Steerpike

Well, well, well. In a turn of events that is good news for Canada’s monarchists, a motion that would have amended the country’s Constitution Act — and made the oath to Canada’s monarch optional for MPs — was, on Wednesday, defeated. 113 voted for the motion while 197 voted against it. A cross-party group of parliamentarians, including those from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, killed the bill. This means that the Canadian Constitution will remain as is, with every new MP required to swear they will be ‘faithful and bear true allegiance’ to the current monarch before they can legally assume their seat. Meanwhile, Quebec-based parties were keen to see changes that would have allowed politicians to swear an ‘oath of office’.

Try as she might to duck questions on her tax affairs, the issue just keeps following Angela Rayner around — literally. On a campaign event today in Teesside, the deputy Labour leader was met by three men in high-vis jackets, one of whom was later identified as local Tory councillor John Coulson who took part in the protest alongside other Conservative councillors. The men were carrying an ominous black banner that read: ‘Angela Rayner Tax Dodger?’ Where Rayner walked around Yarm, her unexpected guests went too. In fact, so hot on Rayner’s tail were the protestors that the shadow levelling up secretary eventually had to leg it out the back of a pub she'd just walked into. Not like Labour to about turn...

The honeytrap scandal is the talk of the town as politicians, staffers, advisers and even journalists working in Westminster have been targeted by the sexting scammers. First to publicly admit he had engaged with the phishers was the Conservative MP — and until last night, vice chairman of the 1922 Committee — William Wragg MP. Wragg admitted last week that he had received rather salacious messages on Grindr, before confessing that he had in fact reciprocated with an explicit image of his own and even handed over the numbers of other parliamentarians.  Dr Luke Evans MP was the second politician to admit that he had been sent explicit images by a suspicious number on WhatsApp, in a video he posted to Facebook.

Uh oh. Labour is once again facing dissent from its own supporters over the Israel-Gaza conflict. Things came to a head this afternoon when a group of renegades targeted Labour HQ in London by — you guessed it — dousing the building in spray paint. While other protestors held a march in central London, the vandals stormed the building that houses Labour HQ, covering both outside and inside walls with red paint. The lefty activist group Youth Demand has claimed responsibility for the vandalism, posting a video of the graffiti artists up close and in action on Twitter. In its tweet, the group fumed: ‘Labour has blood on their hands. They are complicit in the murder of Palestinians, and millions of people around the world, as they continue to drive genocide.’ Good heavens.

When you're in a hole, who gonna call? David Lammy! Yes, the Shadow Foreign Secretary was out on the airwaves this morning, chivalrously, if quixotically, riding to the rescue of his under-fire deputy leader. Angela Rayner is facing claims she may have wrongly avoided capital gains tax and broken electoral law, with the Mail on Sunday today publishing photos of her describing as 'home' a different property from the one she told the authorities was her principal residence. Whoops! So out went brave Lammy, the Talleyrand of Tottenham, to dodge and dissemble as best he can. He first appeared on the BBC, telling Laura Kuenssberg that Rayner 'has a blended family like millions of Britons' and asking 'Why do we land on this northern woman?

Oh dear. As the furore around Scotland’s Hate Crime Act extends into its sixth day, there are now fears about police spending as the force looks set to struggle with the sheer volume of complaints. It is understood that, since the Act was implemented on Monday, 40 officers a day have been required to work overtime to help tackle reports. With officers being paid time and a third for working extra hours, there are concerns about overstretching the Police Scotland budget. What a mess... Over 3,000 hate crime complaints were submitted in the first 24 hours of the Act and the Scottish Tories have predicted that at this rate, over 1 million reports could be made in the first year of the new law – though Mr S rather doubts the rate of complaints will continue at the same pace.

A second Tory MP has admitted that he was a target of the Westminster sexting honeytrap. Luke Evans, who represents Bosworth, revealed this evening that he was sent a photo of a naked woman on WhatsApp. ‘Here’s a video I didn’t expect to make on a Friday evening,’ Evans said in a Facebook video. ‘A month ago I was a victim of cyberflashing and malicious communications, and blew the whistle by reporting it to the police and the parliamentary authorities as soon as this happened.’  He went on: ‘The first set of messages I got was on a day I was with my wife and I got a one-time open photo on WhatsApp of an explicit image of a naked lady. As soon as I got these the next day I reported it to the police, the authorities on and the chief whip.

Oh dear. There has tonight been a fresh development in the Westminster honeytrap sexting scandal.  William Wragg, the vice chairman of the 1922 committee, has admitted to the Times that he was the source responsible for leaking MPs’ phone numbers to a man he met on the gay dating app Grindr. Wragg, the chairman of the Public Administration Committee, said he provided the details after sending intimate pictures of himself to the user. Wragg said he was ‘scared that the man ‘had compromising things on me’.