Steerpike

Under the alias ‘Director General of the Russell Group’, a certain Dr Wendy Piatt has slammed the government’s policy on student visas. In a quote to the Independent, she warns: ‘as ministers crack down on abuse of the system, they must be careful about the messages they send to the world’s best and brightest students.’ Surely this cannot be

The press officer for the Cairngorms National Park turned Chief Secretary to the Treasury faces constant accusations that he has gone ‘native’, owing to the relish with which he has taken to his job of slashing the state. He did himself few favours in that regard by speaking at a fringe event at the Tory

What gift do you buy for a man who has it all? It would be hard enough to pick a forty-sixth birthday present for the multi-millionaire David Cameron even if he were not the prime minister; but the fact that he is one of the leaders of the free world makes it even trickier. Boris

Officially the Tories are denying that UKIP is a threat to them. A private discussion with the party chairman about obstacles to a majority in 2015 held last night contained no mention of Farage’s merry men. Yet it seems that Central Office might actually be a little more paranoid than they are letting on. The

A Labour conference delegate was heckled from the floor when she mentioned her school. Joanne, an immigrant who came to this country seeking political asylum and is about to read law, came face to face with the vested interests that blight education reform: the hall did not like the fact that she went to an

Ed Miliband’s ‘One Nation’ conference speech will have put the populist cat amongst Downing Street’s toffee-nosed pigeons. Now young Dave’s people will have to work out how to respond to this inspired piece of political cross-dressing, even if it is essentially diaphanous. One (alleged) Tory, though, is very happy with the direction in which the national debate

David Miliband blasted New Statesman columnist Mehdi Hasan’s updated Ed Miliband biography yesterday afternoon: ‘Judging by extracts about me in the Mail on Sunday, updates to Ed’s biography should be filed in the fiction section’. The former foreign secretary took umbrage at the suggestion that he had said his brother would ‘crash and burn’. And,

Barclays bank has opened a charm offensive, hosting an autumn drinks party for assorted hacks at its Mayfair offices. Insiders claim that it’s ‘a very British affair’ at the bank these days, with a new regime at the top following Bob Diamond’s departure. Indeed, even the more subtle traces of Diamond have been eradicated. It was a

Dave is chasing Boris across the Pond and onto the set of the Letterman Show, but Mr Steerpike understands that the prime minister is not the only British party leader heading stateside today. On the back of UKIP’s most successful ever party conference, Nigel Farage is on his way for a lap of honour around Wall

A big-tent turnout on Saturday evening for the fourtieth birthday of Conor Burns, the Tory MP for Bournemouth West. Burns, fresh from his heroic rebellion against Lords reform, packed the State Rooms of the Palace of Westminster with a big crowd of rising Tory stars and some old stagers including Lord Lamont and Sir Mark

What could possibly go wrong when you lock 10,000 political hacks and flacks in a hotel for 96 hours and let lobbyists pick up the tab? Well that’s party conference for you, and there have been some excellent tales of drunken debauchery over the last few years. The most riotous parties are the ones upstairs in the private suites