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

Monday

Steerpike

Labour’s October putsch against Hodges

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 so much that he urged his readers to vote for Boris. Now delegates to this year's Labour Party Conference are being sounded out on whether they would support a motion to have the fiery scribe banished from the party.    The motion will appeal to the Labour National Constitutional Committee to expel Hodges on grounds that he campaigned against an official Labour Party candidate.

Friday

Steerpike

A Nazi-sympathising love affair

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 during the War. Top of Thomas's cast wish list is French star Vincent Cassel — who had a memorable turn as a crazed sex addict in A Dangerous Method — and Marion Cotillard who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Edith Piaf. Rumour has it that Thomas could be set to hook up once again with David Cronenberg after the success of Crash and A Dangerous Method. Mr Steerpike will keep you posted.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Steerpike at Hay: the ‘ay list

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 serialisation rights. Numbered and unbound review copies have been kept under lock and key for weeks to protect the exclusive deal, so it was a little unfortunate that three copies of the novel were found in the festival's onsite bookshop on Saturday morning — the day the exclusive extract ran in the the paper.

Sunday

Steerpike

Steerpike at Hay – the reign of Boris

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 the star-turn on Saturday was undoubtedly the Mayor of London. Arriving on Friday night, hours late, Boris kept his dinner companions at the home of GQ editor Dylan Jones stewing while he was stuck in transit. He was quick to play catch-up though, and in refusing to be outdone by a leftie pledged to dive into the freezing river the next morning, purely because Alan Yentob was doing so.

Saturday

Steerpike

Will Jordan trigger Kent’s free schools revolution?

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 to set up a free school for blind and disabled children in Kent.  Toby informed me of the obvious benefits this development: ‘She’ll make a much more appealing spokesperson for the free schools movement than me!' Mr Steerpike couldn’t possibly comment.  But will we be seeing other Sun columnist joining the education revolution? The Jeremy Clarkson School of Driving? The Frankie Boyle School of Performing Arts?