Steerpike

Dear oh dear. Rachel Reeves has ended up in something of a pickle over her employment history, with the Chancellor under fire over whether she has been straight with the public about her economist background. Certainly after that Budget, Mr S is hardly surprised eyebrows are being raised… Pressure has been piling on Reeves for weeks, with questions arising around exactly how long she worked at various institutions, exactly what she worked as and whether she has been playing fast and loose with the truth of the matter. As the curious case of the Labour MP’s CV rumbles on, Steerpike has pulled together a list of exactly which of her claims have been challenged when.

Ding ding ding! All is not well in the SNP as the Nats are back to fighting among themselves over the issue of double jobs. Last week Westminster leader Stephen Flynn announced that he will stand in the 2026 Holyrood election – and, if successful, he will also continue on in his existing MP role. But the move has sparked outrage among previous and current nationalist politicians alike, with anonymous briefings and social media attacks throwing the party into yet another civil war. Oh dear… Flynn's plan to stand for the Aberdeen South and North Kincardine seat has not been universally welcomed – not least given the incumbent SNP MSP Audrey Nicoll is also hoping to stand again.

After eight years of poorly serving the capital, there was relief from London taxpayers last month when Amy Lamé announced she was standing down as Sadiq Khan's 'Night Czar'. On her watch, dozens of clubs, pubs and bars closed down, all the while she continued to enjoy inflation-busting pay rises. It was Mr S who broke the news last year that Khan had handed her a 40 per cent wage increase, with her final salary being eventually more than £132,000 a year. So much for performance relayed pay eh? Lamé is no longer claiming a taxpayer salary – but she still continues to embarrass herself. This afternoon it was announced that the popular London nightclub Heaven has been closed on public safety grounds. Why, you ask?

Whether it's falling masonry or rats, staff in the Houses of Parliament have to put up with a lot in their workplace. Since 2020 they have to endure the daily delight of navigating New Palace Yard in various states of repair. Parly bosses boast that this is to 'deliver better and more inclusive accessibility, enhanced security, improved vehicular access as well as optimising and preserving the heritage of this historical part of the Palace of Westminster.' Fair enough – but are they really getting bang for their buck? Mr S has done some digging to try to unearth the cost of four years of work.

It was Norman Tebbit who joked that the Ministry of Agriculture looked after farmers while 'the job of the Foreign Office is to look after foreigners.' So Mr S has done some digging and it turns out that the men and women who run FCDO have ensured HM's government are making a pretty penny or two. Let's hope it's not a case of 'selling the family silver', to borrow Harold Macmillan's words... A Freedom of Information request by The Spectator says that the FCDO has sold off more than £1.1 billion of embassy buildings since 2010. Among them include the surroundings of the Bangkok estate, the Yervan embassy, the partial sale of Guatemala's office and Tokyo's famed compound.

They're the redoubtable men and women who keep our legislature safe. But is the thin blue line around the Commons looking a little bigger these days? Mr S has done some digging and found a Freedom of Information (FOI) request from the Metropolitan Police on fitness tests undertaken by the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit – the elite squad assigned to protect MPs. The Met sent The Spectator figures which show that the number of officers failing their JRFT – job related fitness test – doubled between 2019 and 2022. According to the Police Single Operating Platform, 771 employees took tests in 2018, of which five failed – a rate of 0.6 per cent. By 2022 the annual number of officers taking the tests had increased to 810, with twice as many failures (10) or 1.