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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Michael Gove likes to make mischief. Every so often he stokes London’s liberal elite into fits of righteous indignation. If he does this out of pure joy, then his latest caper will not have disappointed. This afternoon the education secretary gave a speech to private school headmasters in which he made an important point about the
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To Chelsea to hear Charles Moore lift the lid on his Thatcher biography. While the crowd at the Cadogan Hall loved the anecdotes and insight, it was Moore’s revelation that, in later life, it ‘became her view’ that Britain should leave the EU that pricked Steerpike’s ears. Moore has expanded on this for tomorrow’s magazine:
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Last week I chided those in SW1 who were criticising David Cameron for appointing yet more Old Etonians to his staff without first checking their own teams for signs of blue blood. Now news reaches me that Downing Street has not done much to counter the original charge. Etonian stereotypes were alive and well during Jo
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Ukip is the big story of the day, clearing out councils across the country in yesterday’s local elections. Mr Steerpike was interested to see the above picture on the wires as Nigel Farage took his victory lap around Westminster this morning. Behind every election victory is a copy of the Spectator. To find out more about why
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Marilyn Monroe didn’t do it for the money, and neither did Bob Diamond. Seriously, the man dubbed the ‘unacceptable face of banking’ is just a regular family guy; Jimmy Stewart rather than Gordon Gekko. The recovering financier has told the New York Times: ‘This is going to sound arrogant as hell but I never did
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Steerpike is back in print in today’s Spectator. Here’s a taste of what to expect: ‘It’s been a tricky few days for Populus, the ultracool research organisation. Once the Tories’ favourite pollster, Populus has long enjoyed the patronage of Fleet Street’s most prestigious client, the Times. But no longer. The Thunderer is about to sever
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It’s been a tricky few days for Populus, the ultra-cool research organisation. Once the Tories’ favourite pollster, Populus has long enjoyed the patronage of Fleet Street’s most prestigious client, the Times. But no longer. The Thunderer is about to sever the link and cut a new deal with deadly rivals YouGov. The blow is compounded
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The Labour Party is most exercised by the news, broken by the Spectator, that Economist journalist Christopher Lockwood has been appointed to the Downing Street Policy Unit. Poor old Lockwood is charged with being a bit posh, knowing David Cameron personally and attending a good school. This amounts to a crime against humanity in Labour
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I know the Liberal Democrats are trying to take credit for anything they like the sound of, but their rewriting of history is getting out of control. It seems that they have claimed Gladstone as a ‘Liberal Democrat’ on the Downing Street website. I doubt that even Mr Gladstone could make Thursday’s elections any easier for Clegg & Co – assuming
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Congratulations to the Guardian for being one fortnight behind the news. The paper’s website reports that a deceased thief returned 1,400 stolen books to Lambeth Palace’s library. The citizens of King’s Place are trying to pass this wonderful story off as news; but attentive readers will know that it first appeared in the Spectator’s spring books
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The weekend press offered some rave reviews of Charles Moore’s Thatcher biography. Craig Brown, who is not given to hyperbole, compared Moore’s book to a work of art, while the Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley praised Moore’s ‘multi-dimensional portrait’ of the person we know as Mrs Thatcher. There were, however, some reservations. Rawnsley, brave man that he
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With plummeting sales and the damage caused by the Johann Hari scandal, Chris Blackhurst had his work cut out when he took over as Editor of the Independent in 2011. Perhaps he saw the Leveson Inquiry as a chance to make a name for himself, because he became a frequent figure on the airwaves and signed his paper
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Something had to give for Culture Secretary Maria Miller. She’s not had an easy time since the Leveson report and the subsequent battle over state regulation of the press. Harangued by all and sundry, she’s looking to make friends. In a speech at the British Museum this morning, Miller took the novel step of talking
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Do you recall The Politician’s Wife by Paula Milne? It was a TV drama that aired in the dying days of the Major government. Milne recognised that Major’s government was more Basic Instinct than ‘Back to Basics’, emphasising the toxicity, hypocrisy and general sordidness of the era. It was tremendous stuff. So praise the Lord: Milne
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Labour activists are quietly amused that Mrs Thatcher’s death may lead to a library being built in her honour. ‘Tricky one for the Tories,’ says a top Labour figure. ‘Presumably David Cameron will open it. And Eric Pickles will close it.’ In Tory circles, meanwhile, the jokes are all about a future Cameron library. Built in a
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Where there has been discord, Mrs Thatcher’s funeral brought harmony. From my seat in the gods at St. Paul’s, I watched as Westminster’s lesser mortals gathered in front of the altar to shoot the breeze in the hour before Lady Thatcher’s coffin arrived. Gordon and Sarah Brown were first to arrive. They plonked themselves down,
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Further to my report yesterday, the Heritage Foundation, the giant conservative think-tank that has its own Margaret Thatcher Centre to study and promote the Special Relationship, has weighed in: ‘To refuse to honour a woman of such great historical and political significance, who was deeply loyal to the United States, is petty and shameful. One truly has to
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In deference to Lady Thatcher’s immense popularity across the Pond, the US House of Representatives paid tribute to her. But the US Senate has been oddly reluctant to follow suit. Sources in Washington tell Mr Steerpike that a Republican resolution is ‘on hold’ because Democrat majority leader Harry Reid, with the help of a Senator
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Well how about this for a turnaround? After Steerpike highlighted the somewhat dubious ‘girl power’ Geri Halliwell, who praised Thatcher and the subsequently deleted her tribute, the Spice Girl has seen the error of her ways: ‘I was 7 years old when my father told me about the greengrocer’s daughter who had become the first
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Slight treachery from Boris, who has written a glowing piece on the occasion of the New Statesman’s centenary. While most people will focus on his dissection of the evils of left-wingery and explanations for hatred of Margaret Thatcher, something else caught Steerpike’s eye: ‘My paranoia about the New Statesman and its terrific pieces went on for
