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
Readers of yesterday’s Mail on Sunday were treated to what appeared to be the perfect ‘Tory Sleaze!’ story. But appearances can deceive. Here’s what the Mail reported: ‘A Tory Minister is involved in an extraordinary row over claims that taxpayers’ money was used to fund gay sex parties. The politician is said to have been in
The potential for brouhaha lurks on any party guest list; but the stakes are not often as high as they were last night at the Savile Club, where hacks and MPs – both past and present – gathered for the launch of Jerry Hayes’s naughty memoir An Unexpected MP. Tension mounted when former News of the
Westminster City Council is advertising the role (offered by the Westminster Adult Education Service) of tutor in ‘Ukrainian egg decoration’ – at £25 an hour. Anyone who thinks that the job would be a walk in the Royal Parks should think again. The advert says: ‘As well as being enthusiastic and motivated you need to have
It sounds like the screenwriter of the original House of Cards prefers the US version, although, of course, he couldn’t possibly comment. Andrew Davies, who adapted the BBC version from the book by Michael Dobbs, said he got ‘completely hooked’ on the Netflix series starring Kevin Spacey, and ‘more or less binged on three or
It’s not just Vince Cable who is getting it in the neck today for the scathing report into the sell-off of the Royal Mail. Michael Fallon is copping his share of the blame too. Fallon has friends in high places; but he’s wound up one of his Tory colleagues: ‘Fallon is 62 years old this
With the new season of Made in Chelsea set to air in on Channel 4 next week, I hear that all is not well in SW3. Extras and cast members of the faux-reality show have not received payment for their work. ‘Our accountant left the company abruptly due to unforeseen circumstances and training the replacement on
For those who are worried that five men in their 70s might struggle to bring the kind of energy befitting a sell-out show at the O2, have no fear. The Pythons have commissioned some ‘lovely dancers’ to give the show a little extra pizazz. When Mr S asked Michael Palin how rehearsals were going, he
The Daily Mail has been holding habitués of the corridors of power to account for so long, it has decided that it deserves a corridor of its own. The Editors Hallway has just been unveiled in Northcliffe House, home of DMGT. It’s a sight to behold, complete with a Vegas-style lobby, pomegranate White Company candles
Move over Dick Whittington and his cat, the City of London has a new folklore hero. Yesterday Kermit the Frog was made Honorary Bridge Master of Tower Bridge. Mr S suspects this might be something to do with the fact that the latest Muppets film was shot extensively in the Square Mile. Sadly, rain stopped
Nick Clegg had been given the night off babysitting; but, after the poll verdict on tonight’s EU debate with Nigel Farage, he may wish he’d stayed at home with the kids. As the dust settled, the Deputy Prime Minister was bundled into a car and fled the field of battle. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage headed for
Congratulations to Sarah Vine. Last night the Mail columnist achieved the almost impossible feat of getting the leader of the Labour Party to defend his party’s favourite pantomime villain: Michael Gove. ‘I feel like I should rush to your husband’s defence now,’ spluttered Ed Miliband on ITV’s Agenda last night, declaring that he was sure
The last season of Game of Thrones ended while a rough and ready rabble from north of ‘the wall’ were preparing to make life difficult for the establishment down south in King’s Landing. Ahead of the fourth season premier, one of these northern wildlings, Ygritte (AKA Scottish actress Rose Leslie), has told the forthcoming issue of Spectator
Tory MPs from less privileged backgrounds than their leader have developed a fun new game to play in the members’ tea room: drawing up definitive rankings of Polite Old Etonians and Rude Old Etonians. I hear that the polite list includes Jesse Norman, Zac Goldsmith and Jacob Rees Mogg, while the rude list features not
The controversy over the appointment of TUC economist Duncan Weldon as Newsnight’s economics correspondent has taken a surreal twist. The former Labour Party adviser appears to have used his blog to deaden the impact of a Sunday paper exposé about his connections with the extreme right. Weldon admits to a ‘brief and misguided flirtation with the ideas of the far right,’ yet
Westminster and Fleet Street are all a flutter about An Unexpected MP: Confessions of a Political Gossip, the memoirs of former Tory MP, Jerry Hayes. It’s a fun, naughty read. As a fellow diarist, Mr S particularly enjoyed Hayes’s tales from his days at Punch. Hayes joined the magazine in the late nineties during its
Gongs all round at the Paddy Power Political Book of the Year Award at the Imax cinema in Waterloo. It was a bumper night for Spectator writers. Congratulations to Charles Moore, who took the top spot for his Thatcher biography, to our regular book reviewer Richard Davenport-Hines, who won Political History of the Year for
The Budget has, in recent years, been more tears than laughter, more pain than gain. Yet the upturn in Britain’s economic fortunes has put the Chancellor, whose ‘5 and 2’ diet has had a dramatic effect on his waistline, in a buoyant mood. Osborne’s wit – famously sharp in private – shone through in public
Game over: Eddie Izzard has cursed the union. The comedian who once championed equal clothing rights has waded into the debate over Scottish independence, to the horror of supporters of the union. You might imagine that we unionists would welcome a celebrity endorsement – even from a c-lister like Izzard. But he has a dreadful track
Mr S takes embargos very seriously. He respects the convention. An embargo is sacred. Yet the news that Anne McIntosh MP is holding a constituency surgery is so momentous that it took every ounce of my integrity not to share it with you before the appointed time this morning. Most ordinary MPs don’t embargo news
Owen Jones has denied that Newsnight’s appointment of former Labour adviser and TUC official Duncan Weldon as economics correspondent is more evidence of ‘left wing bias’ at the BBC. On the contrary, Jones says that complaints about Weldon arise from ‘myths and deception’ and that the ‘BBC is stacked full of right wingers’. Now, now,
