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
To Huw Edwards, who has resurfaced on social media to post a professionally shot black-and-white portrait in what some assume is a bid to rehabilitate himself. But it will take the former BBC star more than a new headshot to convince people he has changed: the family of a teenager groomed by Edwards has blasted
You’re either in front of Mr S or you are behind. It was just six weeks ago that Steerpike reported that staff within Tory HQ were expecting to soon leave their longtime base on Matthew Parker Street. With the party’s lease up next summer, a new headquarters is needed. And today, the Conservatives have told
To Falkirk, where Nigel Farage has flown ahead of the Holyrood elections – to announce another big name member of Reform UK. Now Lord Offord has jumped ship to Reform – and he intends to stand for election in Scotland next year. The businessman was given a peerage in 2021 by Boris Johnson and even
To BBC Question Time, where the leader of the Green party made a rather interesting intervention on migration last night. Zack Polanski’s party preaches that billionaires, not Britain’s borders, are to blame for the country’s woes and their migration policy states that, if elected to government, they will ‘stop putting people in prison because of
To Reform’s Nigel Farage, who managed to dominate headlines today after he took a pop at the Beeb on Thursday afternoon. But that wasn’t all he was there to discuss: he blasted the Labour government’s decision to delay mayoral contests until 2028, he made another barb about Sir Keir Starmer’s digital-ID scheme and insisted he
The festive season is well and truly upon us and The Spectator celebrated with a Christmas reception that took place on Wednesday evening. The great and the not-so-good of Westminster descended upon Old Queen Street. After a rather eventful few months in politics, parliamentarians, pundits and professionals were able to let off some steam and enjoy the
Ping! An email lands in Mr Steerpike’s inbox. An exciting new project launches tomorrow. Liz Truss is starting her own programme on YouTube. Billed as ‘a bold new programme in a media landscape dominated by groupthink and timid consensus’, The Liz Truss Show, promises to bring ‘unapologetic debate, fierce defence of Western values, and straight-talking
Well, well, well. Labour’s decision to cancel four mayoral elections by two years is not going down well, to put it lightly. The government has pushed back elections due to take place in May – in Essex, Hampshire and the Solent, Sussex and Brighton, and Norfolk and Suffolk – until 2028. Sir Keir Starmer’s crowd
‘Anything you can do, I can do better.’ Throughout 2025, both Reform and the Conservatives have slugged it out, trading blows and scrapping for every inch of territory. With the future of the right at stake, neither party wants to be seen as losing political momentum ahead of 2029. Reform has comfortably led in the
To the parties of opposition, about whom some rather interesting stories have emerged. The Financial Times has reported today that Nigel Farage has told his donors that he expects Reform UK to do an election deal with the Tories. The report describes how a donor claimed the Reform leader thought a pact with Kemi Badenoch’s
When it rains for Rachel Reeves, it pours. This time it isn’t revelations about the now-Chancellor’s apparently plagiarised book or her false LinkedIn ‘economist’ claims or, er, accusations she misrepresented the state of the national finances. No, now her chess ability has come under scrutiny. A former junior champion has hit out at Reeves over
Oh dear. It seems that the horror never ends for the Andrew formally known as Prince. Mountbatten-Windsor – as he must now be called – was formally stripped of his last remaining royal titles last night, as the anger over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal shows no sign of abating. And today it has got even worse
It is David Lammy’s big announcement on juries today – so that means another outing for the Tory Trident, Robert Jenrick. The heat-seeking-missile of the Tory frontbench has been itching for a shot at his hapless opposite number, ever since the debacle over leaked prisoners at PMQs three weeks ago. So it was clearly with
Well, well, well. The official review of the leaked Budget documents that circulated last Wednesday ahead of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement has been published – and its findings are significant. It transpires that the ‘inadvertent’ error that led to the OBR report going live ahead of time was a result of IT weaknesses. But more
All is not well in Labour party at present. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spent the morning defending his Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her autumn Budget, cabinet ministers are complaining to journalists that they were kept in the dark over the state of the nation’s finances and a group of Scottish Labour MPs are plotting
Another one bites the dust. Now it transpires that the onetime deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, Jonathan Gullis, has defected to Reform UK. The former MP for Stoke-on-Trent North took to Facebook to announce his move, lamenting that the Tories have ‘understandably lost the trust of the British people’ before stating: ‘I believe only
Oh dear. It seems that Rachel Reeves’ Sunday media round has done nothing to answer questions about whether she misled the country about the national finances. The Chancellor – or ‘the Chancer’ in the words of the Sun – has repeatedly denied lying about the size of the fiscal black hole in the run-up to
Yesterday’s release of immigration figures by the ONS didn’t make for particularly pleasant reading. While net migration had fallen to around 200,000 in the 12 months to June, much of this was down to an unusually high exodus of people, with 693,000 leaving the country over the same period. Many of those leaving were under
Another day, another drama. On Thursday afternoon, it emerged that Sir Keir Starmer’s government were rolling back their commitment to change the ‘qualifying period’ for unfair dismissal from 24 months to day one. Now workers will have to have been in their job for at least six months to qualify, in a move that ministers
The Chancellor’s Budget may have gone down well with Labour backbenchers, but its ‘smorgasbord’ approach has managed to rather annoy a rather lot of people – including, it appears, those resident in Gibraltar. The gambling tax reforms announced by Rachel Reeves have sparked concerns about the impact these will have on the overseas territory. A
