A Home Office press release has been sent round offering details on the language test migrant spouses will be asked to complete. However, the brain behind the email has managed to misspell 'language': https://twitter.com/SophyRidgeSky/status/690483177517912064 Mr S hopes that the author of the email is not a migrant spouse, otherwise they could soon find themselves on a plane out of Britain.
During the Labour leadership election, Guardian readers complained that the paper's Jeremy Corbyn coverage was worse than its coverage of the Vietnam war. The paper then launched an in-house investigation into the claims, concluding that while they could have taken Corbyn more seriously in the beginning, this had since been remedied. Now word reaches Steerpike that the Grauniad is set to go one step further. Mr S hears that the paper's editor Katharine Viner is on a mission to make the paper even more Corbynista-friendly. Alas this appears to mean that some members of staff who are not fully at ease with the Corbynista movement are stepping away or at least moving to the sidelines.
There was one infamous invoice missing from the Electoral Commission's campaign spending data yesterday -- that of the EdStone. Labour claimed that the missing invoice was simply down to an 'administrative error' rather than a reluctance for the public to know how much money was spent on the disastrous election gaffe. Happily Bloomberg News have been on the case. They report that recently unearthed invoices show that the 8ft stone with Labour’s election promises inscribed cost just under £8,000. While that is significantly less than the £30,000 reported by newspapers at the time, it can hardly be called a bargain.
This week David Cameron has warned that migrant spouses who fail language tests could be made to leave the UK. While many have since accused the Prime Minister of stigmatising Muslim women over his call for immigrants to take language lessons, Mr S is more concerned that he is not au fait with the age-old adage that 'people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'. Speaking on Today on Monday to announce his plans, Cameron's Eton education appeared to escape him entirely as he used a double negative to describe the problem: 'There are 38,000 Muslim women who don’t speak hardly any English at all' While he could perhaps be forgiven for a one-off error, Cameron struggled once again with the Queen's English during PMQs.
Yesterday Crispin Blunt outed himself as a popper user as he voiced opposition to the government’s proposals to ban the legal drug as part of the psychoactive substances bill. While the ban went ahead regardless, Blunt did at least appear to inspire Michael Fabricant to give an equally candid confession, as well as leading Keith Vaz to concede that poppers are ‘beneficial in enabling anal sex’. Now even members of the Mainstream Media are speaking out in solidarity with Crispin. The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts has taken to Twitter to reveal his own experience with poppers. Letts says that he inhaled a 'popper' at a summer party many years ago. Alas the substance took him by surprise and he fell -- fully clothed -- into a swimming pool: https://twitter.
'I use poppers,' Crispin Blunt declared this afternoon in the Commons as MPs gathered to voice opposition to the government's proposals to ban the legal drug as part of the psychoactive substances bill: 'I out myself as a popper user, and would be directly affected by this legislation and I'm astonished to find that it's proposing to be banned and, frankly, so were many other gay men.' The Conservative MP appeared to inspire Michael Fabricant to offer up an equally candid confession: https://twitter.com/Mike_Fabricant/status/689823366929371139 While Fabricant opposed the government's plan, he says he is not a regular user of poppers as they can make him feel dizzy. https://twitter.
