Steerpike

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.

Reform are breathing down the neck of the Tories, according to the latest polls. So it's perhaps no surprise then that hostilities have stepped up between spokesmen for the two parties. The Mail on Sunday has today run a two-page story on various eccentric candidates standing for Reform at the forthcoming election. Among them include a man ordered to pay £2,000 for attacking a dog in a Dorset country lane, a fortune-teller who sold spells on OnlyFans and a Covid conspiracy theorist who likened Boris Johnson to Hitler. The story also includes a prominent quote by Jonathan Gullis, the newly-appointed Tory deputy chair, criticising Reform's vetting process. According to Gullis, 'We can only assume this cast of characters passed Mr Tice's muster.

Oh dear. Another week, another bad poll for the Tories. The Conservative party’s prospects have plummeted further, with polling suggesting Rishi Sunak’s party is on track to win fewer than 100 seats. Labour, meanwhile, could win 468 — resulting in a rather astounding 286-seat majority. But that’s not the worst news for Sunak: Labour is very narrowly behind him, less than 2.5 percentage points, in his own seat. Ouch.  The Survation MRP poll, which quizzed 15,000 people, suggests Labour may win 45 per cent of the vote share, 19 points ahead of the Tories. Meanwhile, the Conservatives are on track to win a mere 98 seats. The Tories will win none in Wales or Scotland, the poll predicts — to the disappointment of the Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross.

It seems Angela Rayner is in hot water again. The Labour deputy leader might have thought she had escaped unscathed from claims about the sale of her ex-council house. But Greater Manchester Police (GMP) now says it is reassessing its previous decision not to investigate allegations that she gave false information on official documents, in a potential breach of electoral law. A sub-optimal start for Labour's local election campaign today... For her part, Rayner continues to protest her innocence. She insists that the row is 'manufactured' in an attempt to 'smear' her. She told Newsnight last week that there had been 'no wrongdoing' and “no unlawfulness', adding: 'I’ve been very clear there’s no rules broken.

The fall-out continues from Friday's attack on Moscow concert hall attack in which 139 people were reported dead. Russian officials have directly accused Ukraine and the West of being involved – despite, er, the Islamic State claiming responsibility and releasing video of the atrocity. But in their bid to prove their side of events, the Russian state press is now citing an unlikely 'expert opinion'. Step forward George Galloway, the newly-elected MP for Rochdale, who is quoted approvingly at length in Russkaya Gazeta today, giving an 'expert opinion.' The quotes appear to be a distilled version of comments which Galloway made on his YouTube channel on Sunday.

To parliament, where the Commons is about to go into recess, again. Winding up this term's proceedings was Rishi Sunak's traditional grilling at the Liaison Committee. Back in the good old days of Boris Johnson there was mutual loathing between the Prime Minister and the various chairs of the select committees, some of whom were elected explicitly because they were Johnson's critics. But these days under top swot Sunak, the panel's session are much more staid affairs. The ninety-minute encounter proved to be something for a walk in the park for the PM as he eagerly displayed his mastery of the brief. Humour was provided, however, by William Wragg: the baby-faced chair of the Public Administration Committee.

It must be a hard job being the Metropolitan Police. Too hardline and you risk howls of protest from the left; too soft and you're lambasted by the right. So Steerpike is pleased to bring his readers news of a policing decision that will please all inhabitants of the Westminster village, regardless of their political affiliation. For six long, miserable years, Steve Bray – the Hiroo Onoda of the Remain campaign – has tormented those who work in and around Whitehall, blaring out music from his loudspeakers on Wednesday mornings before PMQs. But last week the artist known as 'Stop Brexit man' met his comeuppance after the Met sent some rozzers down to confiscate his sound set, much to Bray's chagrin.

Tough times for the Garrick Club, after the embarrassing leak of its membership list to the Guardian. Following the newspaper's front-page splash on Tuesday, multiple senior Establishment figures quit the all-male club. They included MI6 boss Sir Richard Moore, Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, and Sir Robert Chote, the former head of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Other resignations at the £1,000-a-year West End haunt are expected to be in the offing too. But never fear: one's man loss is another man's gain. And the man filling the space occupied by recent departees is none other than former BBC newsman Jon Sopel. He has just joined the 193-year-old club after 'a lengthy wait', according to today's Mail on Sunday.

Just when you think the woke wars can’t get more ridiculous, they do. It transpires that the Diocese of Birmingham is advertising for the role of ‘Anti-Racism Practice Officer (Deconstructing Whiteness)’ to work in a ‘racial justice’ team across churches in the West Midlands for £36,000 a year — and Justin Welby is not happy about it. The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken a pop at the job advert, telling Times Radio today that he rang up the diocese and asked them: ‘What on earth does that mean?