Steerpike

Back to the curious case of Tulip Siddiq, the Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate who also works as the government’s City minister. Sir Keir Starmer revealed this morning that the Labour minister – who has also been tasked with the job of tackling financial crime and corruption – has now referred herself to the government's adviser on ministerial standards over her property holdings after she came under further scrutiny over the weekend. Dear oh dear… As Steerpike noted back in December, the Labour minister was named in an embezzlement probe after it emerged that Bangladesh's Anti-Corruption Commission was investigating the MP, her mother and her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who also happened to be the country's authoritarian premier until last year.

To Scotland, where outrage is spreading after news that a former sex pest politician has landed a top charity job. It transpires that disgraced ex-SNP MP Patrick Grady has been appointed to a senior role at a Scottish government-funded charity – while his victim claims Grady's actions 'ended' his career. Good heavens… Mr S would remind readers that in 2022, the UK parliament's standards watchdog ruled that Grady had made an 'unwanted sexual advance' to an SNP staffer while 'under the influence of alcohol' at a pub six years earlier, where he was found to have stroked the young man's neck, hair and back.

Elon Musk has had a busy weekend, blasting the UK government over Britain's grooming gang scandal and even turning on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage in the last 24 hours. It may be a new week, but Musk's focus remains very much on the British Isles, with the US tech billionaire this morning taking yet another pop at Sir Keir Starmer – and even turning his guns on his predecessor Gordon Brown. The future co-leader of Donald Trump's Department of Government Efficiency has now called for the PM to be incarcerated. This morning, Musk quote tweeted an image of the three girls who were tragically killed in the Southport attack last year, writing: 'Prison for Starmer.' Just minutes before, the Twitter chief took to his platform to claim that 'Starmer is complicit in the crimes'.

Another day, another Labour drama. Now it's Independent MP Rosie Duffield making waves after giving a rather revealing interview to TalkTV. The animosity between the former Labour politician and the current party leader has spanned years, with public disagreements over women's rights, policy decisions and sleaze scandals. Are there any circumstances in which the left-leaning politician would ever consider rejoining her old party? Well, maybe. Speaking on TalkTV today, Duffield was quizzed by Talk's Russell Quirk on her relationship with Labour. RQ: What would you do, Rosie, though? Will you wait for Keir Starmer to be replaced, which I think is probably inevitable before the next general election and then find a way back?

You might have forgotten about Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch's Twixmas Twitter spat, but the Reform UK leader certainly hasn't. Mr S would remind readers that, during the Christmas period, a fight on the right broke out between the two party readers after Reform announced it had officially overtaken the Conservatives' membership total – which led to a rather unedifying back and forth. Talk about a lack of festive spirit, eh? On Christmas, the Farage-led party projected a ‘countdown clock’ onto CCHQ to mark the moment when Reform got its 131,670th member – thus overtaking the Tories. While the up and coming party took to social media to celebrate the achievement, their political rivals were not quite as chipper.

To the Montecito monarchs who, no matter how much they protest about the press, just can't seem to stay away from the spotlight. Not content with her failed podcast Archetypes – which one Spotify exec fumed should have been called 'the f***ing grifters' – or the couples' documentary, rather creatively titled 'Harry and Meghan', the Duchess of Sussex has now released the trailer to her latest venture: 'With Love, Meghan'. Brace yourselves… The Queen of Privacy's teaser clip depicts Prince Harry's controversy-prone wife cooking in California, picking produce from her garden and mingling with famous friends – all rounded off with the Sixties hit 'Do You Believe in Magic'. How sweet – although from the clips Mr S has seen, it's more showbiz than supernatural.

All is not well in Labourland. Now it transpires that 20 councillors have quit Sir Keir Starmer's party in a rather extraordinary protest at the direction of the party under the new Prime Minister. Those involved will now sit as independent councillors in Broxtowe Borough Council in Nottinghamshire. Dear oh dear… The disillusioned lot have even discussed the establishment of a new independent party after losing faith in Starmer's army, with some claiming Sir Keir's crowd had 'abandoned traditional Labour values' and blasting winter fuel payment cuts. The BBC notes that council leader Milan Radulovic was driven to leave the party, despite being a Labour member for 42 years, over recent policy decisions by the PM.

Labour's crackdown on people smugglers comes as New Year's Day Home Office figures show the number of small boats crossing the English Channel increased by a quarter on 2023. A staggering 36,816 people were recorded as having made the journey on small boats in 2024, with the last group of just under 300 people arriving on 29 December. Good heavens… The figures reveal a 25 per cent increase on the previous year, in which 29,437 people took on the Channel to get to the UK – although 2022 remains the busiest year on record, with a whopping 45,774 arrivals onto British shores. In fact, the latest figures take the total number of people crossing the Channel in small boats since 2018 to more than 150,000. Crikey.

New year, same problems. Already Sir Keir Starmer's Labour government is in the firing line again – this time facing criticism for private school VAT adverts. Now the Treasury has been accused of breaching impartiality for saying that Starmer's move to apply 20 per cent VAT to private school fees ends a 'tax break'. Dear oh dear… In social media ads, the Treasury has insisted that the scrapping of the VAT exemption on private school fees means that 'tax breaks for private schools will end from 2025', adding that the move will 'enable better investment in state education' and help recruit 6,500 more teachers – one of its first 'steps for change' in government.