Steerpike

Of all the MPs to pick a fight with, Dennis Skinner is not high on Mr S's list. Still, that hasn't stopped the new SNP intake from spending their first week in Parliament battling the 83-year-old Labour MP. The Scottish Nationalists have been trying to take over the bench where Labour's awkward squad likes to sit. This bench is where Skinner has sat for the past 40 years and he has no plans to sit anywhere else any time soon. Things have got so bad between the parties over the turf war that they held a crisis talk yesterday: https://twitter.com/schofieldkevin/status/601313013564583936 During the meeting MailOnline claim that Labour accused the SNP of 'bullying' Skinner.

Given that a horde of new MPs have recently descended on Parliament, it's understandable that staff may have some difficulty remembering everyone's name. Still, Mr S would have thought that any confusion could have been cleared up by simply looking to Hansard, which provides a report of proceedings of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords. However, even Hansard appears to be struggling to keep up. According to Hansard, David Lammy's middle name is London, while the new culture secretary is called John Flashy Whittingdale: https://twitter.com/ParlyApp/status/600953254487396352 In reality, their middle names are Lindon and Flasby. Happily, these names were at least used for the Votes and Proceedings document: https://twitter.

Although Jeremy Paxman spent several decades working for the BBC, the presenter took an opportunity at a Royal Television Society talk today to cast doubt over its future. With the BBC's charter renewal looming, the former Newsnight presenter said that the TV licence 'can't last': 'As platforms become interchangeable, as computers and televisions become indistinguishable, a tax on the ownership of a particular piece of technology becomes very, very hard to justify, I would say almost impossible.' Paxman even went so far as to suggest that the new culture secretary - and BBC enemy number one - John Whittingdale could be 'terribly good' for the Beeb.

Forget the riveting excitement of the Labour leadership contest, Westminster was shut down on Sunday night for a different type of race. As part of filming for the new James Bond film Spectre, an extensive helicopter and speed boat chase took place along the Thames. Bond and a mystery blonde sped along the river from outside MI6 HQ in Vauxhall, with 007 firing his gun at a helicopter as they approached Parliament: With filming set to take place on the river for the next three weekends, expect the scene to be a dramatic part of the the film, which is released in November.

Just when Mr S thought it was safe to go to his local watering hole now the 56 Scottish SNP MPs have chosen Parliament's sports and social as their pub of choice, it turns out that the SNP invasion has gone global. Word reaches Steerpike that the presence of the Scottish Nationalists cannot be escaped even outside of the UK. In fact, the revolution has reached as far as Japan: https://twitter.com/williamsonkev/status/598888708528472064 Well, whisky does tend to be a uniting force.

All this talk from Labour and the Liberal Democrats about who will be their next party leader appears to have got to the Tory camp. Although the dust is yet to settle following David Cameron's surprise Conservative majority in the election, Mensch couldn't help but offer her prediction for who the next Tory Prime Minister will be, when asked over Twitter. The former Cameron Cutie says that the man for the job next time around is not odds-on favourite Boris Johnson, but instead George Osborne: https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/599155805582135296 She claims that Bojo's chance has come and gone: https://twitter.com/EJHarrison6 Of course, whether Boris would agree with Mensch's statement is another issue entirely.