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
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Back to Scotland, where the Nats are still reeling after their general election defeat. The national poll left the SNP with just nine seats and the exodus has rocked the secessionists. It transpires that while Stephen Flynn has remained leader of the Westminster group, Pete Wishart is now his deputy and Kirsty Blackman is the
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Another day, another drama. This time Sir Patrick Vallance is in the limelight, after attacking Brexit on the BBC. The new science minister – and former scientific adviser to the government – has given a rather curious interview this afternoon in which he has slammed the decision to leave the EU and refuses to rule
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Uh oh. It’s day five of Sir Keir’s new Labour government and already the reds are running into trouble. Politicians confirmed last week Sunak’s Rwanda plan was to be scrapped, with the Labour party instead planning to tackle immigration by ‘smashing the gangs’. But there is a cost to the change of tack – and
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The election is over and with MPs now being sworn in, where better to take the temperature of Westminster then at The Spectator’s annual summer party? As New York Magazine recently wrote, it is ‘an unmissable event on the social and political calendar’ and perhaps the only place in the world that you would find
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The Tories faced a difficult election campaign and things aren’t much improving for the party. Now it transpires that Kemi Badenoch used the group’s first shadow cabinet meeting to hit out at ex-PM Rishi Sunak, describing his decision to call an early election as bordering on ‘unconstitutional’. Talk about trouble in paradise… The shadow housing
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To the House of Commons, where party leaders are making their first post-election speeches. And for the first time, Nigel Farage MP gets to join in too. The Reform leader and newly-elected member of parliament for Clacton addressed his colleagues this afternoon, dubbing his party’s five MPs ‘the new kids on the block’, admitting to
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All is not well in the Conservative party. Tory leadership hopeful Suella Braverman has turned on fellow MP Robert Jenrick in a scathing attack on her rival. The former home secretary previously worked closely with the ex-minister while their party was in government – but was this week keen to draw up dividing lines between
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Oh dear. After last week’s bruising defeat for the Conservatives, the party has been left looking for a new leader and a way to win back voters. With only 121 seats, the Tory party has lost a number of key figures – and just last night, it was revealed that both party chairman Richard Holden
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As rumours continue to swirl about who will make a bid for the Tory leadership, Suella Braverman has been on manoeuvres in Washington. The former home secretary’s speech at the National Conservatism conference in the US constituted a rather scathing attack on her own party, and has ruffled feathers across the political spectrum. In a
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Richard Holden has resigned from his role as Conservative party chairman. The news comes as the Tory party has announced its shadow cabinet reshuffle – after it won just over 120 seats in Thursday’s election. Despite holding onto the safe seat he was parachuted into just days before the nomination deadline, Holden has left his
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It’s the third day of Sir Keir’s Labour government and Starmer has finished making his ministerial appointments. But not everyone is thrilled by the final list. Emily Thornberry has already hit out at Starmer’s snub, after the long-time parliamentarian was passed over for a government role, and now JK Rowling has taken to Twitter/ X
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Has Rishi Sunak officially killed off the Tory party? As members of his battered party dusted themselves off to return to parliament this morning, they arrived to discover that the official Conservative Twitter/X account had been deleted. Viewers to the page were met with a message telling them that ‘This account doesn’t exist’ – an
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Uh oh. Not everyone in Sir Keir’s Labour party is in celebration mode right now. The Prime Minister has finished dishing out government roles and one MP in particular has voiced her unhappiness about not receiving a position. Passed over for a government post, Emily Thornberry has taken to Twitter to opine on her snub
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As Sir Keir Starmer enters his first week as Prime Minister, north of the border the Nats are facing a moment of reckoning. After the SNP’s bruising defeat on Friday, where the party ended up with just nine seats, a number of politicians have spoken out about what they think went wrong. And it’s not
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Zut alors! It’s all kicking off in France where the nation this weekend went to the polls for the second round of voting to the National Assembly. Elections are a tricky business at the best of times, let alone in modern France – a nation of 246 varieties of cheese, as De Gaulle despaired. But,
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The general election may be done, but that doesn’t mean party drama has come to an end. Suella Braverman is back in the limelight today after an appearance on GB News in which she, er, refused to shut down rumours that she could defect to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. How curious… The newly elected MP
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Oh dear. The SNP faced a gruelling general election result this week, losing 38 seats to end up on just nine as voters north of the border overwhelmingly backed Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot. A number of parliamentarians lost their seats in nationalist exodus and some of the party’s failed candidates aren’t taking things well.
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Since becoming leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer has faced plenty of scrutiny about his career as a human rights lawyer – and in particular the more unpleasant individuals he represented during his time at the bar. Starmer has, for example, represented in court the preacher Abu Qatada in his battle to avoid being
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It’s the Portillo moment of 2024. Liz Truss sensationally lost her safe South West Norfolk seat this morning, less than two years after serving as prime minister. Amid much online excitement about her prospects of losing, Truss was initially not seen at the count at 6 a.m, forcing the result to be delayed by several
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They’ve been some of the most dominant figures in British politics of the past five years – but now they’re out of the Commons. Former prime minister Lis Truss has lost her seat. And among the other high-profile casualties are the Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons.