Steerpike

Nigel Farage has just come off stage here at Reform conference, after a speech marred by disruptions. It started almost an hour late for security reasons, and once underway, Farage found himself interrupted four times by shouting protestors. Reform anticipated it, and had a graphic ready to go that said ‘Boring!’ After the third interruption, Farage proclaimed ‘that’s what a university education gets you’, and hazarded a guess that they were sociology students. Mr S’s colleague Henry Lloyd was in the audience, and got this stunning footage: Protesters who disrupted Nigel Farage's speech at Reform's autumn conference have been escorted out of the venue by security.

The Green party’s resident tit-whisperer, Zack Polanski – formerly Dave Paulden – looks set to take on Labour in the race to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as MP for Holborn and St Pancras. After days of will-he-won’t-he speculation, the former Lib Dem has finally confirmed that he will seek local members’ approval to stand in what is shaping up to be a nauseating contest over who is the biggest leftie. Writing in the Camden New Journal, Polanski declared: “Holborn & St Pancras has everything that’s the best of our country and so much potential, but for too long now it’s been held back by governments who have failed to make the changes to improve people’s lives.

https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/2095075496316764344 Downing Street this afternoon refused to condemn prize idiot Diane Abbott for spreading ridiculous conspiracy theories about Nato. In a rant about defence spending, the far-left, newly reinstated Labour MP claimed: ‘The imminent threat from Russia is a NATO fiction to justify their complete capitulation to Trump's demands for more military spending. The increase should not go ahead.’ Abbott, of course, has form in this area. Just last month, she called the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine ‘the NATO campaign against Russia’. Sir Keir Starmer even withdrew the whip after she compared antisemitism to someone being teased for having ginger hair.

The great and principled man of the people, Sir Keir Starmer, is to stand down as an MP. Despite repeatedly insisting that he would remain on the back benches, the former Prime Minister will give up his Holborn and St Pancras seat, triggering yet another by-election. Labour MPs, including the former party leader himself, spent ample time whinging that Rishi Sunak would abandon parliament after losing the general election. Indeed in May 2024 condescending Keir cackled in the Commons: 'At his mansion in Richmond, (Rishi) can enjoy a brand-new Labour Mayor of North Yorkshire. At his pad in Kensington, he can celebrate a historic third term for the Mayor of London.

In Toryworld, big changes are afoot. Kemi Badenoch has started with the personnel: out goes Priti Patel, replaced as foreign secretary by Tom Tugendhat; Sir James Cleverly, off to run for London mayor; Stuart Andrew axed as shadow health secretary; and Sir Mel Stride gone, with Andrew Griffith installed in his place as shadow chancellor. And Mr S wonders whether the new faces in the shadow cabinet will bring some old enthusiasms with them… The announcement naming Griffith arrived with a series of endorsements from business, including M&S chairman Archie Norman and AJ Bell founder Andy Bell. But what the announcement rather skipped over were Griffith's own endorsements. Chief among them: scrapping inheritance tax.

It's been a tough old time for private schools. Amid endless self-aggrandising, Keir Starmer's ministers took great pleasure in whacking VAT on school fees, prompting the inevitable closure of some of Britain's finest institutions. But now it seems that one of Andy Burnham's new cabinet is doing her bit to help out. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Energy Secretary, has enjoyed a series of glowing profiles amid chatter that she could be Labour's long-awaited first female leader. Yet Fahnbulleh has a problem: she sends her own kids to private schools. Cue horror from some on the Labour left... Appearing on the News Agents, Fahnbulleh was asked if her decision to pay for her children's education would be a problem for her political ambitions.

They’re always tough, the first weeks back at work after a holiday, but the Prime Minister really has been off the ball since returning to the job from wherever he went. First, there was that awkward defence he made of the Home Office booklet requesting asylum seekers not rape people. Very odd. Now, Mr S has noticed him saying more strange things. ‘I’ve deliberately gone out this first month just doing things, saying we’ll do it, and doing it. No reviews, no commissions, no consultations,’ Andy Burnham told Times columnist Patrick Maguire in a piece for yesterday's paper. No reviews? No consultations? Mr S hates to be a pedant, but that’s just wrong. You’ll remember that one of the first things our new PM did on entering No.

It is no secret that Labour MPs struggle to understand how wealth is created – hardly surprising when just one member of the Cabinet has a business background. But Jonathan Brash has now offered a particularly dazzling insight into the economic literacy of the governing party. In a post on X last night, which was hastily deleted this morning, the Hartlepool MP declared: Public sector workers use their income to pay FOR the private sector. The state is one of the biggest procurers of the private sector. It wouldn’t exist without taxpayers. People creating the divide between public and private genuinely don’t understand how an economy works. There we have it. In Brashonomics, the private sector owes its existence to a state funded by taxes levied on the private sector.

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/2090341312423731420 The new Home Office pamphlet telling illegal migrants not to rape Brits is ‘right’ and ‘important’, Lucy Powell told the country this morning. The Education Secretary appeared to have no qualms about the guidance, which has sparked fury across the country. According to Powell, the government must be ‘absolutely clear with people’ that cultural norms here may differ from those in their home countries – and it is only right that ministers explain the rule of law while migrants enjoy taxpayer-funded hospitality. The Education Secretary told LBC: ‘I think it's it's pretty straightforward that we should be explaining to people and being clear about the the expectations, the rule of law in this country.

https://twitter.com/novaramedia/status/2089804526500954586 Comrade Aaron Bastani looks to have narrowly avoided a one-way ticket to the gulag after apologising last night for comments he made on X about Jason Arday. In a video reminiscent of a hostage confession, or a Soviet show trial, the Novara Media co-founder admitted to the wrongthink sin of describing Arday, before his tragic death, as a ‘conman’. He also pleaded guilty to the thought crime of criticising a YouTube clip of Arday delivering a lecture at UCL. The grovelling followed days of Novara fans ripping Bastani to shreds for daring to challenge the approved left-wing narrative: that Arday was the entirely innocent victim of a fascist witch hunt for which journalists must pay a price.

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/2089684213607879074 Andy Burnham today insisted he does not feel a shred of embarrassment after exchanging messages with a fraudster posing as Donald Trump’s chief of staff. The Prime Minister claimed there was ‘nothing of consequence’ in his exchanges with the fake Susie Wiles and that he ‘handled it the right way’ by valiantly reporting the debacle. Downing Street yesterday refused to comment on what it called a ‘national security matter’. A spokesperson for Burnham declined to confirm when the messages were exchanged, how many there were or whether the conversation took place over WhatsApp or another platform.

Well, well, well. For all Labour’s high-minded talk of morality, one of its MPs has been suspended pending an investigation into whether he tried to dodge repaying a taxpayer-funded Covid loan. Bayo Alaba, the MP for Southend East and Rochford, refused to answer questions from The Times about why he appears to have attempted to wind up one of his businesses before settling a government loan issued during the pandemic. After the newspaper approached him for comment, Labour withdrew the whip. Oh dear… A party spokesman said: ‘Bayo Alaba MP has referred himself to the Labour Party so that these matters can be investigated in line with the party’s rules.

https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/2087938634099945658 Oh dear. Just as the Tories were trying oh so hard to win back the right by presenting themselves as a serious party, Edwina Currie opened her mouth. The veteran Conservative was opining on the impending dumping of more than 1,000 illegal migrants in Piddington, Oxfordshire, when she dropped an absolute clanger. She told Times Radio: The obvious thing that 1,200 young men are going to need in the middle of a village like little Piddington is a brothel – I don’t think they’re going to provide that. The comments sparked fury on social media, with Zia Yusuf branding them particularly ‘sick’.

https://twitter.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/2087830304006287530 Vodafone executives who provide SIM cards to illegal migrants will be thrown in prison under a Reform government, Zia Yusuf warned today. The party’s home affairs spokesman has demanded that the telecoms giant immediately stop supplying SIMs to Care4Calais, one of the worst-offending NGOs when it comes to aiding Channel crossers. Vodafone has issued a gobsmacking 2,221 cards to the so-called ‘human rights’ organisation, which has sparked fury for seemingly helping to facilitate illegal entry into Britain.

A meagre 10 per cent of Unite members bothered to vote in the union’s election for general secretary. Arch-lefty Sharon Graham was today re-elected with just 68,694 votes, while her rival Simon Dubbins secured a measly 31,130. Of the 970,945 ballot papers distributed, only 100,089 were returned. Still, that didn’t spoil the party for Comrade Graham, who trumpeted: ‘It’s an honour to be re-elected by Unite members to serve as their general secretary. This decisive victory is a powerful mandate to continue change. The trust that members have placed in me will be fully repaid as we step up our focus on delivering for workers.’ A ‘powerful mandate’? Talk about working to rule… Unite voted in March to cut its bankrolling of Labour by 40 per cent – or £585,000.