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

Friday

Steerpike

Quentin Tarantino speaks

From our UK edition

Quentin Tarantino has responded to allegations in this week’s edition of Spectator Life. In the cover feature, Diane Kruger claimed the king of cool fired an actor for not bringing a pen to rehearsals. The director told the New York Post: ‘I’m not really sure what she’s referring to . . . However, any actor who shows up at rehearsal without a pen to make notes in their script isn’t professional enough to either be in my movie or worthy enough to be trusted with one of my characters.” He added, “That’s actually part of rehearsal: to test the actors, and if they’re not up to snuff, get rid of them. That’s my job, making sure I’ve picked the right people.’ Luvies, you have been warned.

Friday

Steerpike

Hollywood and oligarchs descend on Art Basel

From our UK edition

The art world has descended on the almost attractive city of Basel in Switzerland this week, for the annual art fair. And where the art world goes, glamorous collectors follow. Leonardo di Caprio appeared to be in the mood for some serious shopping when I glimpsed him, casting his eye over a Warhol or two. He may have looked at the Alexander Calder, or perhaps he saw the Edmund de Waal or the exquisite pair of Peter Doig etchings. And there’s this chap called Picasso; mark my words, dear readers, he’s going to be big. Di Caprio had competition from one Roman Abramovitch, who sloped by a few Edvard Munchs, as one does. Cate Blanchett was a radiant study in concentration as she perused the stalls of the finest galleries in the world.

Thursday

Steerpike

News Corp confirm that Rupert Murdoch has filed for divorce

From our UK edition

Most people had not heard of Wendi Deng until she lamped the left wing comedian "Jonnie Marbles", also known as Jonathan May-Bowles, during her husband Rupert Murdoch's now infamous appearance before the Culture Select Committee in 2011. Springing to her husband's defence when he was custard-pied by the comic, her right hook will go down in the history book of punches. Now it seems that Rupert Murdoch and Wendi, who married in 1999, are going their separate ways. The media mogul filed for divorce at New York's Supreme Court this morning. The News Corp boss better find a suitable new security guard. UPDATE: Looks this news has been in the making for a while: https://twitter.

Steerpike

A regal opportunity

From our UK edition

The Middleton family’s party website is set for a revamp, I hear. James Middleton was serving his own cupcakes at last night’s Johnnie Walker Blue summer party when he let slip that the website would be stepping up a gear. What timing, methinks. The company has raised eyebrows in the past. Their wedding party kits went on sale at around the same time as the elder Middleton daughter joined The Firm. What will the company offer this time? How about some baby shower party packs or a christening kit? It really is a world of opportunity.

Steerpike

Steerpike: The Lib Dems’ free school fight, Dignitas on Scotland, and more

From our UK edition

Some politicians don’t read their own manifestos. And some don’t even read the names of their own parties. When it comes to academy schools, the Lib Dems are struggling to comprehend ‘liberal’ and ‘democratic’. A Suffolk school earmarked for closure was rescued by campaigning parents who invited a commercial operator — International English Schools UK — to take over its administration. Rather than celebrate, Nick Clegg was hopping mad. He apparently regards the profit-making IES as blasphemers against his ideology. A few months ago IES leafleted homes in Twickenham and Teddington offering ‘a new choice of education from September 2014 when IES welcomes the first pupils to a brand new primary school’.

Wednesday

Steerpike

MPs pulling strings

From our UK edition

The SNP was out in force at the annual Macmillan Lords Vs Commons tug-of-war in Westminster last night. Pete Wishart, the rocker turned MP, turned up to support fellow traveller Angus McNeil, the Commons' captain. Wishart looked baffled by the non-whisky brown drink on offer at the bar. Clearly, Pimms has not reached Perthshire. The BBC’s James Landale host the annual jolly once more. And BAE System flexed its muscles by picking up the tab again - any MP whose constituency contains so much as an aviation-related nut and bolt factory came to pay homage to the ‘job creators’. Alas, there was no romance and even less competition.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Dave does not play the Game of Thrones

From our UK edition

Plots, summary executions, sex scandals, leaks and treachery. No, not the last few weeks for the Prime Minister, but rather your average episode of HBO’s hit show Game of Thrones. When asked at a charity reception that clashed with the series finale last night, whether he kept a close eye on it all, young Dave said ‘No, but I understand it's getting brutal.’ Game of Thrones, that is, not the mood on the Tory backbenches. ‘Fair enough really, it's a lot to commit to every week’ my source replied. Perhaps if Dave could give up on his addiction to iPhone games and dark Danish TV boxsets, he might pick up a thing or two about stamping out rebellions and holding unholy alliances together.

Monday

Steerpike

Andrew Mitchell, friend of the civil service

From our UK edition

Tensions between some ministers and the civil service are at boiling point, with vicious briefings taking place on both sides. Seemingly keen to keep the pen-pushers sweet, former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell lashed out last week at colleagues who have been winding up Sir Humphrey: ‘This behind-the-hand rubbishing of public servants is extremely unattractive.’ Spoken like a man who has certainly never been rude himself. A ‘former minister’ also told Sue Cameron in the Telegraph: ‘This is not good management and it’s not good politics, either. If it’s a choice between politicians and civil servants, there’s no doubt that the public will side with the civil servants.

Friday

Steerpike

Little Moscow

From our UK edition

To Kensington last night, to celebrate Russia Day at the glorious mansion of the noble, kind and august ambassador. There was patriotic music, oratory of great distinction and the crowd rejoiced; or so the propagandists will have it. Tongues loosened as the Russian Standard flowed. John Whittingdale, Commissar of the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, was ripe for gossip: ‘If half of what I hear is true it will be quite a show trial,’ he told me. ‘There is all sorts to come out yet.’ Whatever was he talking about? Guests were reluctant to discuss the forthcoming G8 summit in Northern Ireland. I hear that the Russian delegation’s travel plans are in disarray. Cries of ‘Putin cannot stay here!

Thursday

Steerpike

Nice day for a Westminster wedding

From our UK edition

Hearty congratulations are in order for Aidan Burley, the naughty Tory MP and Britain's biggest fan of the Olympic opening ceremony. The Cannock Chase MP popped the question in Sri Lanka, to a fellow Tory, his twenty-four year old researcher Jodie Jones, for what will be a true blue Westminster wedding. Mr Steerpike is fascinated to hear any plans for the stag night.

Steerpike

Where was Lord Adonis during those 5 days in May?

From our UK edition

Andrew Adonis is in the loop. At least that's the impression you might get from 5 Days in May; his account of the various coalition discussions after the 2010 election. His viperous comments about Nick Clegg suggest he was 'inside'; but word from the corridors of power says otherwise. A little birdie tells me that Nick Clegg saw neither hide nor hair of his lordship on any of those five days in May.

Steerpike

Michael Gove’s naked ambition

From our UK edition

High politics can be a grubby business. To a backstreet Westminster pub last night to watch Michael Gove fill the re-election coffers of Tory MP Tobias Elwood. The Tory party likes Michael Gove, and Michael Gove evidently likes the Tory party (unlike David Cameron, who can barely conceal his contempt). The education secretary worked the room with ease, wit and joie de vivre. Soon, the Gove stand-up show was in full-flow. One attendee asked how Gove deals with Andrew Neil's tough Sunday interviews. 'Oh, I just imagine him naked,' replied Mr Gove. Leadership wannabe, Adam Afriyie may want to adopt this technique, assuming he braves the line of fire again.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Pippa Middleton to write for Vanity Fair

From our UK edition

There is some shock in Fleet Street tonight, following news that Pippa Middleton is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The magazine was the last of the late Christopher Hitchens’ haunts; that’s a very long way for a bottom to have wiggled in such a short space of time. On hearing the news, a friend of mine put down his glass and remarked, ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive Graydon Carter his foolish ways.’ Then he turned a reddened eye to your humble correspondent and declared, not without a clear note of resentment, ‘You’re responsible for this!’ He was referring, I believe, to Pippa Middleton’s two outings in these pages. You can read Pippa in Waitrose’s in-house mag.

Steerpike

Dear Laurie Penny, please explain this

From our UK edition

Mr Steerpike has checked his privilege, and he’s a radical feminist. Middle class, self-loathing and instinctively liberal, how could he not be? A devotee of feminist blogs, I was intrigued to read MadamJ-Mo saying that she felt ‘cheated’ by Laurie Penny’s Meat Market, a pamphlet published in 2011. And MadamJ-Mo has a point. Compare this passage from page 62 of Penny’s pamphlet: ‘Judith Ramirez, co-ordinator of the Toronto-based International Coalition to End Domestics’ Exploitation (INTERCEDE) insists that there is no simple solution to what she calls “a modern day variation on the slave trade” – hiring a nanny or a housekeeper is really a question of women trying to fend for themselves.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Boris Johnson to write book about Sir Winston Churchill

From our UK edition

Boris is to write a book about Winston Churchill. As Boris puts it in a cantering press release: ‘The point of the ‘‘Churchill Factor’’ is that one man can make all the difference.’ The point of the ‘Boris Factor’ is that only one man has the spunk to invite comparison between himself and Churchill. David Cameron is, evidently, self-assured; but he would not take such a risk. Confidence is Boris’ gift; over-confidence his enemy. BoJo and Sir Winston are, to an extent, kindred spirits: witty and determined, and chancers both.

Steerpike

The fake-sheik strikes again, with Tulisa in the clink

From our UK edition

The ‘fake-sheik’ has pulled off another classic sting operation, worthy of his time at the News of the World. Mazher Mahmood can add Tulisa Contostavlos, the 'musician’ turned X-Factor judge, to his hit list today after she was arrested 'by appointment' earlier this afternoon following allegations of drug dealing made in The Sun on Sunday. Tulisa and a 35-year-old man are being held in custody in central London. As the summer breeze blows begins to away the chill caused by Sir Brian Leveson, it seems that newspapers are increasingly willing to take risks. This will come as blow for our grubbier celebrities and politicians, who have had an easy ride for the last two years.

Steerpike

Going, going gong: Part II

From our UK edition

The Met’s finest have been left baffled by the discovery of an Ivor Novello statuette, found during a raid on the lair of some scrap metal thieves in Croydon.  Officers have ‘carried out extensive enquiries’, but are still clueless about the identity of the rightful owner of the prestigious prize. After the case of the missing Bafta, which I reported on last month, the winners of the 2013 awards - Emeli Sandé and Noel Gallagher - came to mind initially. But the Yard say that the Novello  ‘went missing during an office move in 1999’ and was never reported stolen. Mr Steerpike will take it for his trophy cabinet if no one else comes forward.

Thursday

Steerpike

Culture wars

From our UK edition

Shadow arts minister Dan Jarvis set chins wagging today by suggesting that ‘well-placed sources in Whitehall’ had told him that the Department for Culture Media and Sport could be scrapped in this summer’s spending review. This is an old rumour that does the rounds every so often; but it’s not completely bonkers in this spending environment, and government culture vultures are fighting back. One DCMS source told me that Jarvis ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There is absolutely no truth in these rumours.’ The denial, though insulting, will please Dan the Man because the ex-Para would be out of a job if the Department for Fun closed.

Steerpike

David Goodhart makes Hay

From our UK edition

What a pity. It seems that Dave Goodhart, director of Demos and editor-at-large of Prospect, has made peace with the Hay Festival organisers, who decided against showcasing his new book on immigration on the annual luvvie field trip. Hay Director Peter Florence described Goodhart’s The British Dream as ‘sensationalist’, and apparently told Goodhart that Hay stood ‘for pluralism and multiculturalism' and that he is half-Italian. Goodhart hit back at these ‘ultra-liberal, slightly lefty multiculturalist’ views, saying:  ‘it's [the book] probably been more widely reviewed than any non-fiction book so far this year - both favourably and unfavourably, so when my publisher said there was no interest from Hay I was a bit surprised.

Steerpike

Steerpike: Murdoch ruined Dave’s holiday

From our UK edition

  So did Dave enjoy his brief break in Ibiza? Not if Rupert Murdoch could help it. Rupe declared on Twitter that the Woolwich atrocity would be a personal test of Cameron’s leadership. ‘Could save him or finish him if he mishandles.’ Three days later the Aussie ref flourished a yellow card. ‘With UK on terror alert, Cameron on holiday. Unbelievable.’ The following morning, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Sun splashed on a picture of a tanned and smirking Cameron next to the headline. ‘Crisis? I’m off to Ibiza.’ Rupert’s quest for revenge goes on.   Poor old Dimbers has lost the plot. First, as a BBC hack, David Dimbleby is required to keep his comments about elected politicians impartial.