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
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After Elon Musk continued to lambast the Labour lot over the weekend, Sir Keir Starmer this morning used a press conference to hit out at the tech billionaire and defend his Home Office minister Jess Phillips – who the Twitter CEO said ‘deserves to be in prison’. The PM fumed today that ‘Jess Phillips has
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Back to the curious case of Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate who also works as the government’s City minister. Sir Keir Starmer revealed this morning that the Labour minister – who has also been tasked with the job of tackling financial crime and corruption – has now referred herself to the
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To Scotland, where outrage is spreading after news that a former sex pest politician has landed a top charity job. It transpires that disgraced ex-SNP MP Patrick Grady has been appointed to a senior role at a Scottish government-funded charity – while his victim claims Grady’s actions ‘ended’ his career. Good heavens… Mr S would
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Elon Musk has had a busy weekend, blasting the UK government over Britain’s grooming gang scandal and even turning on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the last 24 hours. It may be a new week, but Musk’s focus remains very much on the British Isles, with the US tech billionaire this morning taking yet
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Well, that didn’t last long. Just 19 days after Nigel Farage and Elon Musk were snapped beaming together at Mar-a-Lago, the bromance is already over. Sad! It seems that the Tesla billionaire didn’t take too kindly to Farage’s (mild) rebuke of his call to release Tommy Robinson from prison. Just hours after Farage praised Musk
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Oh dear. Is there trouble in paradise? For a few weeks now, Nigel Farage has been basking in a transatlantic glow thanks to the support of his buddies Stateside. The Reform party leader’s meeting with Elon Musk last month led to concern in both Labour and the Conservative party that the world’s richest man will
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Parliament returns on Monday – and not a moment too soon. For one of the barmy Starmer army has found themselves splashed all over the newspapers this weekend, with the Tories now scenting blood. The Financial Times reports that City Minister Tulip Siddiq was given a two-bedroom flat near King’s Cross, free of charge in
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The advent of the new year brings with it a fresh sting: the introduction of 20 per cent VAT on private school fees. Labour repeatedly argued that the move is necessary to improve standards in the state sector. But this week the Telegraph revealed that the Treasury has made no plans to ringfence the funds
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It’s been quite the 24 hours in British politics. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has spent much of it lambasting Labour on Twitter/X over its decision not to hold a government inquiry into child abuse in Oldham. But has he now gone too far? The Tesla founder has posted numerous claims calling for the
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There have been better weeks for community relations in Britain. So what better time for Mr S to report the news that ministers are still planning to press on with a definition of Islamophobia? Back in opposition, Labour supported the adoption of a definition of Islamophobia, drawn up by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British
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Another one bites the dust. Now it transpires that the former Conservative MP for Dudley North, Marco Longhi, has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party ahead of its regional conference in Leicester this evening. How very interesting. The ex-Tory announced his move this afternoon, lauding the Farage-founded group – which he dubbed ‘the People’s
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Another day, another Labour drama. Now it’s Independent MP Rosie Duffield making waves after giving a rather revealing interview to TalkTV. The animosity between the former Labour politician and the current party leader has spanned years, with public disagreements over women’s rights, policy decisions and sleaze scandals. Are there any circumstances in which the left-leaning
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You might have forgotten about Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch’s Twixmas Twitter spat, but the Reform UK leader certainly hasn’t. Mr S would remind readers that, during the Christmas period, a fight on the right broke out between the two party readers after Reform announced it had officially overtaken the Conservatives’ membership total – which
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To the Montecito monarchs who, no matter how much they protest about the press, just can’t seem to stay away from the spotlight. Not content with her failed podcast Archetypes – which one Spotify exec fumed should have been called ‘the f***ing grifters’ – or the couples’ documentary, rather creatively titled ‘Harry and Meghan’, the
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Happy new year Nick Clegg. The onetime Deputy Prime Minister has spent much of the past decade collecting oodles of cash from the social media giant formerly known as Facebook. Clegg has served as one of Mark Zuckerberg’s senior executives at Meta since October 2018, living out of a £7 million mansion in Silicon Valley.
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When John Bercow finally left the Speakership at the end of 2019, MPs breathed a sigh of relief. At last, they thought, no more endless partisan showboating from the Speaker’s chair. Yet, over time, his replacement has faced a mounting chorus of criticism. Lindsay Hoyle’s interruptions at PMQs seemed to become more frequent, prompting sketch
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All is not well in Labourland. Now it transpires that 20 councillors have quit Sir Keir Starmer’s party in a rather extraordinary protest at the direction of the party under the new Prime Minister. Those involved will now sit as independent councillors in Broxtowe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire. Dear oh dear… The disillusioned lot have
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Labour’s crackdown on people smugglers comes as New Year’s Day Home Office figures show the number of small boats crossing the English Channel increased by a quarter on 2023. A staggering 36,816 people were recorded as having made the journey on small boats in 2024, with the last group of just under 300 people arriving
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New year, same problems. Already Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government is in the firing line again – this time facing criticism for private school VAT adverts. Now the Treasury has been accused of breaching impartiality for saying that Starmer’s move to apply 20 per cent VAT to private school fees ends a ‘tax break’. Dear
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Once Jess Phillips was the queen of Twitter, harrying and hounding the Tories at every chance. But these days it’s a very different story. Having been handed government responsibility for safeguarding back in July, the Home Office minister swiftly parked a social media back lash after suggesting she got better NHS treatment for her Gaza