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

Steerpike | 18 April 2013

Labour activists are quietly amused that Mrs Thatcher’s death may lead to a library being built in her honour. ‘Tricky one for the Tories,’ says a top Labour figure. ‘Presumably David Cameron will open it. And Eric Pickles will close it.’ In Tory circles, meanwhile, the jokes are all about a future Cameron library. Built in a Tory-Lib Dem marginal, fuelled by solar panels, and administered by ethnically diverse and gender-balanced staff, the Cameron Centre for Reading Together will provide nothing but state-run newspapers and learned biographies of Tony Blair and Morrissey, with perhaps a folk music section near the front desk. Gay nuptials will be held in the annex, and there’ll be a permanent suite upstairs for Abu Qatada and family.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral unites the political class

Where there has been discord, Mrs Thatcher’s funeral brought harmony. From my seat in the gods at St. Paul’s, I watched as Westminster’s lesser mortals gathered in front of the altar to shoot the breeze in the hour before Lady Thatcher’s coffin arrived. Gordon and Sarah Brown were first to arrive. They plonked themselves down, but soon jumped up to chat to a passer-by. Quick as a flash, Ed Miliband and his wife Justine pinched the Browns’ vacated chairs. Time rolled by, and Miliband found it impossible to shake the shadow of his old master as he walked around the nave. How’s that for art imitating life? The pews soon filled up with cabinet ministers.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Row builds over the US Senate’s silence on Lady Thatcher

Further to my report yesterday, the Heritage Foundation, the giant conservative think-tank that has its own Margaret Thatcher Centre to study and promote the Special Relationship, has weighed in: ‘To refuse to honour a woman of such great historical and political significance, who was deeply loyal to the United States, is petty and shameful.  One truly has to wonder, what is it about Lady Thatcher that gives them pause? Her unfaltering commitment to freedom?  Or perhaps the way she fought for individual liberty and limited government?’ A fine point by the Heritage Foundation; but time is slipping away if the Senate is to pass a motion before the Lady is interred.

Monday

Steerpike

US Senate strangely silent over Margaret Thatcher

In deference to Lady Thatcher’s immense popularity across the Pond, the US House of Representatives paid tribute to her. But the US Senate has been oddly reluctant to follow suit. Sources in Washington tell Mr Steerpike that a Republican resolution is ‘on hold’ because Democrat majority leader Harry Reid, with the help of a Senator Schumer, is blocking the move. This is poor show, as a quick history lesson will prove. US senators were slow to authorise President Reagan’s attack on the late and unlamented ‘Mad Dog’ of the Middle East. But the Gipper wasn’t worried because the Iron Lady allowed the assault to be launched from these shores. That’s friendship, honourable senators.

Friday

Steerpike

That’s more like it Geri

Well how about this for a turnaround? After Steerpike highlighted the somewhat dubious ‘girl power’ Geri Halliwell, who praised Thatcher and the subsequently deleted her tribute, the Spice Girl has seen the error of her ways: ‘I was 7 years old when my father told me about the greengrocer’s daughter who had become the first female Prime Minister in our history. I was enchanted by this… my father who was always hiding behind the broadsheets spoke about her my whole childhood. Fast forward to 1996… It was widely covered in the media, when I casually mentioned that I admired Margaret Thatcher in an interview for a political magazine.

Thursday

Steerpike

A birthday challenge to the New Statesman

Slight treachery from Boris, who has written a glowing piece on the occasion of the New Statesman’s centenary. While most people will focus on his dissection of the evils of left-wingery and explanations for hatred of Margaret Thatcher, something else caught Steerpike’s eye: 'My paranoia about the New Statesman and its terrific pieces went on for some months, until we finally met for physical combat, in the form of a cricket match. It was a torrid afternoon and I was full of nerves. Bernard Levin had come to watch, for heaven’s sake, and the New Statesman’s captain, Christian Wolmar, displayed what I am forced to call gamesmanship. At last we prevailed, thanks to a last-wicket stand by Alex van Straubenzee, our circulation manager, and myself.

Wednesday

Steerpike

The guru speaks

A Maggie-tastic jam-packed Spectator tomorrow. Amongst the tributes, the words of Steve Hilton stuck out: ‘I saw her as thrillingly anti-establishment; as much of a punk, and as brilliantly British, as Vivienne Westwood, who once impersonated her on the cover of Tatler. Margaret Thatcher had the virtues most valued in today’s culture: innovation, energy, daring. She was Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and Lady Gaga all rolled into one — and a thousand times more consequential than any of them. In today’s techno-business jargon, she was the ultimate political disruptor: determined to shake things up, unleash competition, challenge and confront vested interests. To be transformative, being reasonable doesn’t get you very far.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Lady Thatcher on the ‘The Iron Lady’

Conor Burns, a close confident of the late Baroness Thatcher, has lifted the lid on the former Prime Minister’s reaction to the biographical Meryl Streep film I mentioned yesterday. The Tory backbencher recounts: “I went from Leicester Square to watch the Iron Lady to Chester Square to have a gin and tonic with Lady T, and I told her ‘I’ve just been to see a film about you.’ She said ‘what do you mean a film about me?’. "I said: ‘Well they’ve made a film about your life and career as Prime Minister, and it’s an hour and half long’ and straight away, she said: ‘I couldn’t imagine anything worse’.

Monday

Steerpike

Spineless Spice Girl deletes Thatcher tribute after Twitter abuse

The political tributes and barbs cast after the news of Margaret Thatcher’s death have been covered on Coffee House today, but what of the world’s other great egos: those in showbiz? Steerpike was impressed by Meryl Streep, who having played Thatcher in the controversial 2011 biographical film ‘The Iron Lady’, is slightly better placed than her Hollywood comrades to pass comment. Streep told the Washington Post: ‘to me she was a figure of awe for her personal strength and grit,’ and while she acknowledged Thatcher’s detractors, the actress has some rather sound opinions: ‘Her steadfast, almost emotional loyalty to the pound sterling has helped the UK weather the storms of European monetary uncertainty.’ Quite.

Friday

Steerpike

Newt Gingrich’s Downton downtime

Newt Gingrich has a new love. ‘It's a great study of plot,’ the failed Presidential runner and former Speaker of the House told Slate magazine. He was not referring to a '90s sleaze inquiry, or the reasons why he lost to Mitt Romney. The object of his obsession is our very own Downton Abbey. In what could be mistaken for an interview about his once colorful private life, Gingrich went on: ‘It has about 15 subplots plus four or five that come and go. At any given moment you could list these different developments going on with these different personalities. See, you're never bored.’ Apparently, ITV’s most successful export is ‘sort of MTV, designed into long-form’ and is ‘very intelligently done, and I'm just really impressed.

Thursday

Steerpike

Mark Thompson’s BBC past haunts

Steerpike is back in this week's magazine. As ever, here is your preview: ‘One of Lord Hall’s predecessors, Mark Thompson, is toiling away as chief executive of the New York Times. But he’s devised a brilliant wheeze to give his old chums at Broadcasting House a bit of extra work. Later this month his newspaper will co-host a Social Media Summit at the Times Center in New York. Thompson promises an ‘exciting line-up’ including world-class media luminaries like Matthew Eltringham, ‘Head of Web Site and Events at the BBC Academy College of Journalism’, and Dmitry Shishkin, ‘Digital Development Editor at BBC Global News’.

Steerpike

Steerpike | 4 April 2013

Chat, chat, chat. Every member of the Cabinet enjoys a good old chin-wag with their ministerial driver. Except one. Dave appears to have taken a vow of silence. For three years the PM has stoutly refused to offer a syllable of conversation from the back of his bullet-proof limo. I’m told that a sweepstake has opened up in the car pool and the first government chauffeur to hear the Prime Minister break his oath stands to win about 1,000 smackers. Not for personal gain, of course. If the PM’s elective aphasia ever comes to an end, the winner will donate the cash to a charity helping children with speech difficulties.   Has Tony Hall, who took over at the BBC this week, been aided in his starry career by his ability to cultivate political contacts?

Wednesday

Steerpike

Boris Johnson vs Pippa Middleton. It’s on

Game on: Boris has accepted Pippa Middleton’s 'Whiff-Whaff' challenge. The Mayor of London has declared: ‘I’m game if she is. Happy for Pippa to join me on a visit and see the benefits of our £22m Sports Legacy Fund in action.’ While Pippa would no doubt enjoy that, the Spectator is happy to set up a ping pong table in our garden. Pol Roger will be served. UPDATE: Mr Steerpike has confirmation Pippa is still up for the contest. I hear she 'sensed some nerves' in Boris's reply.

Steerpike

Michael Dobbs tight lipped on House of Cards plot

It was a gamble that seems to have paid off. American online entertainment giant Netflix commissioned their first ever original series with a Washington adaptation of Lord Dobbs’s classic, House of Cards. According to its star, Kevin Spacey, the show is today the most watched ever on the service. Season one ended on a cliff hanger that promises to deliver still more viewers. The new House of Cards is sufficiently different from the old to attract a new audience; yet there were enough nods to the original BBC series to keep Westminster loyalists happy.

Steerpike

Pippa Middleton’s challenge to Boris Johnson

Pippa Middleton writes an Alpine Notebook for the new Spectator, out tomorrow. She has this to say at the end: 'Back home in London after my Alpine challenges, I can now pursue less demanding hobbies in my spare time, such as ping-pong. I’m informed that Boris Johnson, former editor of this magazine, wants to be "whiff-whaff" world king even more than he wants to be Prime Minister. I’m also told the Johnsons are almost as competitive as the Middletons. So I’d like to lay down a challenge to the Mayor. My only stipulation is that I can use my favourite Dunlop Blackstorm Nemesis bat, which I used when I played in the Milton Keynes U13 National Championships, don’t you know. Bring it on, Boris.' So how about it, Boris?

Tuesday

Steerpike

Chin chin, my dear friend

It was a heavy weekend for actor Richard E Grant. Toasting the life of his old friend and Withnail and I co-star Richard Griffiths, the famed teetotaler found his own way to say goodbye, in character: ‘Here's the plan. Going to fire up a Camberwell firm young carrot in memory of my 'Uncle Monty' and raise a figurative glass of sherry to him’. Fast forward thirty-six hours and it seems that the ‘Camberwell carrot’ took it’s toll on the 55 year old actor: ‘Total sloth. Just got out of the scratcher. Not done this since the last century. Do I feel guilty? Fuck no!! Ha ha’ That’s the spirit.

Thursday

Steerpike

Lurhmann, Baz Lurhmann

Baz Lurhmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby (above) may yet enrage purists; but it seems that the Australian director already has his eyes on another product. Speaking exclusively to Spectator Life, Lurhmann reveals that taking on Shakespeare and the 20th Century’s favourite novel are not enough: ‘I have more things in my cupboard I want to make. There’s the Shakespeare canon, there are cinematic musicals, there are edgy psychological works. Sometimes having a brand is a burden because sometimes I’d like to be a shooter and knock off a movie just for the fun of making someone else’s script or a Bond film.’ Steerpike hopes Daniel Craig is getting his singing lessons in early.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Heard it on the Gove-Vine

Times journalist Sarah Vine has written the diary in the forthcoming edition of the Spectator. For those wondering why that caught Mr Steerpike’s eye, Vine is the wife of Education Secretary Michael Gove. Here is what Question Time looks to a participant's spouse: ‘I was too chicken to watch. I can watch him do almost anything — select committees, speeches at conference, Leveson, the Gay Gordons — but for some reason Question Time gives me the willies. My friend Tania, who normally watches for me and emails as the action unfolds, was not answering her phone, so had to rely on Twitter for updates. Soon, Gove was trending — but it was not entirely clear why. All the people who hate him hated him more and all the people who love him loved him more.

Steerpike

Liberal Democrat spinners spin away the past

A conundrum for ambitious Liberal Democrats who have seen their CVs blighted by the scandal surrounding former party Chief Executive Lord Rennard. Though the portly peer denies all allegations of sexual impropriety with a stream of female staff, that has not stopped party hacks and flacks, both past and present, tinkering with their résumés. With his all-encompassing role as Chief Executive and general overlord of the party for nearly two decades, a reference from Rennard must have seemed like a golden ticket on CVs in the endless revolving door between politics and lobbying.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Farewell Shepherd’s

The end of an era for Westminster lunchers. Shepherd's, the favourite haunt of Cabinet Ministers, political editors and TV types since 1993, has closed. The sister restaurant of Langan’s Brasserie — the joint venture between notorious alcoholic Peter Langan and Michael Caine —  Shepherd's shut its doors unexpectedly yesterday, leaving staff stumped as to why. Famed for its house pie, even devout vegetarian Adam Boulton has lamented this as a ‘sad day’ for the ‘best restaurant near Parliament’. The increasing Americanisation of lunch in London is clearly taking its toll.