Steerpike

Professional Yorkshireman and Labour attack dog Michael Dugher was quick to jump on the Prime Minister’s claim that William Hague was the greatest living Yorkshireman. Telling the BBC yesterday that Alan Bennett, and Ian McMillan are still alive, Dugher also claimed that one James Hockney was a contender for title. But who is James Hockney?

Many Tories had begun to wonder where Michael Gove had got to. The Chief Whip’s move from the Department for Education was heralded with a briefing that he would be doing far more broadcasting, representing the government front and centre on the airwaves. However, there was only silence. Though he has been dealing with defections

Most Secretaries of State tend to lay low the night before their big conference speech, redrafting and practising. Not so Theresa May. The glammed-up Home Secretary was working the party scene hard last night, flanked by a bolstered entourage. After losing her Special Adviser Fiona Cunningham in blue on blue briefing row, May has brought

No Mark Reckless, no Brooks Newmark and now no Bow Group.  The oldest conservative think-thank has announced that they are boycotting this year’s Tory conference. It seems, for Dave at least, bad news really does come in threes. The venerable think tank, founded in 1951 and counting Lords Howe and Heseltine among its members, has charged

The Conservative conference pub is back again this year, with its usual bitter jokes about Labour. Mr Steerpike had an exclusive peek at the posters they’re using to poke fun at Ed Miliband’s party. The pub this year is called the ‘Tax & Spend’. Funnily enough, they’ve decided to remind the Labour leader of the

First we had Mrs Miliband redefining her role from elusive lawyer to political campaigning wife; now we have another once shy ‘leader’s wife’ tweaking their public profile. The Liberal Democrats get very grumpy if you refer to Miriam González Durántez as Mrs Clegg, but the Dechert LLP lawyer is described as the ‘wife of Nick

The hall may have been half empty during his speech, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said lots of nice things about Ed Miliband during the closing session of Labour Party conference in Manchester. And the similarities between the two politicians are copious. They’re both metropolitan lefties who are far more ideologically radical than they let

Having spent four years sticking to a wave at the end of conference and the odd photograph together with her husband, Justine Thornton has burst onto centre stage at Labour’s conference. Mrs Miliband – and she uses her Miliband name today – has written to Labour activists pledging her commitment to getting her man into

Upon leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, Benefits Street star and Spectator contributor White Dee – also known as Deirdre Kelly – threatened to give ‘David Cameron a run for his money,’ and she’s true to her word. Fresh from this year’s Channel Five finale, Dee is about to enter a different sort of mad

Ed Balls playing football each year at Labour conference is almost as big as Ed Balls Day. The Shadow Chancellor always participates enthusiastically in the annual hacks vs MPs match. Sometimes, he’s a little too enthusiastic. Like today, when he accidentally wounded lobby journalist Rob Merrick. Still, the pair made up by the end of the match.

There is a certain irony in the fact that Miliband is protecting his party’s Scottish advantage by accusing the Prime Minister of allowing ‘this moment to be used for narrow party political advantage’. Rejecting Cameron’s plans for English votes for English laws, Labour have rushed out plans for ‘a full Constitutional Convention rooted in our