Steerpike

With millions of voters heading to the polls today, how many will forget to bring along suitable photo ID? One of the more noteworthy, it seems, is, er, Boris Johnson who was reportedly turned away from a polling station earlier today after failing to bring acceptable identification. According to Sky News, which broke the story: Polling station staff were forced to turn the former prime minister away after he initially failed to comply with legislation he introduced while he was in Downing Street. Mr Johnson, who introduced the Elections Act requiring photo ID in 2022, was attempting to cast his ballot in South Oxfordshire, where a police and crime commissioner for the Thames Valley is being selected.

News just in: Scotland's Crown Office has still not received a report from Police Scotland about the SNP's former chief executive Peter Murrell — almost a fortnight after he was rearrested and charged with embezzlement. Talk about taking things slowly... The husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon was taken into police custody for the second time on 18 April as part of the police probe into SNP finances — and charged with embezzling funds from his own party. Yet two weeks on, there has been little sign of the case progressing. Shortly after the police force announced that it had charged the former SNP chief, it transpired that Murrell had also resigned his party membership.

To the Commons, where Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer this afternoon gave a ministerial statement on the future of the Telegraph Media Group. It follows this morning’s news that the Abu Dhabi-backed company RedBird IMI will put the Daily Telegraph and Spectator titles back up for sale, after parliament moved to block foreign state ownership of UK newspapers and magazines. Frazer gave the House a brief outline of the government’s unchanged stance and then it was the turn of Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire to demand some answers.

A First Minister on the ropes, facing questions about his judgement? No, it's not hapless Hamza Yousaf this time. Instead, the latest legislator in the firing line is none other than Vaughan Gething, the recently-selected head of the Welsh government at Cardiff Bay. Gething has been in the job for less than six weeks but is already facing a storm of criticism about the way in which he got it. The former economy minister narrowly triumphed in last month's Labour leadership contest by 51.7 per cent of the vote to Jeremy Miles' 48.3 per cent. But Gething's subsequent tenure has been dominated by questions about the £200,000 his campaign accepted from a company whose owner was twice convicted of environmental offences.

Much has been made of Liz Truss's book since its publication a fortnight ago. Jeering critics were quick to mock but Mr S was among the first to note that Amazon actually sold out of copies within 72 hours, such was the demand from punters. And today's Sunday Times confirms that there is a still keen public interest in what the former premier has to say. For Truss is now number three on the newspaper's highly-prized bestseller list for general hardbacks, taking the bronze medal behind Salman Rushdie's harrowing tale of his 2022 assault and, er, RuPaul's autobiography. The Sunday Times boasts that its list is regarded as the 'most accurate and comprehensive estimation of book sales in the country'.

So. Farewell then Dan Poulter. The Central Suffolk MP has today switched from the Conservatives to join the Starmer army, firing off a double-barrelled blast at his former party's handling of the NHS. The Tories, Poulter says, are now little more than a 'nationalist party' who have abandoned 'compassion' as part of an increasingly 'rightward drift.' Ouch. One place where there is certainly little compassion for Poulter today is in the Tory MPs' WhatsApp chat where his onetime colleagues are reacting with a mixture of mockery and fury. 'Didn't he step down in 2019?' asked Alex Stafford, labelling Poulter 'A nobody trying to be a somebody.' 'I didn't even know he was an MP!' added Sara Britcliffe while Chris Clarkson went for brevity and labelled Poulter 'An arse.

If the Scottish Greens are good at anything, it's making every issue about themselves. While the First Minister of Scotland faces two votes of no confidence next week — one in his own leadership and another in the SNP government — his party's former coalition partners continue to vent their anger at the breakdown of the Bute House Agreement on the airwaves. As though a scorned lover, Patrick Harvie's barmy army has used most of the last 36 hours to release embittered statements about their abrupt exit from government.

Oh dear. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is no stranger to poor poll outcomes – but a new survey may cut a little closer to the bone. Over 500 GB News loyalists were quizzed on their political attitudes in the lead up to the next general election and the results are now in. Amongst the channel’s devotees, the most popular party of the moment — with a rather comfortable lead – is, um, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot. How times change… In a weird twist of fate, Starmer Chameleon's party outflanked the Tories by eleven points after the ‘don’t knows’ were excluded. Almost four in ten viewers backed the reds, while Sunak’s boys in blue garnered support from less than a third of viewers.