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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Caitlin Moran once famously described David Cameron as looking like ‘C3PO made out of ham’, while his fans say that he has ‘youthful good looks’. Either way, it does not help matters when the leader of the nation admits that he is unable to grow a moustache. Young Dave was praising his parliamentary colleagues’ ‘Movember’
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Poor, dear, awkward George Osborne. Just when he seems to be doing things right — the economy, for instance — he gets something wrong. Very wrong. In The Spectator this week, James Forsyth reveals that, at Matthew Freud’s now notorious 50th birthday bash, when Bono and Bob Geldof sang a duet, Osborne insisted on whipping
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Hats off to the Duke of Cambridge for joining Jon Bon Jovi and Taylor Swift on stage at Kensington Palace last night for a sing-along of ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’. The Winter Whites Gala was raising money for Centrepoint homeless charity. It’s the taking part that counts.
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Allegations that Nigella Lawson used cocaine and prescription drugs on a habitual basis have emerged in court today after the trial judge lifted a reporting restriction. Lawson’s former personal assistants Francesca and Elisabetta Grillo are accused of fraud by Charles Saatchi, Lawson’s former husband. The court heard, in pre-trial hearings, evidence for the defence which apparently shows that Saatchi accepts the Grillo
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You know how it is, you pop out for curry and a pint, and you end up pledging to soften Britain’s immigration rules live in front of a global TV audience of millions. Speaking at the packed British Curry Awards in Battersea on Monday night, David Cameron told a thousand restaurateurs: ‘Like any industry this one faces its
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It’s hard enough to get Tory MPs through the same division lobby, let alone to get them to sit around the same table. So when government ministers William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith, Grant Shapps, Esther McVey and Francis Maude join prominent backbenchers Robert Halfon, Charlotte Leslie and Nigel Evans, plus 150 of their colleagues, for
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Seasoned Miliband observers learned relatively little about the Labour leader from his appearance on Radio Four’s ‘Desert Island Disks’ on Sunday. The programme addressed Ed’s biggest weaknesses head on – namely that he is a bit of a nerd who knifed his brother and comes from aristocratic Marxist stock. The music told its own story.
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In September 2012 Mr Steerpike revealed that 14 Tory MPs had signed letters to Graham Brady, the Chairman of the 1922 Committee, calling for a leadership challenge to David Cameron. Today, Adam Afriyie, the alleged leader-in-waiting (who has not written to Graham Brady), called a vote on his amendment to James Wharton’s EU Referendum Bill. The amendment is designed to bring forward
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Every cloud has a silver lining. The slaughter of the England batting line-up at the Gabba killing fields overnight was painful; but the video above will lighten the mood. Watch how the Australian fan offers a miniature souvenir bat in peace, hoping that the great KP might sign it… and then listen to Kevin’s old captain Andrew
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You wait thirty years for a reunion and the moment one is announced, you wish the idea would shrivel up and die. Purists look away now. I’m not sure you are going to like the Monty Python reunion, announced today for 1 July 2014 at the soulless cavern that is the O2. Opening with an
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The news that Hull has been crowned the UK’s City of Culture for 2017 was discussed at PMQs. The PM extolled the virtues of the city, and made special mention of native eighties alt rockers The Housemartins. However, with a crashing sense of inevitability, the band’s founder, Paul Heaton, was unhappy with the endorsement: ‘Well,
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Congratulations to Labour’s Gavin Shuker for some spectacular brown nosing. The Luton MP has thrilled readers of his blog with an account of him playing the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ boardgame. It’s a riveting read: ‘I worked my way through all fifteen questions effortlessly, and nailed that £1 million – much to the
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Foaming at the mouth is rarely a good sign. In dogs, it can indicate nausea, anxiety or (at worst) rabies. But what about in a Leader of the Opposition? Should we be nervous? During an interview with Sky News today, Ed Miliband was visibly frothing at the mouth, while explaining how he has ’embarked on
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When Mr S revealed a few weeks ago that long-time Mail columnist Richard Kay had been booted ‘up’ to a roaming writer role (to make way for Sebastian Shakespeare), there was plenty of speculation that Kay must have fallen out with his boss Paul Dacre. Perhaps the chattering was unfounded. The two were spotted being very
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Last night’s Public Affairs News awards in Whitehall was, as usual, an orgy of back-slapping and smooching for the lobbying industry. Mr S chuckled when the compere for the evening, Kevin Maguire, had to hand over an award to the Taxpayers’ Alliance – a bête noire of the Mirror’s tribune of the people. Maguire never misses the
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Attentive Spectator readers will recall Leah McClaren’s takedown of Rob Ford, the…err…shall we say embattled Mayor of Toronto. At the time, Ford was busy denying reports that he had smoked crack; allegations he has since accepted, saying that he sparked up while in a ‘drunken stupor’ – as you do. Ford faces new allegations following the
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It could have all gone very, very wrong for Prince Charles on the day he reached retirement age. The Prince of Wales has not even started the job he was born to do, yet as part of his training he is in India ahead of his officially deputising for the Queen as Head of the Commonwealth.
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The Sunday Sport, that esteemed paper of record, has replied to Ed Miliband in the matter of Ralph Miliband killing a kitten with a bicycle during WW2, which Miliband described while accepting one of our Parliamentarian of the Year awards last week. The paper says: ‘A WIDOW whose beloved pet kitten was KILLED by the
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Lord Ashcroft is writing a biography of David Cameron, which can’t have pleased the prime minister: the pair fell out, spectacularly, after the 2010 election. Ashcroft has announced that the book is expected ‘in the second half of 2015’. He has achieved the significant coup of convincing Sunday Times Political Editor Isabel Oakeshott to step
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John Bercow has opened a new front in his war with Tory MPs: he has apparently withdrawn the very fine Speaker Bercow’s Whisky from the gift shop in Parliament. The £30 10 year old single malt was a favourite Tory tipple, and not only for the amusement of joke toasts to Bercow but because it was
