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

Friday

Steerpike

Full list: Rees-Mogg and Mordaunt among big beasts felled in Tory wipeout

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. Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Michelle Donelan, the Science Secretary, have also been given the boot.

Thursday

Steerpike

Full list: Which newspapers backed Labour?

They may not command the power that they once did, but newspaper endorsements are still highly-prized by political parties. Labour is trying to convince voters that they have moved on since the Corbyn era, with the backing of Fleet Street's titles being a useful way of demonstrating this to their readers. The endorsement of the Sun this week comes after four years of effort by Keir Starmer's to show that his party has truly changed. Facing a landslide loss, the Conservatives meanwhile are getting only semi-enthusiastic support from the Tory press. The Daily Mail for instance is advocating tactical voting for the Tories to ensure it provides an effective opposition to a prospective Labour government, while conceding that the party is not realistically likely to win the election.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Captain Tom’s daughter disqualified from charity

Uh oh. Amid the longstanding inquiry into Captain Sir Tom Moore's family, one rather damning conclusion has so far been reached. It has been revealed today that Captain Tom's daughter Hannah Ingram-Moore and her husband have been disqualified from being charity trustees as part of an ongoing investigation by the Charity Commission. Talk about a fall from grace... Interest in the Captain Tom Foundation – set up in 2020 after the army veteran fundraised £38.9 million for the NHS during lockdown – piqued after concerns arose about the management of the charity and its independence from the ex-soldier's family. Sir Tom Moore passed away in February 2021, shortly after his 100th birthday and six months later, his daughter was made CEO of the charity.

Steerpike

The Sun backs Labour

Talk about an eleventh hour endorsement. This afternoon, one long-anticipated announcement dropped less than a day ahead of the general election. The Sun newspaper has now officially backed Sir Keir's Starmer's Labour party – just hours before polling stations are due to open. Tweeting out an image of its front page splash, Rupert Murdoch's famed red top has officially given its seal of approval to Starmer's army this afternoon in just five words: 'Time for a new manager'.

Steerpike

Do the Lib Dems have an intolerance problem?

Is the Liberal Democrat party really all that liberal? Mr S isn’t quite so sure – after speaking to an ex-Lib Dem staffer who is taking legal action against the party for ‘discrimination, harassment and victimisation’. The former caseworker, who is using the pseudonym Amelia Sparrow, was dismissed after three days of working for a Lib Dem MP for ‘dishonesty’ – yet believes it was down to pressure put on her boss after she didn’t keep schtum about her gender-critical views. How curious… Other staffers were less fussed about airing their views – reportedly labelling Baroness Hayter ‘transphobic’ and calling Joanna Cherry a ‘transphobe’.

Steerpike

JK Rowling slams David Lammy over women’s rights

The Harry Potter author strikes again. After blasting Sir Keir in a recent Times column, this time prominent women's rights campaigner JK Rowling has hit out at Labour's shadow foreign secretary David Lammy over past comments he made on gender issues – and she's not pulling any punches. The renowned writer has reposted an old BBC Radio 5 Live interview with Lammy from a few years back, where the Labour man was being questioned on the trans debate. His interviewer Rachel Burden spoke of how women's rights activists have been accused of being 'dinosaurs' and 'hoarding rights, as though "rights" are some kind of pie with a finite end'.

Steerpike

Suella’s scathing attack on the Tories

If there's one thing this election season hasn't been short on, it's surprises. Now, with less than 24 hours to go until polling stations open, former home secretary Suella Braverman has weighed in on her party's impending implosion with an extraordinary OpEd in the Telegraph. Blasting her own side, Braverman sets about a blistering attack on the Tories, lamenting that 'the writing [is] on the wall: it's over and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition'. Crikey. In a scathing entry, the former cabinet minister and Rishi Sunak critic raged about her party's decline in the polls. 'Our vote is evaporating from both Left and Right,' she wrote furiously.

Steerpike

Will Starmer parachute Harman into top equalities job?

It's Election Day Eve and the likely victors are already planning for the future. Mr S wrote today about how Sir Keir's top team have been trying to cosy up to Donald Trump – but it's not just foreign policy they've been considering. Closer to home it transpires that Labour is considering appointing a new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – and it might ruffle just a few feathers... Starmer's army want outgoing Labour veteran Harriet Harman to take on the top job at the equalities watchdog, the Times has revealed today. Currently the position is held by Baroness Falkner of Margravine. While her current contract is due to run out on 30 November, it was thought that women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch would extend it if the Tories remained in government.

Steerpike

Trump campaign lead blasts Labour meetings as ‘fake news’

Oh dear. As election campaigns draw to a close, Sir Keir Starmer has found himself under scrutiny at the eleventh hour. A Telegraph article about his ‘pragmatic’ approach to US relations that states Labour has been talking to Donald Trump’s team on a ‘daily basis’ has been slammed as ‘fake news’ – by none other than top GOP strategist and Trump’s own campaign manager himself. Oo er. The Telegraph piece states that ‘staff working for David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, have been in near-constant talks with Trump’s team for weeks, since he met the former president’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita in Washington in May’.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Deepfake porn site targets female politicians

Just when you think the election campaign can't get any madder, it does. Now it transpires that a 'deepfake' porn site has posted a slew of doctored images bearing the likenesses of 30 female politicians – including deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner to senior Tory Penny Mordaunt. You couldn't make it up... The targets of the dodgy photos – produced using artificial intelligence – are not confined to one particular party. As well as Rayner and Mordaunt, an investigation by Channel 4 News found that outgoing Tory Dehenna Davison and left-wing Labour candidate Stella Creasey were also featured.

Steerpike

Labour will ‘destabilise’ Reform, Badenoch warns

Election day is just around the corner and politicians across the country are pulling out the stops. Now Kemi Badenoch has taken to the fine pages of the Telegraph to urge voters not to back Reform – after new analysis splashed across today's papers (detailed by Katy here) suggests that 130,000 voters across 100 seats could result in a very different election outcome. The Business Secretary has opined on the threat posed by an incoming Labour government – which she suggests is Reform's favoured outcome. 'Reform leaders have been clear about their aim in this general election,' Badenoch writes. 'Not to win it, but to ensure that the Conservatives lose so badly that the party cannot recover.

Steerpike

Reform candidate called for Sturgeon to be shot

Oh dear. Just two days to go until polling day and Reform is once again in the limelight after yet more controversial comments by a candidate have come to light. It transpires that the party's Orkney and Shetland choice, Robert Smith, is responsible for a series of damning social media posts – in which he takes aim at JK Rowling, Nicola Sturgeon and Ursula von Der Leyen amongst others. Between 2016 and 2023, Smith took to social media to post about a number of political and public figures using rather derogatory language. The Times reports that Smith targeted journalist and broadcaster Andrew Marr, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and London mayor Sadiq Khan using vulgar sexual language.

Monday

Steerpike

Will Starmer be a part-time PM?

'Sir Sleepy', it seems, is back. On the eve of taking up the most important job in the country, Keir Starmer has revealed that he will refuse to work around the clock should his party win Thursday’s election. Speaking to Virgin Radio this afternoon, the Labour leader contrasted himself with the current premier, well known for keeping long work hours. Starmer, who has two teenage children, said that he 'will not do a work-related thing after 6pm [on a Friday] pretty well come what may.' He claimed that spending time with his kids 'takes me away from the pressure [and] relaxes me', adding that the time away from work made him a better decision maker.

Steerpike

JK Rowling slams Swinney over gender stance

Another day, another drama. This time Scotland's First Minister John Swinney is in the spotlight, after he conducted a rather odd radio interview with BBC Five Live on the trans debate. With three days to go until the general election and some polls predicting Swinney's nationalists could lose more than half of their Westminster seats, the FM is under pressure to persuade more voters to back the SNP on the big day. The Nats are no strangers to being out of touch with the general public and one issue that exemplifies this rather well is the party's stance on self-identification.

Steerpike

Rory Stewart’s centrist squirm

With three days to go until 4 July, who else would you want to hear from but Rory Stewart? Cometh the hour, cometh the king of the centrist dads as the ex-cabinet minister today temporarily swapped his podcast for Times Radio. Appearing on Andrew Neil's show this afternoon, Stewart was asked to give his thoughts on how to fix the world's woes. With apathy and cynicism on the rise, the former Tory leadership contender suggested that one way of tackling the issue would be that age-old favourite, constitutional reform.

Steerpike

Jill Biden revealed as Vogue magazine cover star

Oh dear. Vogue magazine's August cover dropped this morning and it transpires that its editorial team has decided on a rather curious cover star in the form of, er, Jill Biden. The First Lady has been revealed as the central focus of the summer cover a mere four days after her husband gave a pitiful performance at the presidential candidate debate on Thursday. Talk about bad timing... President Biden stumbled and mumbled his way through his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week – so much so that media outlets across the world questioned just how the President could remain the Democratic party's choice for the 2024 US election. Yet while Democrats across the country try to forget Biden's chaotic showdown, the First Lady seems determined to remind them of it.

Steerpike

Are the Scottish Tories facing a civil war?

Uh oh. All is not well within the Scottish Conservative party and just days before polling day, senior figures have dubbed the election campaign ‘the most inept [and] shambolic’ in the party’s history – called for a clear-out of the party hierarchy. Good heavens. Senior party figures have told the Times that Scottish Tory candidates have been ‘badly let down’ by ‘disastrous errors from the top’. One MSP blasting campaigning efforts said that ‘no one involved in the leadership of the campaign should ever be allowed near one again’.

Steerpike

Nigel Farage turns on Marine Le Pen

Ooh la la! After a tricky few weeks for Reform UK, leader Nigel Farage has aimed his sights towards the old enemy. Reform’s polling figures first dipped following that Nick Robinson interview and in recent days Farage has faced serious questions over the behaviour of both candidates and activists. The party’s former candidate in Erewash, Liam Booth-Isherwood, yesterday disowned the outfit and backed his Tory rival instead. Now, as he battles to keep momentum up ahead of 4 July, Farage has distanced himself from fellow Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen. Following yesterday’s Reform rally – with 4,500 attendees in tow – the leader used an interview with Unherd to distance himself from Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN).

Steerpike

Harington endorses Labour – after in-law backed Brexit party

With the general election just three days away, the celebrity endorsements have started to roll in. Now Dragon’s Den judge Deborah Meaden, singer-songwriter Elton John and comedian Jason Manford have come out for Labour – all with snappy video messages gushing praise on the party. Steerpike has spotted one rather interesting addition to the celeb lineup however, in the form of one Kit Harington of hit TV series Game of Thrones. The Jon Snow actor was seen in a Twitter video shared by the party on Sunday telling viewers to back Sir Keir’s lefty lot. In his endorsement of Starmer’s army, a dressed-down Harington told the camera: One issue that is really important to me in this election is the climate crisis.

Sunday

Steerpike

Reform candidate ditches party over ‘racism and sexism’

Another day, another election campaign drama. Now it's Nigel Farage's Reform UK party in the limelight with more candidate controversy. Only this time it's not the party defending contentious comments. Instead, one of the party's candidates has turned on Reform. Oo er. Liam Booth-Isherwood, formerly a Reform candidate for Erewash, has today disowned the party over allegations of racism. The former Farage man has instead decided to endorse the Conservative party, backing the Tory contender – Maggie Throup – in the election.