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

Sunday

Steerpike

Boris savages Farage over Zelensky spat

What is Nigel Farage up to? The Reform leader has doubled down over the weekend on his claim that the west helped provoke Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Following his comments to the BBC on Friday, he then wrote a piece in the Telegraph on Saturday arguing that 'What I have been saying for the past ten years is that the west has played into Putin’s hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.' It prompted a torrent of cross-party criticism, with both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer calling his remarks 'disgraceful.' Such was the storm unleashed by Farage that even Kyiv's leaders now seem to be getting involved. The Mail on Sunday splashed on claims that a source in President Zelensky's office has accused Farage of being infected by the 'virus of Putinism'.

Steerpike

Fourth Tory embroiled in betting probe

Is there anyone in CCHQ currently not under investigation? The Sunday Times today reports that Nick Mason, the chief data officer of the Conservative Party, is now being probed by the Gambling Commission over allegations he placed 'dozens of bets' in the run up to the election being announced. With just 11 days to go until polling day, he has been forced to take a leave of absence – hardly the best look in the middle of the election campaign... Mason becomes the fourth Tory to be probed by the commission.

Saturday

Steerpike

Six Corbynites switching to other parties

There's been a lot of focus on splits on the right during the election campaign – but what about splits on the left? With less than two weeks to go until polling day, Mr S has been keeping tabs on those Corbynites who are deserting their former party for greener pastures. Quite literally, as many of them have jumped ship to the Green party – or are urging voters to consider non-Labour, independent candidates instead. So who are the lefties that have turned on Labour? Owen Jones Owen Jones, former Guardian columnist, led the exodus after announcing in March that he was abandoning Starmer's Labour lot for 'We Deserve Better' – a group that backs 'socialist candidates' and has in some cases recommended voting against members of Starmer's shadow cabinet.

Steerpike

JK Rowling’s blistering attack on Sir Keir

It's not just the Conservatives who are facing difficulties this election season. Sir Keir Starmer's Labour party has found itself in hot water with one rather influential women's rights campaigner. Renowned author of the bestselling Harry Potter series, JK Rowling, has now come out against Starmer's army, blasting Sir Keir for 'abandoning women' concerned with the trans debate. Writing for the Times, Rowling slams the Labour leader for his 'dismissive and often offensive' approach to worries raised by gender-critical feminists, adding that despite once being a paid-up member, she would now struggle to vote for the party.

Friday

Steerpike

Bet probe Tory was previously married to his wife’s opponent

Dear oh dear. With less than two weeks to go until polling day, Rishi Sunak's campaign has been hit with more bad news. Over the last 24 hours, it has emerged that now two Tory candidates – Laura Saunders in addition to Craig Williams – are under investigation by the Gambling Commission after placing bets on the general election date. It gets murkier: Saunders is married to the Conservative party's campaign director Tony Lee – who has been forced to go on leave after also coming under investigation for election gambling. And now Mr S can reveal another mind-boggling piece of the puzzle: Lee's ex-wife, Mary Page, is the Green candidate in Bristol North West – standing against his current wife, Saunders. Whew. That's taking rivalry to the next level...

Steerpike

Duffield slams Starmer’s gender response

Starmer Chameleon strikes again. Sir Keir hadn’t taken to the stage long in the BBC’s Question Time special last night before the issue of his tendency to U-turn cropped up. Turning to the trans debate and Starmer’s rather, um, checkered history on the matter, one audience member asked the Labour leader: ‘Three years ago you criticised your MP Rosie Duffield for saying only women have a cervix. What do you believe now and how do we know you will stick to your views?’ For readers that are struggling to remember quite how many times Sir Keir has dithered on the gender debate, Mr S can fill you in.

Steerpike

Sunak’s election tour: where has the PM campaigned so far?

Over the first four weeks of the general election campaign, Sunak has so far personally made his way around 37 constituencies across the UK. With less than two weeks to go until the national poll, the Prime Minister has only ventured out of England on three occasions, and made just four trips to non-Conservative held seats. It suggests that he is is running a rather defensive campaign amid complaints that he has 'abandoned' the red wall. So where has Sunak gone so far? Though he has visited every region in the UK, the PM has preferred to stay in the South of England, making six visits to the South East and and eight to the South West. Of the Conservative-held seats which the PM has visited, the average has majority of just over 17,000.

Thursday

Steerpike

Labour candidates chafe at battleground obsession

Just how much worse can the Tory campaign get? With a fortnight to go until polling day, the party's field director is now being investigated by the Gambling Commission. It's a somewhat sub-optimal development for a campaign dogged by tortuous metaphors, D-Day disasters and torrential rain too. In such circumstances then, it is no surprise that the party is now reportedly fighting an ultra-defensive campaign to shore up its vote in its southern safe seats. Yet with Sunak now spending much of his time touring seats with majorities of 15,000 or more, there is some confusion and irritation within Labour at the party high command's focus on so-called 'battleground' seats. Analysis by LabourList suggests that there are more than 250 of these across the country.

Steerpike

Tory duo probed in election betting claims

Dear oh dear. Now it transpires that a second Tory election candidate is facing scrutiny over an alleged bet related to the timing of the national poll. Laura Saunders, the party's candidate for Bristol North West and a former CCHQ staffer, is being investigated by the Gambling Commission – the second Conservative candidate to face questions on bets in so many weeks. Mr S understands that it is not currently known when the alleged bet was placed – or for how much money. Saunders has worked in the Tory party since 2015 and was most recently involved in the International Division of CCHQ, which works with a range of political parties across the world.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Sunak on course to lose seat, predicts poll

Good heavens. One of the many polls released today has suggested that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could become the first sitting Prime Minister to lose their seat at a general election. The Savanta and Electoral Calculus poll for the Telegraph predicts that the Conservative party could be left with just 53 MPs – with the party leader not being one of them. Crikey. The Telegraph's MRP poll – which concluded the Tories are on course to face overwhelming defeat from a disillusioned electorate – surveyed approximately 18,000 people from 7-18 June. It concluded that Sunak is predicted to lose his Richmond seat to Sir Keir's Labour party – although the survey suggests that the contest for the seat will be a close one.

Steerpike

Watch: Just Stop Oil deface Stonehenge

Now they’ve gone and done it. The juvenile antics of the eternally brain dead Just Stop Oil will be familiar to readers by now – with the group recently diversifying from road blockages to defacing objects of cultural or historical significance in their misguided attempt to protect the climate. Still, the group may have outdone itself his time. Just Stop Oil have just released a video of members of the group spraying Stonehenge with orange paint, as part of the trust-fund fight against climate change. To their immense credit, members of the public can be seen trying to protect the monoliths, which are over 4,000 years old, from this pig-headed historical vandalism. Unfortunately, they were not able to prevent the stones from being defaced.

Steerpike

Watch: Sunak hits out at defector donor

As the election date draws ever closer, this morning it was the turn of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to face callers on LBC's phone-in. And as the questions rolled in, the PM found himself doing a rather lot of defending: of his decision to have the national poll in July, on his party's plans to introduce national service for 18 year olds and of his, um, predilection for Haribos. On public trust, LBC introduced a rather novel way of measuring voters' faith in their potential leaders. Sunak was told by presenter Nick Ferrari that 60 per cent of people would rather Sir Keir Starmer be their GP than the PM – and this figure increased to two-thirds when voters were asked who they'd prefer as their lawyer in court.

Steerpike

Labour ditches Scottish candidate over ‘pro-Russian’ posts

It's a day ending in 'y' which means that a political party somewhere is having candidate drama. This time it's Sir Keir Starmer's lefty Labour lot, who have had to drop their Aberdeenshire North and Moray East candidate over controversial social media posts about Russia and antisemitism. Oh dear... Andy Brown shared contentious posts about the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, in which the nerve agent Novichok was used in an attempt to take the lives of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The links shared by the ex-Labour candidate raised doubts about Putin's involvement in the attack and suggested that the life-threatening nerve agent did not come from Russia.

Steerpike

Why does Labour want to ban these 15 peers?

Following last week’s manifesto launches, Mr S has been looking into the fine print. As part of Labour’s plans to reform the House of Lords, Starmer says that he now wants to forcibly retire British peers at 80 years old when – he believes – they will be unfit for public service. But Steerpike is rather sceptical of how Sir Keir's grand plans will go down with the second chamber, given the Labour leader will be turfing out some rather high-calibre comrades.  Labour's manifesto states that 'at the end of the parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords'.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Revealed: Tory member behind anti-Reform attack ad firm

Are the Tories feeling the heat from Reform? Apparently so, if online adverts are anything to go by, with London-based Facebook users complaining of an increase in online adverts targeting Nigel Farage’s party. The latest example involves an advert which tells social media users ‘Vote Reform, Get Labour’ — a phrase trotted out regularly by numerous Tory politicians. Facebook rules say that when an advert is about ‘social issues, elections or politics’, those paying for the adverts ‘are required to disclose who paid for the ad’. In this case, the advertiser has been listed as ‘3rd Party Ltd’. On 3rd Party Ltd’s website, the organisation says it is registered with the Electoral Commission as a ‘non-party campaigner’.

Steerpike

Farage threatens vetting company with legal action

Uh oh. After multiple reports of controversial candidates, Reform UK boss Nigel Farage has announced that he is threatening a vetting firm with legal action. The party leader has accused the company, Vetting.com, of ‘stitching up’ Reform UK. Golly… In April, the Farage-founded party signed a £144,000 contract with Vetting.com on the agreement the firm would flag up unsuitable parliamentary candidates with extreme views. The vetting company is owned by Sphinx Technology Ltd – which is in turn co-owned by Colin Bloom, an ex-Tory adviser who worked under Boris Johnson and who was made a CBE by the former Conservative party leader last year. Reform was assured at the time that despite Bloom’s background there would be no conflict of interest in Vetting.

Steerpike

Starmer flounders on phone-in over private schools and Corbyn

With only 16 days to go until the election – and today being the last day you can register to vote – election campaigning is heating up and political plans are coming under ever more scrutiny. This morning Sir Keir Starmer appeared on LBC to take questions from the public on Labour's 2024 manifesto pledges – but it wasn't all plain sailing. On Labour's plans to add VAT onto private school fees, Michelle, a headteacher of a specialist school, phoned in to ask about her pupils, all of whom have diagnosed special educational needs. She told Sir Keir: 30 per cent don't have an educational healthcare plan to exempt them from the VAT charge and would be forced into the state sector where we know that their needs cannot be met.

Monday

Steerpike

Humza Yousaf attacks Farage and Braverman

Humza Yousaf is back with a bang. Now the embattled politician has taken to the Grauniad’s opinion pages to write a fiery piece on ‘anti-Muslim hatred’. In an explosive entry, the ex-SNP leader claims that Muslims across the continent are ‘fearful’ due to ‘growing popularity and mainstreaming of the far right’. 'It is increasingly difficult to persuade fellow Muslims that Europe does not have a problem with our very existence,’ he notes. In 2024, almost half the world’s population will take part in elections. Many countries have already gone to the polls, and in a number of countries, particularly across Europe, the biggest gains have been made by those who make a living out of vilifying Muslims.

Steerpike

Reform candidate defends Hitler remarks

Since the return of Nigel Farage, Reform UK has been going from strength to strength. Last week a YouGov survey for the Times saw the Farage-founded group overtake the Tories in the polls for the first time. Today JL Partners’s research has found that since the arch-Brexiteer’s comeback, Rishi Sunak’s popularity has dropped to pre-election lows. But it’s not all been plain sailing for Reform UK. Now the party's Welwyn Hatfield candidate has come under fire for comments he made in relation to a pseudoscientific theory about multiple personality types – in which he described Adolf Hitler as ‘brilliant’ and ‘able to inspire people to action’. Oh dear… And there's more.

Steerpike

Labour peer suspended over Duffield tweets

Another day, another drama. This time it involves a run-in between Labour peer Lord Cashman and the party's candidate for Canterbury, Rosie Duffield – which has resulted in the Labour peer losing the whip over some rather controversial comments... Duffield, a vocal women’s rights campaigner who has received death threats over her stance on gender issues, announced on Friday that she will withdraw from election hustings events due to safety concerns. Blasting ‘constant trolling, spite and misrepresentation’, she revealed she was ‘being pursued with a new vigour during this election’, before concluding that ‘sadly the actions of a few fixated people has made my attendance impossible’.