Steerpike

To appoint one Equalities Minister who voted against gay marriage looked sloppy, to do it twice looks frankly strange. Yet that is what the Prime Minister has just done. Education Secretary Nicky Morgan voted against same sex marriage in July 2013, though she claims she has subsequently changed her mind. Caroline Dinenage, the Gosport MP, who has just replaced Morgan in the Equalities brief, also voted against it. As one Tory MP ponders: 'When almost half the Parliamentary party voted for same sex marriage why can he not find an equalities minister who did?

David Cameron has never been hugely popular with the right-wing fringe of the Conservative Party, yet they tolerated him as long as they thought he was going to win. And win he did. At Monday's jubilant 1922 Committee meeting, Tory MPs were shocked to see Bill Cash - a key figure of the so called 'awkward squad' - arise to heap praise of Cameron. 'He stood up and gave an incredibly passionate defence of the Prime Minister and said it was time for the party to unite over Europe,' whispers one shocked loyalist MP to Mr S. 'I've never heard him give such a human speech' they continued. 'It's the only time he's ever mentioned Europe and it's been helpful.' One wonders how long this rare outbreak of party unity can really last as the EU referendum looms.

After David Cameron won a surprise Conservative majority in the general election, angry anti-austerity protesters gathered near Parliament Square today to let their outrage be known. During the demonstration, a war memorial, honouring the women of the Second World War, was vandalised with 'F--- tory scum' graffiti. While the crime was greeted with outrage by both the left and right, Laurie Penny, the Guardian feminist, appears to have defended the vandalism on Twitter, saying she doesn't 'have a problem with this': https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/597115014059810817 https://twitter.

Given that staff at the BBC have been providing rolling election coverage, it's understandable that they may be rather tired. Even so, Mr S was surprised to see that BBC veteran Huw Edwards described an SNP MP and Nicola Sturgeon as Scotland's power couple. Speaking over footage of Sturgeon walking alongside Patrick Grady, the recently appointed SNP MP for Glasgow North, Edwards mistook Grady for Sturgeon's husband Peter Murrell.

An interesting election day parcel has arrived at the Spectator office: it contains a box of 'party leader cupcakes' from Sky News. ‘We recommend eating David, Ed, Nick, Nigel, Nicola, Natalie and Leanne whilst they are still delicious and fresh,’ says the accompanying letter. Funny thing, though, somebody at the channel — we suspect a furtive Scot Nat — has packed our box full of Nicola Sturgeons (see picture). Not a David, Ed, Nick, Nigel, or Natalie in sight. Oh well, we are still grateful. Two of the cakes are now protecting Nicola’s modesty on this week’s Spectator cover image. Thank you Sky!

The feral travelling Tory press pack were suited and booted this morning in the pouring Cheshire rain and led up a muddy path to a giant rock. No, David Cameron was not going to unveil his answer to a Miliband's carved pledge stone, in fact he wasn't going to say anything at all. You can imagine the spin doctor's train out thought for the last day of full campaigning in the longest, most tiresome election in modern memory. Let's got to the zoo! Let's go to tigers enclosure! Tigers are brave, PMs need courage and so on. Or perhaps they wanted to win Piers Morgan's vote; he has revealed today that he'll be voting for the Animal Welfare Party. Just one problem: there were no animals. The undeveloped part of Chester Zoo the media were treated to today won't open until next year.