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
Since revealing that the Shard's ‘loos with a view’ give punters more than they bargained for, I’ve been inundated with even saucier tales emanating from western Europe's tallest building. I hear that a new exclusive club has been formed at the top of the 1,016ft glass spire: the almost mile high club. Staff became aware that the tower had been ‘christened’ when an errant pair of skimpy knickers were found in the gents...
Steerpike is back in this week's magazine. As ever, here is your preview: 'While losses mount at the Guardian, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, has fallen in love. He keeps ordering the sub-editors to find space for articles about his new Fazioli piano. Cheeky responses have appeared on the website. ‘We always wondered how you filled your days and how you spent your fortune,’ wrote one indignant hack. ‘Now we know.’ Faziolis cost at least £50,000 and a friend at the Wigmore Hall tells me professionals won’t go near them. ‘They’re for loaded amateurs who think a pricy instrument will make up for clumsy fingerwork.
More turmoil at No. 10, I hear. ‘Cameron’s power network is disintegrating,’ gloated an insider as news broke that two aides close to the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, are to leave. The pair worked together at the highest level. Paul Kirby (head of policy) would devise new administrative schemes and Kris Murrin (head of implementation) would make sure they didn’t work. In Macmillan’s day it would have been called laissez-faire government. No doubt the modern term is something like ‘hands-on multidimensionality’. In other words, paralysis. While losses mount at the Guardian, the editor, Alan Rusbridger, has fallen in love. He keeps ordering the sub-editors to find space for articles about his new Fazioli piano.
Terrible news reaches me from the top of the Shard. The viewing platforms at the top of the 1,016ft glass wonder, which is the tallest building in western Europe, are set to open to the public in the coming weeks; but preview guests and party goers have reported a rather shaming interior design flaw. My mole says that complaints have been submitted about the reflective glass in the loos, which is causing havoc, discomfort and embarassment to users. It seems that the trendy designers did not appreciate that the reflections bounce off the ceiling and walls, and into and out of the cubicles. How very, very modern. The Shard team has, as of yet, declined to comment.
Michael Winner’s family have announced that he’s paid his last bill and checked out. The 77-year-old director of Death Wish and world renowned food critic died at home in West London earlier today. In what became his last Winner's Dinners column, Winner recently gave his loyal readership a glimpse at his final days, recounting his trip to Switzerland where he stayed at Mr Steerpike’s favourite haunt, the Gstaad Palace, where his ‘bill for 12 nights was 47,900 Swiss francs (£34,963 at 1.37 Swiss francs to the pound, the rate I got at Marks & Spencer).' Winner poignantly signed off with the observation: ‘Gstaad is packed with famous names, all fighting not to be in this column. I totally understand.
Another week, another former Tory cabinet minister working a room. Last week I brought you news of Liam Fox entertaining the great and good of the Tory party. Now I hear that Andrew Mitchell has been making an extra special effort to be nice to absolutely everyone. The former chief whip was being very friendly to the commentariat at a drinks party at a recently opened hotel in Westminster. He shunned sceptical news journalists, but made determined passes at those with influential column inches. Whatever could he want them to say? George Osborne was at the same private party, pressing flesh like a coiffured madam in a brothel.
Tragedy has struck Vogue House this morning as the sad news emerges that Tatler’s famous in house dachshund, Alan TBH Plumptre, is dead. Details are sketchy at the moment and Condé Nast are refusing to comment beyond saying that there was an ‘accident’, but Mr Steerpike can reveal London’s most glamorous puppy was killed by the revolving doors. Alan’s owner, editor's assistant Jennifer George, has broken the corporate silence: ‘he was so awesome and so very loved’. The little dog’s loyal social media following is distraught: pictures of Alan looking cute in the office were never ending.
The ladies of the London chatterati are at each other’s throats. Left-wing identity politics has been eating itself since the New Year, when the leading feminists of Fleet Street went into battle over who is the better feminist. The great titan-esses are actually secret subversives determined to surrender their cause to subconscious patriarchy. Well, that’s what you would think if you believe some of the words that have been thrown at the likes of the Times’ Caitlin Moran or the Observer’s Julie Burchill and Suzanne Moore in recent weeks. The barbs are getting sharper. The promotional materials for Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies, the latest offering from Hadley Freeman of Guardian and Vogue fame, have reached me.
An impressive turnout in the Churchill Room of the Carlton Club last night for Liam Fox’s New Year drinks. My eyes in the room reports that a smiling Liam claimed he had ‘invited 180 people’ and 162 had turned up. Interestingly, the big beasts came out for the former Defence Secretary, who is said to be eyeing a political comeback. Chancellor George Osborne stopped by, as did Party Chairman Grant Shapps, and Chris Grayling joined the party together with ‘a smattering of Whips’. Though he was left high and dry by colleagues during the scandal that ended his frontbench career in October 2011, his friends were back for the free bar and mini fish and chips.
Steerpike is back in this week’s Spectator, and here’s a little taster from Wapping: James Harding, the ousted Times editor, left with a £1.3 million payoff in his pocket and the praise of Fleet Street ringing in his ears. But why did he go? A chap who polishes the executives’ shoes at News International tells me that just before the hacking scandal blew up, Rupert Murdoch was planning major changes at the Times. He’d decided to pull the newspaper out of the Press Complaints Commission, just as Richard Desmond had done with the Express. Then he’d pull it out of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which he felt didn’t reflect the new digital world.
Has Nick Clegg seen a ghost? The pallor of the Lib Dem leader continues to excite comment in Westminster. At Monday’s half-time presentation by the coalition, he was looking as anaemic as a jellyfish. ‘Either he’s lost four pints of blood or he’s been given his latest polling figures,’ said one hack. A friendly spin doctor explained the mystery. The Prime Minister, standing beside Clegg, had meticulously plastered his face with a thick coating of bronzed grease before coming out on to the podium. And his sun-lounger look made Clegg’s au naturel complexion appear even more washed out than usual. James Harding, the ousted Times editor, left with a £1.3 million payoff in his pocket and the praise of Fleet Street ringing in his ears.
Not long ago Westminster wags nicknamed Sir Jeremy Heywood, Downing Street's top Sir Humphrey — ‘Wormtongue’ after Tolkien's poisonous power behind the throne in the Lord of the Rings. Since being tasked with investigating the Andrew Mitchell affair (and managing to miss the glaring differences between the CCTV footage and the police notes long before the tapes were sent to Channel Four News) the Cabinet Secretary — disliked by many at the best of times — has earned a new nickname from Tory types. Watch out for that eagle-eyed Sherlock Heywood. Now it emerges that the forensic inspector will be making a rare public appearance in front of the Public Administration Committee and will be grilled about the bungled investigation.
The benefits debate in Westminster will rage on long after today’s vote in the Commons. It’s not just a straight row between the government and opposition over who is really on the side of hard working people, nor is it just a debate within the two governing parties. It seems that divisions are now opening in the higher echelons of the Tory machine over just how hard to push the rhetoric. More outspoken MPs — like Dr Sarah Wollaston — have taken to the airwaves to decry the term ‘scroungers’ and ‘skivers’, but most surprisingly even Lynton Crosby, who Labour are desperate to paint as a rather rash and extreme antipodean, is calling for things to be toned down. Or at least that’s what someone told the Fiancial Times.
A brief flurry of excitement in Guardian-land over the festive period as the news trickles out about who might be cast in Dreamworks' silver-screen adaptation of the paper's turbulent love-in with Julian Assange and subsequent fall out with the Wikileaks chief. Benedict Cumberbatch will play the reclusive protagonist, but enter stage (liberal) left Dan Stevens, who was last seen with blood pouring out of his ear on Christmas Day after being clumsily written out of Downton Abbey. Last week’s Mail on Sunday reports that he is now in talks to play Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz. Being played by such a high profile star would surely do wonders for Katz's on-going quest for the top job at the paper.
In the latest Spectator Life, our very own Taki told us: 'I learned long ago that the harder it is to arrive at one's destination, the better the resort.' Apparently 'Gstaad is one of the few ultra-chic winter playgrounds where big jets cannot land.' Always up for a challenge, I decided that Switzerland's finest mountain spot needed checking out. Bloody Mary-spilling turbulence, various coach 'malfunctions' and sideways snow aside, our resident High Lifer was proven wrong; ten hours after leaving London I arrived outside, as Taki finely puts it: 'The Palace — a large chocolate cake of a castle-hotel, favoured by mad King Ludwig of Bavaria.
Given that James Harding is generally regarded as the best editor of The Times to have worked under Rupert Murdoch, what happened yesterday? Mr Steerpike has been making some inquiries. It emerges that Murdoch had not been on speaking terms with Harding since summer last year, and latterly did not even bother to see him on his irregular visits to his Wapping HQ. It is not clear why proprietor has fallen out with editor, though huge losses, falling circulation and too pinkish/independent an editorial line are the usual reasons for Murdoch turning against his editors — and The Times had been "guilty" of all three. Twice this year News International CEO Tom Mockridge has been dispatched by Old Rupe to fire the editor only to be stopped at the last minute.
The Daily Mail got very excited last month over 'a new student craze' called milking, where students post videos of themselves ‘pouring milk over their heads in public places’: The four-pint fad began in Newcastle and soon spread to Edinburgh, Oxford and other universities. Not to be outdone, the fine gentlemen of St Andrews University have given their own twist on the craze: ‘Champagning’: Robed up, their video speaks for itself. It certainly gives a new meaning to 'Champagne for the brain', but a damned waste of fine Pol if you ask me.
Bestselling author Pippa Middleton has written this week’s Spectator diary*, in which she takes on her critics directly: ‘I have been much teased for my book, Celebrate. Lots of journalists are saying that my advice is glaringly obvious... It’s all good fun, I know, and I realise that authors ought to take criticism on the chin. But in my defence, let me say this: Celebrate is meant to be a guide to party planning and, as such, it has to cover the basics. If I were to write a cookery book, for instance, I would be compelled to say that, to make an omelette, you have to break at least one egg.
As David Cameron was leaving his lunchtime date with Westminster’s lobby journalists, my spy overheard him asking an aide: ‘I don't think I gave them anything too interesting, did I?’ Quite so, except that the Prime Minister showed once again that he has an odd relationship with the truth. Commenting on Nadine Dorries' trip to the jungle, young Dave claimed that he had not watched the show and certainly did not vote. Apparently he had only ever engaged in such plebeian entertainment once: voting for Will Young on X-Factor because ‘his daughter had made him’. Two problems here. One: Will Young was not on X-Factor, rather Pop Idol in 2002, as any fan would know. Secondly his daughter Nancy was born in 2004.
The fantastically eccentric Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has a loyal female following known as the ‘Mogg-ettes’, and his louche style, pocket watch and dapper tailoring are a sight to behold. The Somerset MP’s fame extends to having a fake Twitter account in his name. The parody has fooled many. ‘Initially I thought it was someone opposed to me in principle,’ the Moggster told me the other evening. ‘But they're actually a very amiable person; very funny.’ And Mogg confessed that the spoof is a blessing in disguise: ‘I can do the whole tweeting thing without actually have to tweet. It's perfect!