Steerpike

Steerpike

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

Wednesday

Steerpike

Lauren Bacall — a true great

As so often, no one put it better than Papa. Here is Ernest Hemingway talking of all the movies made from his novels and short stories: ‘The only two I could sit through were The Killers and To Have and Have Not — I guess Ava Gardner and Lauren Bacall had a lot to do with it.’ Mr S can’t say fairer than that of Lauren Bacall, who has died at the age of 89. Bacall was, however, rather more than a husky voice and a sultry look. In 1981 she starred in The Fan, in which she played a middle-aged film star idolised by a demented fan (played by Douglas Breem) who mutilates or kills those close to the object of his desire. But the ageing star’s beauty has faded, and bears only passing resemblance to the youthful image that captivates the fan.

Tuesday

Steerpike

How far do the Lib Dems want to go over Gaza?

Well, well, well. What’s all this then? Uncle Vince has announced the suspension of 12 export licenses to Israel. Here’s what he said: ‘We welcome the current ceasefire in Gaza and hope that it will lead to a peaceful resolution. However the UK Government has not been able to clarify if the export licence criteria are being met. In light of that uncertainty we have taken the decision to suspend these existing export licences in the event of a resumption of significant hostilities. ‘No new licences of military equipment have been issued for use by the Israeli Defence Force during the review period and as a precautionary measure this approach will continue until hostilities cease.

Steerpike

What’s your favourite Robin Williams one-liner?

Mr S was saddened to hear of the death of Robin Williams — a man who contributed to the gaiety of nations. People wax lyrical about Williams’s ability to inhabit character; but Mr S is more impressed by his turn of phrase. Here are some Mr S's favourite one liners:  ‘Cricket is basically baseball on valium.’ ‘Ah, yes, divorce – from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man’s genitals through his wallet.’ ‘One question for the Royal Family: all that money and no dental hygiene?’ 'No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world.' 'What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.' 'People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.

Monday

Steerpike

Louise Mensch fat shames ISIS’s leader

After Obama sanctioned attacks on ISIS over the weekend, a new hashtag began to trend on Twitter  - #AmessagefromISIStoUS. Via social media, militants from the Islamic State began to threaten anyone who dared to get involved in the Middle East. Before long, the backlash began, with Americans sending messages back to jihadis under the hashtag #AmessagefromUStoISIS. The ex-Tory MP Louise Mensch couldn't resist, and duly joined in this hawkish exchange: It's true Obama got #ISIS all wrong and Iraq policy all wrong but I don't care, not today. He is sending airstrikes. Thank you Mr. President — Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 8, 2014 Some left wingers pretty upset ISIS are being bombed. I'm throwing a party.

Steerpike

Up yours George

The most uplifting news of the weekend? Israeli tourists defied George Galloway’s decree that Bradford become an ‘Israeli-free zone’. Better even that: plenty of locals came out in sympathy with the touring Israelis. Guido has the details and pictures. #realhopenothate.

Friday

Steerpike

Did STV just come out in favour of the Union?

STV were left red faced after the live streaming of the independence debate between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling broke down, which meant viewers outside Scotland were unable to watch it on TV. The broadcaster has just issued an apology to anyone who signed up – the majority of whom were presumably English. Mr S was most heartened to receive this mea culpa. More heartening though was the seemingly coded pro-union message embedded in the email. Beneath the images, a rather desperate message appeared: ‘Don’t leave us!’ Now Mr S knows how important impartiality is to the broadcaster, given that earlier this year STV left the CBI after the body formally backed the campaign against independence.

Steerpike

Jobs for the boys and girls

Mr S can’t help but notice that there is no Ukip peer among the list of the newly ennobled. This is surprising. Nigel Farage has survived attacks, smears and a helicopter crash. Surely ermine is the only way to stop him? Back in the heady days of 2010, the coalition pledged to introduce a principle whereby peers were appointed according to vote share. One can only assume that they reached this agreement in expectation of receiving more votes. Needless to say, there are plenty of jobs for the boys and girls. Party stooges Andrew Cooper, Arminka Helic and Chris Lennie will sit in the Upper House, together with a gaggle of Liberal Democrat councillors. And, of course, there are several donors among the list. The mother of parliaments, eh? It's absurd.

Steerpike

Tories select raft of women – in no-hope seats

It has been bought to my attention that amongst the Conservative Party candidates selected this week, women outnumbered men two to one. Tory HQ are clearly very proud that Mims Davies will fight Eastleigh; that Michelle Willis will take on Ynys Mon; and that Charlotte Haitham-Taylor and Laetitia Glossop battling on in North West and North Durham respectively. Mr S is no party-pooper; but he can't help but point out that none of these seats are what might be described as 'winnable' for the Tories next spring.

Thursday

Steerpike

Kriss Akabusi and friends save the union

Forget Alistair Darling’s debate victory. Forget the lack of Salmond’s currency ‘Plan B’. Forget the tonne of Scottish ink that savaged Salmond in print this morning (see Alex Massie in today’s Spectator for the best example). No, historians will pin-point today as the moment that Kriss Akabusi saved the union. Awooga, awooga. It has become custom in any public debate these days to draw up a tiresome list of public figures who back one’s cause. ‘Stay Together’, which launched today, and includes celebrities who do not even have a vote in Scotland’s future, is classic of the genre. Akabusi is joined by the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Bryan Ferry, Parky, a brace of Snows, Mitchell&Webb, Andy McNab and Tani Grey Thompson.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Team Boris vs Team Osborne — the first skirmish

Today was set to be a boring day in Westminster. Sajid Javid, a courtier to George Osborne, was billed to give (yet another) speech about how the economy is going ‘gangbusters’ and why evil Labour would trash the recovery. Dutiful hacks were pottering off to the Centre for Policy Studies, the venue for Javid’s speech, when news broke of Boris Johnson’s ‘off the cuff’ announcement that he might stand in 2015 after all. This political hand grenade blew the government’s media plan completely apart. Javid was spotted calling CCHQ for a line to take on the Boris comeback. He duly took to the podium and prepared for questions that would have nothing to with George Osborne’s ‘long-term economic plan’.

Steerpike

The punters back Boris for Tory leader

The money is moving. Boris Johnson is now the bookies’ favourite to become the next leader of the Conservative Party. According to Ladbrokes he’s at 9/4, with Theresa May and George Osborne trailing him at 4/1 and 5/1, respectively. Plainly, Boris reckons that David Cameron is on-course to lose the next election, or else he wouldn't have made today’s annoucemnent. The turf accountants agree with him. They have Ed Miliband at 4/5 on to be the next Prime Minister, while BoJo stands at 5/1. Could it ever happen for BoJo, though? He’s 7/2 to make it to Number 10 ‘at any time’. Talking of bets, our own columnist Toby Young will be pleased.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Baroness Warsi ‘wanted to be Foreign Secretary’

Now, now, no laughing at the back. Less than 12 hours after representing the government at WW1 commemorations, Baroness Warsi has quit — citing the government’s policy toward Gaza and the Middle East as the reason behind her departure. However, there is growing belief that the bungling baroness’s exit has something to do with the ‘government’s policy towards Baroness Warsi’, as Dan Hodges puts it. One Tory source said today that she has been in a sulk ever since the reshuffle, when she was passed over for promotion to Foreign Secretary (a delusional desire, if ever there was one, if indeed it was her desire). Tory MPs say that Warsi made it known that she would like to leave before the reshuffle.

Monday

Steerpike

Another Daily Mirror front page horror

What is it with the Daily Mirror and its spectacular ability to cock up its front page? We all remember the circumstances that led to Piers Morgan's (first) spectacular fall. And the current editor is not having such a good run of things either. First there was the splash about British children living below the poverty line, but the photo used to illustrate the piece was taken in America in 2009. And today the paper has an incredible global scoop: Monday's Mirror front page exclusive: Ebola terror as Sierra Leone passenger dies at Gatwick http://t.co/YijDuBzYtX pic.twitter.com/5eS9SHyV2i — Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) August 3, 2014   Fortunately, it's set to remain an exclusive because the story is weapons grade baloney.

Saturday

Steerpike

Stonegate fare-dodger: it wasn’t Paul Dacre

The mystery is over. A man named Jonathan Burrows has been exposed as the Stonegate fare-dodger. Our own Charles Moore must share a train with this enterprising man. Back in April, Charles reported what the local gossips were saying: ‘Much speculation where we live about the identity of the Stonegate fare-dodger, one stop up our railway line. He recently paid £43,000 to Southeastern, the franchise holder, to escape criminal charges after five years of constant cheating on his daily commute to London. Obviously no suspicion falls on such fine local citizens as my fellow former editor of this paper, Dominic Lawson, who uses the station, or the great writer Adam Nicolson, or the distinguished actor Robert Bathurst.

Friday

Steerpike

Rod Liddle vs Mary Beard – the re-match. Tune in tonight to Any Questions

Last year, Rod Liddle waded into the Mary Beard ‘misogyny’ row. You may recall that Beard appeared on Question Time, and then complained about the ‘misogynistic’ abuse she received on Twitter when people disagreed with her. ‘The misogyny here is truly gob-smacking,’ whined Prof Beard. The abuse would be ‘quite enough to put many women off appearing in public’. Nonsense, said Rod. ‘It is nothing to do with misogyny – it is just what people reach for when they, perhaps temporarily, hate someone’. Beard had, Rod said, managed to make ‘what can be politely described as an utter fool of herself’.

Thursday

Steerpike

Fifty shades of Grayling

With the delicacy of an Israeli F-16, the Tories entered the summer campaign today with an achingly dull speech in Westminster. Something about Labour and the unions. Mud flew everywhere. You know the drill. It was less than a minute — forty seven seconds to be precise — before the charisma-free zone that is Chris Grayling spluttered the Tory catchphrase ‘long term economic plan’. The fun did not end there. Oh no. Grayling is the model of the modern politician; but, even so, it is impressive for a man to speak for twenty minutes almost entirely in banal cliché. Apparently it’s all a ‘big con’.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Lunchtime lobbying from Tristram Hunt

The search for a new Chairman of the BBC Trust is in utter chaos. After Mr Steerpike revealed that the job description had been altered to insert the ‘Seb Coe clause’, Robert Peston stuck his neck out and said that Lord Coe was a 'shoo-in' for the gig. But Coe has since ruled himself out (for whatever reason — maybe sporting, maybe mayoral) and the race is wide open again. With all to play for, Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, has taken to Twitter to talk up his buddy, the sainted Neil MacGregor: A personal thought on the search for new Chairman of BBC: how about the British Museum's Neil MacGregor.... — Tristram Hunt (@TristramHuntMP) July 30, 2014   (Hunt is evidently a fan.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Ed Miliband’s ‘new politics’ update

Derision met Labour when news emerged that more than half of its prospective parliamentary candidates are former special advisers, party workers, researchers, lobbyists or ex-MPs. Ed Miliband (PPE, Corpus Christi College, Oxford) heralded a ‘new politics’ when he took over the party; yet his top team embodies the political class: Ed Balls (PPE, Keble College, Oxford), his wife Yvette Cooper (PPE, Balliol College, Oxford); Angela Eagle (PPE, St John’s College, Oxford) and her sister Maria Eagle (PPE, Pembroke College, Oxford). Some Labour frontbenchers who didn’t go to Oxford worked as Special Advisers for the last Labour government; many others did both. Most of us, of course, have done neither. There is a divide between the rulers and the ruled.

Steerpike

The mysterious case of David Ruffley’s letter

There is much hullaballoo this morning about how slow the Tories were to act over David Ruffley, the disgraced MP who announced last night that he will not stand for Bury St. Edmunds at the next election following the fallout from his accepting a police caution after a violent domestic incident with his former partner. Mr S understands that Ruffley told Tory High Command that his former partner had written a letter which downplayed the domestic incident and said that Ruffley's acceptance of a caution was a way to resolve the issue quickly and amicably. It was thought that this letter, when produced, would head off criticism of Ruffley. But the stern advocacy of the Dean of St. Edmundsbury, who is a close friend of Mr Ruffley's former partner, made Tory HQ suspicious.