Steerpike

https://twitter.com/itvpeston/status/2064095356451709170?s=46 What joy. Labour MPs have already begun publicly scrapping over the party leadership, even though a formal challenge is yet to begin. Last night, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and leftie backbencher Clive Lewis treated the country to a particularly enjoyable spat on ITV's Peston show. Lewis, an Andy Burnham die-hard, told Nandy that ‘the Labour Party is toxic in Makerfield’. An exasperated Culture Secretary, who actually lives in Wigan, pulled her colleague up on the fact that he hasn’t even been to the constituency. Doubling down, Lewis insisted he doesn’t have to have been to Makerfield to know Sir Keir Starmer is public enemy number one.

AI has taken the world by storm, and few workplaces have been immune to its impact. In the House of Commons last year, Written Parliamentary Questions from MPs and peers doubled compared with 2024. The Department of Health and Social Care saw a 97 per cent increase, with the Home Office up 92 per cent, the Department for Education up 97 per cent and Housing a whopping 101 per cent. And who was blamed for the rise? Had MPs and peers discovered a new zeal for seeking answers from ministers in the name of democratic accountability? Not quite, according to Commons clerks. AI, apparently, was responsible. Now, Mr S can reveal Parliament has deployed a new AI mechanism to crack down on MPs over-reliant on the very same tech.

With Rachel Reeves in the Treasury, many employers are having to make cut backs. But in the case of Reform UK, it is the exact opposite, with Labour's woes proving a great boost to Nigel Farage's fortunes. After topping the local elections on 7 May, Reform is now facing the challenge of having to hire scores of staff to run their newly-acquired offices in Cardiff Bay and Holyrood. Talk about the problems of success... But Mr S hears that the party has at last found a new man to run communications north of the border. After a veritable shellacking by elements of the Scottish press in last month's campaign, the man tasked with building post-election ties with the Holyrood lobby is Tony McGuire, the long-serving Scotland reporter at GB News.

Everyone’s favourite human rights aficionado is back at it again. Clearly not content with comparing critics of the ECHR to Nazis, Lord Richard Hermer has now suggested detractors of the foreign court want migrants to 'drown'. In an interview with Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking podcast, the Attorney General name-checked the Tories and Reform as cheerleaders for leaving migrants to drown in the Channel. Hermer had been responding to Robinson’s observation that parties of the right want to ‘round people up on the beaches and send them somewhere else’. To which Sir Keir Starmer’s close pal replied: I think what they mean by that is they let people drown in the water. And that is not a British way to deal with it. That is not commensurate with our values.

If you're not a fan of any of the current contenders for Labour leader, then why not try Darren Jones? Yes, that's right, if you're not a fan of the likes of Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner, then do not despair. After nine months as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, good old Darren now fancies a crack at his boss's job, if media reports are to be believed. Described by one Westminster wag as 'like Wes Streeting without the charm', Jones is one of those ambitious Labour men who has never been backwards about coming forwards. Unfortunately for the Rt Hon DJ, it seems that he has become the latest of this tribe to be afflicted by the curse of the Prince of Darkness.

Another day, another BBC apology. This time, the corporation has said sorry to Nigel Farage after presenter Matt Chorley misquoted the Reform leader on Newsnight. In an interview with Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday, the former Times Radio presenter claimed Farage had called for ‘white cold rage’ in response to the tragic death of Henry Nowak. He hadn’t. The term the Reform leader actually used, in a broadcast clip, was ‘pure cold rage’. Furious friends of Farage warned that the misquote changed the meaning of what he said, making it sound racialised. Owning up to the error, which was made three times on camera, Chorley posted on X: I owe Nigel Farage an apology. This was a mistake on my part, a misremembering of the quote.

A co-sponsor of Kim Leadbeater’s failed assisted suicide Bill has privately admitted to constituents that MPs trying to ram through similar legislation are likely to fail. Peter Bedford was a leading cheerleader for euthanasia in the last parliamentary session. But the Tory MP now seems to have softened his stance on getting assisted suicide over the line quite so quickly. In an email to a constituent, Bedford’s office said the politician ‘does not think it will succeed if brought back as a Private Members’ Bill again during this parliamentary session and does not agree with this being debated again in the near future.

Happy Mandelson files' release day, one and all. After months of speculation, the Cabinet Office has today finally released all the texts between ministers and Britain's (former) man in Washington. Steerpike has been pouring over the various WhatsApps and brings to you his favourite selection of the texts that will doubtless soon be adorning Tory attack ads... McFadden's benefits admission Pat McFadden's texts during the great Labour welfare revolt last spring are among the most revealing. As well as admitting to Mandelson that the backlash over plans to cut disability benefits had shot Keir Starmer's authority, he also gave the peer a revealing insight into the minds of colleagues.

The tragic murder of Henry Nowak has sparked fury across Britain. The 18-year-old was disgracefully arrested and handcuffed by police as he lay dying, after being accused by his killer, Vickrum Digwa, of being a racist. Reform and the Tories have been damning about this most extreme example of DEI gone nuts. But among all political figures, Zia Yusuf has demonstrated arguably the most palpable rage. The 'Shadow Home Secretary' for Reform, with Nigel Farage's blessing, has called for the Kirpan to be banned from being carried in public. While he carried a small Kirpan under his clothes a second larger knife was used by Digwa in Southampton to kill young Nowak.