Steerpike

If you thought the Rwanda Bill was a headache last year, 2024 is shaping up to be no different. Rishi Sunak’s flagship legislation was debated in the House of Lords on Monday night and the government suffered no less than five defeats at the hands of the unelected chamber. While the amendments are likely to be stripped out in the Commons, defeats of such magnitude are likely to delay the implementation of the scheme... Peers sought to amend the Rwanda Bill in a variety of different ways, by a majority of 102 voting to ensure the legislation is fully compliant with domestic and international law. Another vote, again won by a majority of 102, demanded that parliament does not declare the country ‘safe’ until the treaty signed with Rwanda in December 2023 is fully implemented.

He’s back. George Galloway, victor of Friday’s Rochdale by-election, has this afternoon been sworn in as MP in the House of Commons for his fourth different constituency. After a morning swanning around the estate, ‘Gorgeous George’, who last sat in 2015, arrived to a rather empty chamber, flanked by Alba MP Neale Hanvey and Father of the House Sir Peter Bottomley. The unwilling escorts were chosen after David Davies and Jeremy Corbyn both turned down the chance to accompany Galloway into the House for his triumphant return. Talk about awkward… After taking the oath – on a Holy Bible – parliament’s newest MP set about doing what he does best: holding an emergency press conference outside parliament to talk about, er, himself.

Poor John Bercow just can't seem to catch a break. In his never-ending quest to find some relevance post-parliament, the former MP has been thwarted at every time. First, Covid put a stop to his burgeoning career on the speaking circuit. Then a report into his bullying behaviour led to a suspension of his Labour membership, thwarting any hopes of a comeback there. And now, inevitably, Bercow's reality-TV career has ended abruptly after he was banished from the US version of the Traitors. The ex-Speaker today became the seventh 'celebrity' to be axed from the second series of the reality show, hosted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming. During the episode, Bercow was seen opening an envelope which read: 'By order of the traitors, you have been murdered.

After Rishi Sunak's speech criticising the Rochdale result, there was only one reaction worth getting. The duty of interviewing George Galloway was left to Sam Coates of Sky News, following Sunak's claim that last night's result was 'beyond alarming.' Galloway initially played ball, telling Coates that he wasn't taking the matter too seriously: We're talking about little Rishi Sunak in the fag end of his prime ministership. Don't talk to me as if he has come down from the Mount with tablets of stone. As if the things he says are meant to awe me... I've got the democratic mandate here, not Rishi Sunak. He didn't even come second! He's lucky to come third.

Thursday morning in parliament brings with it Business Questions and the chance for Penny Mordaunt to slap down another opponent from the despatch box. Today though, her stand-out moment came not against her regular SNP opponents but rather a former colleague. Andrew Bridgen, the sage of North West Leicestershire, called for a debate on capital punishment in a not-so-subtle way of obtaining a clip for his vaccine-hating fan-base. He said to Mordaunt: I've always opposed capital punishment on the principle that it's wrong to take a life so it can't be right for the state to take a life in revenge. Events have caused me to reconsider my position.

All eyes were on the House of Lords this afternoon where it is the second reading of the Media Bill. Lord Forsyth, the former Scotland Secretary, has tabled what is known as a 'motion to regret' – a device which allows peers to express their opposition to legislation without stopping it. Forsyth's ire had been sparked by the failure of the Bill to include a motion banning the ownership and control by foreign governments of British newspapers. It comes as the Emirati government is seeking to buy both the Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, via an investment vehicle called Redbird IMI. In his speech this afternoon, Forsyth criticised those who suggested that the Emirati state would have no editorial control over these organs of public opinion.

The Lee Anderson saga shows no sign of going away anytime soon. Five days after the Ashfield MP had the whip removed for claiming 'Islamists' had 'got control' of the Mayor of London, Tory ministers are still tying themselves in knots over how best to elegantly distance themselves from their now-suspended colleague. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared that what Anderson said was 'wrong' but his colleagues appear unable to agree whether his comments were 'Islamophobic'. The latest hapless minister to trip up is Michael Tomlinson, the man tasked with the immigration brief. Appearing on LBC this morning, Tomlinson was asked six times why it was necessary to remove the whip from the red wall Rottweiler.

After four straight election defeats, Labour are desperately keen to prove that the party has changed. Gone – supposedly – are the bad old days of tax and spend. Fiscal restraint is now the order of the day. The £28 billion in green spending has been unceremoniously axed; a commitment to restore the bankers' bonus cap duly binned too. No more will 'uncontrolled spending' be synonymous with Keir Starmer's party. So it must be to the chagrin of Labour HQ then that not all their frontbenchers appear to have got the memo about the importance of being trusted with the country's credit card. For Steerpike has been told by one of his spies that David Lammy's Amex card was discovered today outside one of Westminster's favourite watering holes.