Steerpike

Scotland’s Hate Crime Act has got off to a rather rocky start, to put it mildly. On Monday, when the bill came into force, renowned author JK Rowling took to Twitter to reiterate her concerns about how expressing gender critical views (namely, that biological sex is a reality) could be an offence under the new bill. Cue the pile on. And now even the Prime Minister has waded into the row. Taking Rowling's side, Rishi Sunak proclaimed last night that ‘people should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology’ while a government source told the Mail that with the bill comes the 'potential for seriously chilling effects on free speech'.

Easter recess may be in full swing, but government ministers aren’t getting a break. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was sent out on the morning round today, to talk about the Tories’ free childcare expansion package. Eligible working parents of two-year-olds can now receive 15 hours of government-funded childcare a week during term time. From September, this will extend to working parents of all children older than nine months, before all eligible families will be able to receive the full rollout of 30 hours a week a year later. But the government and its opposition are feuding over the plans. Labour has taken issue with the scheme, querying how the proposals will be enacted given current staffing issues in nurseries.

It's five weeks to go until the local elections and Tory high command are stepping up their attacks. On Monday, the Conservatives released the first of several videos focusing on Labour controlled administrations. A 70-second, black-and-white video attacked Sadiq Khan's record and gravely intoned that 'London under Labour has become a crime capital of the world.' But the in-house clip, voiced by an unknown actor, has since divided opinion among Tories, amid controversy over its use of footage from a New York subway station. Mayoral candidate Susan Hall was quick to distance herself from the adverts, telling the BBC that the video had 'nothing to do' with her team. Hall's spokesman subsequently confirmed that the video had been created by Conservative Party headquarters.

In the two months since Lee Anderson's resignation as Tory deputy chairman, there's been something of a vacancy at CCHQ. Who could fill the gap left by the red wall rottweiler, to motivate the grassroots and energise the base? Well now it seems we have our answer: Jonathan Gullis, a close friend of Anderson and a fellow stalwart of the Common Sense Group. Gullis was last night handed Anderson's old brief, with party chairman Richard Holden hailing him as 'inimitable' on Twitter/X, adding: 'The non-stop campaigning MP for #StokeOnTrentNorth, #Kidsgrove and #Talke is a formidable addition to the team as we build to the General Election later this year.' The new deputy chairman himself declared that: I’m ready to take the fight to Sir Keir’s hopeless and hapless Labour Party.

Ping! An email arrives in Steerpike's inbox. Some happy news for headline-starved hacks at last: the National Conservatism conference is back! After last year's Westminster offering brought with it quotes galore from Miriam Cates and Suella Braverman, this year's event in Brussels promises more of the same. For Braverman is now being billed as the 'keynote speaker' alongside one other name: controversial Hungarian premier Viktor Orban. The two-day jamboree begins on Tuesday 16 April: just two weeks before much of the UK goes to the polls in local elections across England and Wales. And Labour will no doubt be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of Braverman's jibes against Rishi Sunak, since he liberated her from high office back in November.

Oh dear. In his never-ending quest to prove that he's almost as funny as Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert has tripped up again. The late-night American TV host was last night forced to issue a humiliating apology to the Princess of Wales after he produced a segment mocking her 'disappearance' and marriage – shortly before it emerged that she had cancer. Classy. Colbert began his Late Show on 12 March with a two-minute-long monologue 'spilling the tea' on the Royal Family in which he made a series of not-especially-funny jokes about scurrilous rumours involving William and Kate.

So. Farewell then Scott Benton. The disgraced Blackpool South MP today becomes the disgraced former Blackpool South MP after he announced plans to quit the House of Commons. In April last year Benton lost the Tory whip after being filmed in an undercover Times sting in which he offered to lobby for gambling industry investors. Since then Benton has vigorously protested his innocence but, with a by-election via the recall process looking likely, he has now decided to jump before he was pushed. In a statement he wrote that: It’s with a heavy heart that I have written to the Chancellor this morning to tender my resignation as your MP.

Come with Mr S on a trip down memory lane, to a long-forgotten era known as, er, the last parliament. Back then, Labour were all too keen to be all things to all men (and women). A prime example of that was the campaign by Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) to give compensation to women born in the 1950s who claim they were not properly informed of changes in the state pension age. In the heat of the 2019 election campaign, Labour jumped on the WASPI band wagon. They effectively committing to signing a blank cheque worth billions by signalling their support for the campaign without doing the sums.

It’s the end of another rocky week for Scotland’s First Minister. Humza Yousaf has been dealing with national outrage over the hate crime bill and remains under pressure to sack one of his closest allies in the party over an £11,000 iPad scandal. So Kate Forbes’s latest intervention is the last thing he needs. On Thursday night, Yousaf’s onetime leadership rival admitted that the SNP lacks a ‘big vision’ and suggested that she hadn’t ruled out another leadership bid.

Richard Tice is on a mission to crack down on ‘defamatory and libellous’ slurs against his party as the election draws closer.  First, the Reform UK leader forced the BBC to issue a correction and an apology for using news agency copy that labelled Tice’s party as ‘far right’.  Now, he’s got his sights set on DMG Media — the parent group of the MailOnline, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. After the BBC blunder, Tice warned publications that his lawyers ‘are also in touch with other news organisations who repeated the BBC line’ — including the MailOnline, which fell foul of the same mistake and is now reportedly issuing an apology to Reform UK. But DMG isn't in the clear quite yet.