Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike
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It’s week nine of the UK Covid Inquiry – and time for the Prime Minister to face the music. Today, Rishi Sunak has his turn in the hot seat, as new polling shows that the public now belatedly disapprove of his lockdown measures. Quelle surprise. Meanwhile his ‘allies’ – including, er, Jacob Rees-Mogg, are cited in
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It’s been a highly anticipated finale of I’m A Celebrity, not least because of the staying power of Brexit mastermind Nigel Farage — who tonight made third place in the series. For weeks, viewers have been glued to their screens, delighting in seeing the controversial GB news presenter squirm. From eating pig’s anus on pizza
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It’s safe to say that it’s not been a great year for the SNP. For 2023 ends as it began – with questions being asked about the long-running investigation into the party’s finances. And while a luxury campervan sparked headlines earlier this year, attention has now alighted on the purchase of a luxury £95,000 Jaguar car. Can’t beat
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After months of tedium, Sunday newsrooms everywhere rejoiced at Robert Jenrick’s resignation on Wednesday night. Finally, a return to the greatest hits: Tory splits and fevered speculation of a leadership contest. Leading the way is the Mail on Sunday which brings news of yet another food-themed conspiracy. Boris Johnson saw off the ‘pork pie plot’
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Pity the poor staff and stars of Have I Got News For You. Having propelled Boris Johnson to fame in the early noughties, HIGNFY has spent much of the past three years desperately trying to rectify its mistake. The likes of Carol Vorderman or Clive Myrie are among those who have taken pops at the former premier, who
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They say that politics is showbiz for ugly people. And up in Holyrood they’re doing little to dispel that impression with the latest initiative put forward by Labour MSP Monica Lennon. She’s using a parliamentary motion to raise awareness of an important issue. What is it? Scotland’s tanking education ratings? The ever-spiralling problem of drug
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After three days of speculation, Robert Jenrick has finally broken cover. In this morning’s Daily Telegraph he sets out in an 1,800-word article, the reasons why he resigned from government on Wednesday, why he thinks the Rwanda Bill will fail and what his broader concerns are about high levels of migration. On Sunak’s flagship legislation,
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Stop the presses: Starmer Chameleon has U-turned once again. In predictable fashion, he last night sought to row back on his praise for Margaret Thatcher less than a week after he hailed her ‘natural entrepreneurialism’ in the Sunday Telegraph. In a speech which justified his critics’ claims that he changes his rhetoric to match his
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Back up to Holyrood, where the nationalists never fail to entertain. To cover up for the absence of any real policy delivery by her party, SNP MSP Kaukab Stewart has decided to, er, rap. The Glasgow MSP was speaking in the Chamber yesterday evening about an amendment made to the UN Convention on the Rights
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Good old Prince Harry has done it once again. In spite of all his strenuous efforts to avoid press intrusion, the renegade royal can’t stop making the headlines. The prince this morning lost his bid to have the Mail on Sunday (MoS) publisher’s defence to his libel claim thrown out of the courts. Lawyers for
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And back to the SNP’s Scotland, which is not quite the land of milk and honey that the Nats would like to make out. It turns out that former first minister Nicola Sturgeon and the majority of her ministers refused to use government-issued mobile phones during her time in office. Cover-ups? Surely not! Government officials
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Is the licence fee worth it? Mr Steerpike thinks it might be if Maryam Moshiri presents the news more often. The BBC news anchor was caught out this morning holding her middle finger up at the camera at the start of the hourly bulletin. Moshiri has since claimed that it was a ‘private joke with
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It was Herbert Morrison who remarked that the corridors of the Home Office are paved with dynamite. Well tonight, they’re blowing up. Just three weeks after Suella Braverman was unceremoniously fired from 2 Marsham Street, her onetime junior minister has now followed her out of the door. After two hours of speculation, it has now
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Diane Abbott has been shown up once again. This time it is by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, during a meeting with the Home Affairs Committee this afternoon. On the pro-Palestine marches, Abbott told the CAA rather patronisingly: I have actually been on these demonstrations, you haven’t. And I have to tell you, on both the
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Today’s the day. The start of one of the most highly anticipated evidence sessions at the Covid Inquiry sees former Prime Minister Boris Johnson take the hot seat. Here are the key points from his evidence so far: Baroness Hallett reprimands those leaking Covid evidence Baroness Hallett told Johnson that his statement is supposed to
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For a couple supposedly desperate for privacy, Meghan and Harry have an interesting definition of what it means to escape the spotlight. This time, however, they don’t have themselves entirely to thank. Journalist and royal-obsessive Omid Scobie has reopened the wounds of the regal family scandal after releasing his new biography Endgame, risking the wrath
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It’s Christmas party season in Westminster and tonight it was the turn of the Adam Smith Institute to do the honours. The free market think tank turned to Penny Mordaunt for her now-traditional turn on the seasonal circuit. Steerpike’s sources tell him that the Leader of the House writes most of the gags that she
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Another day, another Remoaner myth destroyed. Today’s report on International Partnerships by parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee finds that ‘Brexit has not had a negative impact on intelligence co-operation between the UK and EU member states’. How very curious – not least because of the incessant warnings spouted by Brexit pessimists of the very opposite
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Labour might be making headway in the polls, but the party’s rifts haven’t gone away. Today, Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, has hit out at the late Margaret Thatcher – only days after Sir Keir Starmer praised her ‘natural entrepreneurialism’ in his Sunday Telegraph op-Ed. Speaking to reporters, Sarwar said: Margaret Thatcher destroyed
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Uh oh. Less than a day has passed since James Cleverly announced his new five-point immigration plan and already there are noises from the Tory right suggesting they want more. Recently-ousted home secretary Suella Braverman said last night the government ‘can go further’ and that the ‘package is too late’. It followed comments made last
