Steerpike

As I report in today's Spectator, Lord McAlpine’s libel tour continues. The wrongly accused peer is in London to collect damages from shamed broadcasters, contrite journalists and numbskull Twitter addicts. His return coincides with the sad news that St Stephen’s Club in Queen Anne’s Gate is about to close its doors. McAlpine uses the cavernous basement to cellar his London wine collection, and he’s in urgent need of new lodgings for his clarets, ports and champagnes. He tells me that anyone who can offer secure storage space near Westminster should contact him at the House of Lords. No, not you, Sally. This and other tales can all be read in this week's Steerpike column, available online here, or of course on our iPad app, which is still free for one month.

Years from now, political historians may regard 2012’s Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards as the first round of Boris Johnson versus Michael Gove in the race to be Tory leader. Gove was the event’s compere, and he gave a masterful off-the-cuff speech, full of wit and light. He said that the Spectator, which is once again being edited by a comprehensive school graduate, is a meritocratic beacon in an otherwise privileged world. The Guardian, for instance, has never been edited by someone from a comprehensive school, and no common oik has ever been the BBC’s DG. Gove’s self-confessed ‘Marxist vision’ is of a Utopian England where the Guardian and the BBC follow the Spectator’s example.

‘Passive Aggressiveness – a personality trait or disorder marked by a pervasive pattern of negative attitudes and passive, usually disavowed, resistance in interpersonal or occupational situations.’ Theory aside, Lord Ashcroft’s letter to the Tory’s returning adviser Lynton Crosby, published by his site ConservativeHome this morning, is a near perfect example. It’s dressed up as friendly advice, of course: ‘Finally, I know you understand as much as anyone that it’s never a good thing when the adviser is the story. That being the case, I’m sure you’ll get on with the job and stay out of the limelight. Meanwhile, I’ll be following progress closely and will no doubt have more to say as things unfold.

One of Britain’s leading pollsters has written to the Prime Minister to rebuke him for misleading his supporters over whether the Conservative Party would suffer in the polls if they legislated on gay marriage. The Spectator has seen an incredible exchange of letters between the Prime Minister, the former Welsh Secretary, Cheryl Gillan, and Andrew Hawkins, the CEO of the polling company ComRes. Since being sacked in September, Gillan has become one of the Prime Minister’s more vocal critics and recently slammed the government's gay marriage proposals. Responding to Gillan in a letter that was then leaked to the Pink News, David Cameron relied heavily on polling data from ComRes to claim that legalising gay marriage would make more people vote Conservative.

The Prime Minister chose his words carefully earlier today when asked if he would be sending his children to private school. Sky News’ eagle-eyed Sophy Ridge reports that Cameron was cross-examined by a pesky school kid at a ‘Cameron Direct’ meeting this morning at the John Cabot Academy in Bristol. Cameron told his inquisitor that he ‘would like’ his children ‘to go to state school’, which is nearly the same thing as saying that they will do. The Prime Minister pointed out that his two children of school age - Nancy, 8, and Arthur, 6, attend state primary schools, which implies that they will continue to do so at secondary level. Only he didn’t quite say that because what he actually said was: ‘That is my intention.

Team Cameron, as my colleague James Forysth points out, are rather pleased with Obama’s victory. Downing Street’s finest have been pushing the idea that Barack Obama’s victory speech echoed, word for word, Cameron’s constant refrain that ‘we are all in this together’ and that the 'inherited economic mess' is slowly being overcome. Dave the Statesman, don’t you know? Obama has his admirers on the Opposition benches, as we know. The Labour Party was out in force at the two biggest victory bashes in central London last night: CNN’s opulent shindig at One Mayfair and the tackier affair at the US Embassy.

Dame Helen Ghosh's words about women and David Cameron's government have put Downing Street backs up this afternoon. Dame Helen, whose Civil Service career spanned thirty-three years culminated in a troublesome spell as Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, told Cambridge students it was ‘difficult for women to get in’ when the Prime Minister favoured his male school chums. Lines such as ‘women don’t network. It is actually quite difficult for a woman to get in as part of an Old Etonian clique. They are far too busy doing other things’ have gone down particularly badly. However, I hear that Dame Helen was not totally adverse to a bit of networking.

I gather that self-important Labour MP Tom Watson has earned £10,812 in royalties for the book he recently co-authored on phone-hacking, Dial M For Murdoch. New parliamentary records show that Watson claims to have devoted 175 hours to the project. Despite shunning an advance from publisher Allen Lane, this means the MP has still made an average of £61 per hour for his work so far - a figure that will increase if the book continues to sell. There is no mention in the latest Register of MPs' financial interests, where Watson has made the disclosure, of this cash being donated to charity or good causes. Surely Watson is not seeking to profit personally from the phone hacking affair?