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 self-styled enfant terrible of the new radical left, Ms Laurie Penny, has taken her one-woman revolution to the heart of the establishment. Yesterday, she caused quite the ruckus at the Sunday Times Education Festival, hosted at Wellington College on a panel with David Starkey. As well as being banned from the speakers dinner at
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With Martin Amis’ Lionel Asbo: State of England — the horrific account of a hard-living career criminal turned celebrity lottery winner — climbing the bestseller charts, Li and his creator shouldn’t be confused. At least, that is according to Amis, who recently told the Spectator that he was never a rebel. Richard Bradford, author of
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In 2011, the Southbank Centre hosted the Festival of Britain to mark its fiftieth anniversary. Not wanting to be outdone this year, they are staging the Festival of the World. Last night, Westminster’s arty crowd crossed the bridge to toast this ambitiously titled project. The evening was worth the walk, with flowing Pol and also
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Professional funny chap Armando Iannucci is laughing it off his recent internet showdown with Alistair Campbell. Sky lobbyist extraordinaire Lucy Aitken has been doing wonders to repair the reputation of Murdoch spinners. Last night, she treated an assembled crowd of hacks and flacks to a boozy preview of Iannucci’s ‘Veep’ — the American ‘Thick of
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Another grey weekend and another royal display of jubilation. The annual round of Establishment back-patting for the queen’s birthday is well underway. Arise Sir Kenneth Branagh! Presumably knighted for services to playing knights. Arise also Sir Stilgoe, Dame Jowell and Sir Baldry. Congratulations too to Alexander Chancellor, of this parish, for his CBE for services
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While summer party season is warming up, is the work drying up for Cherie Blair? At last night’s Renaissance Photography Prize at the Mall Gallery, Mrs Blair took full advantage of being introduced as Cherie Booth QC. ‘As a barrister there are important people for me here – solicitors!’ She went on to name check
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Yesterday saw the annual Commons vs. Lords Tug of War, in aid of Macmillan and sponsored by BAE. Battle was joined at Westminster College Gardens, behind the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Teams of marines, fireman, hacks and staffers battled it out before the final show down between the elected and the unelected. Disappointingly for the
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Steerpike’s transatlantic cousins at the New York Post’s Page Six are stirring up the rumours (again) that Vogue editor Anna Wintour is set to become Obama’s Ambassador to the Court of St James. Coincidentally, the fashion supremo has been pulling her weight for Obama’s fundraising. Though vaguely denying the appointment, she is not exactly doing
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Comrades! There is a traitor in our midst. Word reaches Mr Steerpike that the phones are red hot in Labour circles as party hacks consider expelling a vocal enemy of the leadership. Dan Hodges — Labour insider turned Telegraph writer — has been a vociferous critic of Ed Miliband. He also hated Ken Livingstone
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I hear that legendary British producer Jeremy Thomas (of The Last Emperor, Sexy Beast and Crash fame) is working on a script about the tumultuous affair between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Before fans of France’s great intellectual exports become overly excited, it seems that Thomas wants to concentrate on the pair’s Nazi sympathies
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Martin Amis is not appearing at Hay until next week, but his new novel was already getting the intelligentsia chattering this weekend. ‘Lionel Asbo: State of Britain’, a grim tale of a violent lottery winning criminal, is under strict embargo until it’s release on Thursday and the Telegraph has paid an undisclosed fortune for the
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Apparently, ‘it wouldn’t be the same’ for the 25th anniversary of the Hay-on-Wye literary festival without the sideways rain and mist. The weather couldn’t dampen the spirits of the thousands of Guardianistas who have converged on the tiny welsh village this weekend. Neither could the facts that the Telegraph is the festival’s sponsor, and that
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I have learnt that Toby Young, also of this parish, has been briefing his fellow Sun on Sunday columnist Jordan, aka Katie Price. Young is one of Michael Gove’s biggest free school champions and I hear that keeping readers abreast of developments with his own West London Free School has paid off — Jordan is
