Steerpike

The renegade royal never manages to stay out of the news for long. Now the spotlight is back on Prince Harry and his memoir Spare, nominated for a number of prizes at last night’s British Book Awards. But, unluckily for the precious Prince, his book was beaten to first place in every category it was in. Better luck next time... First, the ex-royal faced disappointment in the book of the year award, which saw a publication of puzzles — Murder by GT Karber — beat the Prince’s tell-all. Then Harry lost to Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge in the non-fiction narrative category.

How time flies. Half a year has passed since former prime minister David Cameron made a shock return to frontline politics — and the House of Lords. His appointment as Foreign Secretary was a controversial one, with certain sections of the Tory party pretty sceptical at Dave’s big return. His ardent support for Remain ruffled some feathers, combined with an underlying resentment that Sunak maybe didn’t much value the talent pool among his own colleagues in the Commons.  Cameron’s history of foreign policy failings isn’t short, either. From his Libya adventure and the Syria debacle to the Brexit gamble that cost him his job, the former Prime Minister certainly isn’t without a chequered past. So how has Cameron handled the last six months?

Oh dear. It’s not just Reform UK that has had trouble with party candidates in recent weeks — the Labour party is facing issues of its own. Candidates for both the local and general elections have been found to have made and shared some rather inappropriate views — which are now coming back to bite them. Only yesterday, one prospective parliamentary candidate was dropped by Labour after being investigated over her social media activity while just last month a Labour councillor quit the party when her Twitter came under scrutiny. When will they learn?  Find the list – so far – here: Wilma Brown The Scottish Labour candidate for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy was suspended from the party last month after being accused of liking racist and Islamophobic social media posts.

There may be a new First Minister in the driving seat but can the SNP overtake Labour's lead in the polls? Just this morning, Savanta revealed that, for the very first time in the pollster's history, Labour is four points ahead of the SNP in Westminster voting intention. It's certainly not the best start to the job for freshly-appointed John Swinney... And despite officially leading his country for about, er, two days, Swinney is already facing dissent over his decision-making. In a move that was widely anticipated, the First Minister made Kate Forbes his second-in-command – much to the dismay of the Scottish Greens. The eco-activists promptly fell into fits of rage, ranting and raving about ‘progressive values’ and a return to the 1950s.

When it rains for the Tories, it pours. Now Tees Valley’s Conservative mayor Ben Houchen has hit out at his party’s leadership – just 24 hours after yet another Tory MP defected to Labour. The re-elected Conservative mayor this morning admitted the path to Tory electoral victory is ‘getting narrower by the day’ before adding, in more bad news for poor Rishi Sunak, that ‘ultimately it all rests on the shoulders of the leader.’ Talk about trouble in paradise… In a series of damning remarks made during an interview on BBC Radio Tees today, Houchen seemed rather downcast on the topic of his party’s prospects. ‘Things don’t look great for the Conservative party at the moment,’ he told the station.

Another one bites the dust. The second Tory to defect to Labour in as many weeks is none other than Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover. In a shock announcement just before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour declared that one of the Conservatives’ most hawkish MPs on immigration had defected to the Starmer army. Elphicke released a statement at noon, claiming that ‘under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division’ and that ‘the centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched’. Not really what Sunak wanted after last weekend’s dire local election results.

What comes around goes around. John Swinney has this afternoon become Scotland’s seventh First Minister after being appointed, unopposed, as SNP leader on Monday. It was a coronation event like no other – where Swinney was threatened by a contest from a rank and file activist within his own party after hapless Humza Yousaf paved the way to his own resignation. Now, the veteran Nat and former SNP leader has swooped into government from the backbenches in a move that some hint was a little more scripted than first thought… Today, Swinney faced off challenges for the top job from the leaders of the Scottish Labour party, the Scottish Conservatives and the Scottish Liberal Democrats in a ceremony rather, er, similar to one that took place just over 12 months ago.

And so we have it: a nationalist coronation, as yet another First Minister resigns. John Swinney, formerly Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy FM and onetime leader of the SNP himself, has been elected – unopposed – as the new leader of the Scottish National party. Thought to have been parachuted in by the party establishment, Swinney's coronation was almost foiled by 'flatulence in a trance' SNP activist Graeme McCormick who, by some quirk in the SNP's constitution, had enough nominations to stand against the MSP for the leadership. But, at the eleventh hour, the renegade backed down after having ‘lengthy and fruitful’ talks with Swinney himself.

The fall-out from the local elections continue. In the West Midlands, Labour pulled off a shock upset to unseat Andy Street by 1,500 votes. The Starmer army's triumph there was all the more impressive when one considers that the pro-Palestine independent Akhmed Yakoob finished third on 11 per cent. Yakoob, who won the votes of many traditional Labour voters in the Muslim community, was backed by George Galloway, whose Workers' Party of Britain is trying to cause Labour headaches across the UK. Invited on to LBC to speak about the result, Galloway clearly thought he would be on something of a victory lap. But his mood quickly turned sour after host Lewis Goodall asked him about comments he made during the campaign to Novara Media.