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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The ladies of the London chatterati are at each other’s throats. Left-wing identity politics has been eating itself since the New Year, when the leading feminists of Fleet Street went into battle over who is the better feminist. The great titan-esses are actually secret subversives determined to surrender their cause to subconscious patriarchy. Well, that’s
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An impressive turnout in the Churchill Room of the Carlton Club last night for Liam Fox’s New Year drinks. My eyes in the room reports that a smiling Liam claimed he had ‘invited 180 people’ and 162 had turned up. Interestingly, the big beasts came out for the former Defence Secretary, who is said to
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Steerpike is back in this week’s Spectator, and here’s a little taster from Wapping: James Harding, the ousted Times editor, left with a £1.3 million payoff in his pocket and the praise of Fleet Street ringing in his ears. But why did he go? A chap who polishes the executives’ shoes at News International tells
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Has Nick Clegg seen a ghost? The pallor of the Lib Dem leader continues to excite comment in Westminster. At Monday’s half-time presentation by the coalition, he was looking as anaemic as a jellyfish. ‘Either he’s lost four pints of blood or he’s been given his latest polling figures,’ said one hack. A friendly spin
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Not long ago Westminster wags nicknamed Sir Jeremy Heywood, Downing Street’s top Sir Humphrey — ‘Wormtongue’ after Tolkien’s poisonous power behind the throne in the Lord of the Rings. Since being tasked with investigating the Andrew Mitchell affair (and managing to miss the glaring differences between the CCTV footage and the police notes long before
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The benefits debate in Westminster will rage on long after today’s vote in the Commons. It’s not just a straight row between the government and opposition over who is really on the side of hard working people, nor is it just a debate within the two governing parties. It seems that divisions are now opening
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A brief flurry of excitement in Guardian-land over the festive period as the news trickles out about who might be cast in Dreamworks’ silver-screen adaptation of the paper’s turbulent love-in with Julian Assange and subsequent fall out with the Wikileaks chief. Benedict Cumberbatch will play the reclusive protagonist, but enter stage (liberal) left Dan Stevens,
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In the latest Spectator Life, our very own Taki told us: ‘I learned long ago that the harder it is to arrive at one’s destination, the better the resort.’ Apparently ‘Gstaad is one of the few ultra-chic winter playgrounds where big jets cannot land.’ Always up for a challenge, I decided that Switzerland’s finest mountain spot needed
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Given that James Harding is generally regarded as the best editor of The Times to have worked under Rupert Murdoch, what happened yesterday? Mr Steerpike has been making some inquiries. It emerges that Murdoch had not been on speaking terms with Harding since summer last year, and latterly did not even bother to see him
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The Daily Mail got very excited last month over ‘a new student craze’ called milking, where students post videos of themselves ‘pouring milk over their heads in public places’: The four-pint fad began in Newcastle and soon spread to Edinburgh, Oxford and other universities. Not to be outdone, the fine gentlemen of St Andrews University
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Bestselling author Pippa Middleton has written this week’s Spectator diary*, in which she takes on her critics directly: ‘I have been much teased for my book, Celebrate. Lots of journalists are saying that my advice is glaringly obvious… It’s all good fun, I know, and I realise that authors ought to take criticism on the
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As David Cameron was leaving his lunchtime date with Westminster’s lobby journalists, my spy overheard him asking an aide: ‘I don’t think I gave them anything too interesting, did I?’ Quite so, except that the Prime Minister showed once again that he has an odd relationship with the truth. Commenting on Nadine Dorries’ trip to the jungle, young Dave claimed that he had
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The fantastically eccentric Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has a loyal female following known as the ‘Mogg-ettes’, and his louche style, pocket watch and dapper tailoring are a sight to behold. The Somerset MP’s fame extends to having a fake Twitter account in his name. The parody has fooled many. ‘Initially I thought it was someone
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Look out for Steerpike in this week’s Spectator — here is a taster of what Alan Rusbridger has been up to: Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony
From our UK edition
Rending of raiment and gnashing of teeth at the Guardian. I’m told that the paper’s veteran editor, Alan Rusbridger, is tipped to take over at the Royal Opera House once the BBC’s director-general designate, Tony Hall, relinquishes control. Quite a wrench for Rusbridger, who has stewarded the profit-averse newspaper since 1995. Last year alone he
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Is the net beginning to tighten on Mark Thompson? The Sunday Times have run a story on either the ex-BBC chief, Savile or Newsnight every week since 28 October, and a picture is emerging that Thompson may have known more than we had previously thought about Newsnight’s now infamous axed investigation of Savile. I hear
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Ask not where I was when I heard that the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant, ask rather where I was when Miss Khloé Kardashian, of the Californian Kardashians, shared her views on the joyous news with the world: ‘Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!! A royal baby!!! 🙂 awwww so sweet’. Not to
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It has been a rough few days for David Cameron. First he was drubbed at the polls in last week’s by-elections. Then little Alan Titchmarsh said that the Tory party had lost its roots in the countryside (and we know what happens to trees which lose their roots). And now I must be the bearer of
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Luvvies have never really liked Tory governments. Poor Tracey Emin was nearly lynched by the arts crowds when she had the audacity to let David Cameron hang one of her neon pieces in Downing Street. Things are getting heated with the new no-nonsense Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, who seems to have upset the triumvirate of
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Tomorrow’s Spectator Life cover interview is with Alec Baldwin, who as any American will know, does not hold his tongue on matters political. He even has a view about Westminster: ‘The thing I follow most closely there is the Leveson inquiry, anything about Rebekah Brooks and Murdoch.’ Baldwin makes it clear he would like a