Steerpike

Steerpike

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

Thursday

Steerpike

Take 2 for Godfrey Bloom’s book

Godfrey Bloom has finally rescheduled his postponed book launch. The Ukip MEP, who resigned after his unguarded comments at the party’s recent conference, was due to launch his book A Guinea a Minute in London, but the event was cancelled when the media scrum engulfed the Ukip conference. Well, the invitations have gone out again. They state very clearly that the event is ‘Guest List Only’ and that there will be ‘no pre-launch interviews’. Rather wisely, perhaps. And, as an added precaution, the event will be held in Yorkshire. It seems that the old boy doesn’t want us hacks to come!

Steerpike

Geordie Greig was in Manchester during Miliband memorial

Just as the Miliband/Mail row was dying down, along comes the next tranche of fury — and more justified this time. Mail on Sunday editor Geordie Greig has gone into full damage-control mode (suspending two journalists and issuing a grovelling apology) after Ed Miliband complained that a MoS reporter had infiltrated a family memorial service yesterday to ask guests what they thought of the row with the Mail. Grieg was one of the many editors pressing flesh at Tory conference while the dirty deed was being done, wining and dining cabinet ministers. He may now wish that he stayed at home to keep an eye on his hacks. Greig is rumoured to be planning to succeed Paul Dacre as editor of the Mail, and soften the paper.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Does Michael Gove need spelling lessons?

The conference is over but the mystery continues: are the Tories trying to help hardworking people or hard-working people? This, I assure you, has been the talk of the town, which is covered in slogans about 'hardworking people'. Mr Steerpike was unsure; so, having left his trusty copy of Chambers in London, he asked the education secretary, who he found skulking in the media centre after the PM’s speech, to adjudicate. Michael Gove was an unequivocal; an error had been made. ‘Austerity! We cannot even afford a hyphen,’ he quipped. Your correspondent thought that settled it. ‘You can trust Gove with spelling,’ he believed. But, alas, on returning home Mr S found that Chambers says… ‘hardworking’.

Steerpike

Tory take over

No corner of Manchester is safe from the Tories’ attempt to plaster their conference slogan anywhere and everywhere.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Lynton Crosby is literally a sweetie

The Mayor of London has been upstaged this year as the rebel darling of the delegates. Noting his new rival for attention - Nigel Farage - Boris charmed  conference goers by regaining a tale about Mrs Farage:  'I was so flattered and amused that I almost said yes – and then I thought, no, no!' Uncharacteristic restraint there, but I'm assured he was discussing an invitation to UKIP conference. As the conference season draws to a close the last of the parties go head to head - not the political ones but media knees ups.

Steerpike

Tory conference: for hardworking shoppers

Normally party conference exhibitions are made up of stalls from special interest groups on high-speed rail, trade unions, campaigns for responsible drinking or real ale, and some confusing stands advertising big companies with a large TV in the middle. But every year at the Conservative party conference, delegates enjoy a shopping spree, as well as being chased down by someone with a petition clipboard.

Monday

Steerpike

Go on Bridget, now that Mark Darcy’s dead — marry Daniel Cleaver! #taxbreak

Our world has been rocked by revelations that Bridget Jones — described as 'the world's most famous literary singleton' — is now a widow. Her ex-husband Mark Darcy has left her with two children and a life lived through social media. Bridget is now obsessed with a toyboy called Roxter, a 29-year-old she met on Twitter. Pull yourself together, Bridget! The solution is obvious to Mr Steerpike (oh all right! Lady Steerpike was my inspiration). You must get hitched to your long-time, on-again-off-again love interest, the devilishly endearing Daniel Cleaver. Here's why: 1). If Hugh Grant reprises the movie character, at least it will keep him occupied. #hackedoff 2). Getting married again might qualify you for David Cameron's new tax break.

Steerpike

Robbie Fowler’s simile was bad, not sexist

Viewers of Saturday’s edition of Final Score on BBC 1 would have seen former Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler apologising (doubtless after a prompt from the voice in his ear-piece) for using the expression ‘like a couple of girls’. He was referring to Jan Vertonghen and Fernando Torres’s silly tussle during the 1-1 draw between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, in which Torres was harshly sent off. Mr Steerpike is all for war on clichéd simile (and for telling preening footballers where to get off), but ‘like a couple of girls’ is not sexist. Fowler was picking at the pettiness of Vertonghen and Torres; he was not damning the massed ranks of the sisterhood or women’s football.

Steerpike

Tory MP wins the Game of Thrones

There can only be one winner when you play the Game of Thrones. Any fan will tell you that. The victor, though, always comes as surprise: witness below Tory backwoodsman Alec Shelbrooke resplendent on the Iron Throne. The bombastic MP for Elmet, who is the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, visited the set of the hit HBO series, which is being filmed in Ulster. He's been proudly flashing the picture around the conference bar. It's the closest thing to leadership speculation that I have picked up on, so far.

Sunday

Steerpike

Dave helps one hard working person

Oh the joys of being a lobbyist at Tory conference. Holding court in the bar of the Midland Hotel, my spies tell me that the doyen of the old school spinmeisters, Peter Bingle, was caught off guard by a visitor paying homage at his table. 'Hello Peter, how's business?' asked the eager conference goer. 'Very well thank you, Prime Minister', came the reply. 'My fees have just doubled,' the jolly gent told me later in the evening. One hardworking person is happy.

Steerpike

Tory pale ale fail

Are the Tories a little bitter about Ed's conference speech last week? Well, if their annual conference stunt is anything to go by they’re up for a bar fight. The Red Ed Lion Pub has opened in Manchester serving up such comedy capers as ‘Miliband Brown Ale’, ‘Extra Strong Union Ale’ and ‘David’s Bitter’. Party fund-raisers will be hoping that the delegates tuck in, and they'll be on hand on to take donations, like modern day versions of Napoleonic era army recruiters conscripting drunks in pubs. Mr Steerpike will report back on how they taste when he arrives at the conference; but he suspects that they might be a little flat.

Friday

Steerpike

Bond, progressive Bond

Film fans look away now. Last night the latest author to add to the Bond legacy said that he did not think his version could work on the silver screen. Speaking at the Southbank Centre, William Boyd told fans that if he had wanted Solo to be made into a film he would have written sixty pages rather than over three hundred. The book, which fills us in on Bond’s World War II experiences, presents a more progressive Bond than previous incarnations. Boyd has Bond ‘walking down the Kings Road in 1969’, so the character had to change with the times. There was no mention of the word ‘girl’, either: ‘I don't like the term “Bond Girl”. These Bond women were dark, complex characters.

Steerpike

She lives on in our hearts and our wallets

‘L'Angleterre est une nation de boutiquiers,’ said Napoleon, and now our greatest grocer’s daughter will be remembered with the highest honour this land can bestow: a shop. The Tories will open “Maggie’s Shop” at their conference and online. Think t-shirts and posters rather than milk and coal.

Thursday

Steerpike

Anti-Murray mania in Essex

Andy Murray may have crashed out of the US Open; but last time I checked he was still a hero in this land after 12 months of triumph. All of which makes the recent travails of Conservative MP David Amess rather odd. A complaint to the PPC shows that his local paper, The Southend Echo, made an erroneous claim about him wanting Murray to be knighted, after he was subjected to public abuse. The paper has since grovelled and apologised; but at least it exposed its patch as being the most anti-Murray part of the country.

Steerpike

Gordon Brown’s gossip girls

Brown’s boot boys had a reputation for political assassination, karaoke, and curry and lager. But if Damian McBride is to be believed, they’re really just a gaggle of gossiping girls. ‘How much of an appetite for gossip does Ed Miliband have then?’ Fraser Nelson asked of McBride for this week’s Spectator podcast. ‘He’s a bit like Gordon Brown,’ replied the repentant sinner/spinner: ‘He wouldn’t declare that he was interested in that kind of thing. But if you started saying to him ‘well I think so and so is going out with so and so’ amongst his officials he would go ‘really’ and want to hear about it.  ...

Wednesday

Steerpike

Exclusive: Damian McBride on Alastair Campbell: ‘he hasn’t lost any of his old hounding skills’

Damian McBride has written the Diary for this week’s edition of the Spectator. It’s a masterpiece in mischief. Mr Steerpike spluttered his coffee when he read Mad Dog’s thoughts on Bad Al Campbell’s reaction to the publication of Power Trip: Campbell hit the airwaves and bombarded McBride online, casting himself as some sort moral paragon when it comes to the world of spin. As McBride puts it: ‘I thought about replying that he hasn't lost any of his old hounding skills, but decided it would be in bad taste.’ The repentant sinner-spinner has lost none of his brio, then; although he concedes: ‘I may be learning slowly, but I'm learning.’ No doubt Campbell will take this with the understated dignity we have come to expect from him.

Steerpike

Damian McBride’s book Power Trip trips up its first victim

Damian McBride’s book has bruised many Labour conference delegates, and reopened old wounds. Now I can report that it’s claimed its first physical casualty. Telegraph journalist Matthew Holehouse had been tipped off that copies of the book were selling out fast at the Waterstones stall inside the conference zone. He ran across a road to get a copy, but was hit by a car and broke his leg. Sadly, Holehouse will be out of action for weeks, though at least he will have some good reading material.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Tessa Jowell: Ed should expose himself to many people

The Labour party recently reached a stage where the only person in the entire country not giving Ed Miliband advice about how to lead was Ed Miliband himself. That has died down now, especially after another crowd-pleasing conference speech. But this evening Tessa Jowell offered a little bit more in the way of help. She told a fringe after her leader's speech that the party's job was now to take today's policy announcements to the country, saying: 'I think Ed should just go on travelling around the country, exposing himself to many people.' Crikey! But didn't the leader vow to keep his kit firmly on if he became Prime Minister (' if I become Prime Minister I won’t take my shirt off in public, I mean it is just not necessary is it?')?

Steerpike

We’re alright! we’re alright!

Mr Steerpike was tucking into half a dozen oysters in the Grand Hotel in Brighton when none other than Lord Kinnock tottered by. What did the old socialist firebrand make of his ideological son's big speech? 'I thought it was magnificent,' the former leader turned EU millionaire peer gushed. 'Practical patriotism, practical patriotism!' Like father, like son. I'm also happy to report that his lordship has managed to keep his derrière out of the sea on this trip to Brighton. Well done, sir!