The queen

I would like to think that the lack of obvious progress on negotiating a post-Brexit deal with the EU is, as Theresa May said this week, part of a strategy – that there is a lot going on behind the scenes but it is not in our interests for the Government to give a ‘running commentary’ on it. But listening to the foreign secretary speaking before the Commons foreign affairs committee I am beginning to wonder. Maybe, actually nothing is going on. Top of Boris’s ‘to do’ list, it seems, is not securing trade deals with the world beyond the EU. It is securing himself a royal yacht on which

Weary that his republican views could put-off some Labour voters, Jeremy Corbyn has been keen to make clear that he won’t fight to scrap the monarchy — ‘it’s not the fight I’m interested in’ — if elected Prime Minister. So, what of his rumoured successor John McDonnell and his team? Just in time for the Queen’s birthday celebrations, Steerpike has been passed an article that the shadow Chancellor’s media advisor penned back in 2011. In the article for the Guardian, James Mills argues that the Royal family ought to be funded by donations from the public: In this he argues that a suggestion by MPs and the Lords to donate £85,000

Although Jeremy Corbyn managed to survive the Queen’s Speech relatively unscathed last week, his republican beliefs are likely to be called into question once again thanks to a new appointment to his press team. Steerpike understands that Matt Zarb-Cousin has been chosen as the winning candidate to fill the ‘leader’s office media spokesperson’ vacancy first advertised last month. Cousin — who currently works as a consultant for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling — is an interesting choice given that he is already a familiar name in Labour circles thanks to an incident that occurred when he worked as a staffer for Andy Slaughter. In 2012, to mark the Queen’s 60 years on the

Although Jeremy Corbyn’s aides refused to confirm whether he would give a tribute to the Queen on her 90th birthday, the Labour leader did manage to put his republican tendencies to one side today in order to mark the happy occasion. After wishing Her Majesty a happy birthday, he went on to give his football team Arsenal a plug. Corbyn said that many locals believe that Her Majesty is actually a secret Gooner — pointing to the fact that the Queen’s coronation drive went through Islington, key Arsenal territory ‘Now we know the Queen is absolutely above politics. She may be above football too. But many locals harbour this quiet secret view

Last week the Sun roused anger after they ran a front page claiming that the Queen backs Brexit. The paper reports that the Queen expressed concerns about the European Union during a tense exchange with Nick Clegg over lunch in 2011. With Clegg stopping short of completely denying the story, Michael Gove has since been accused of being behind the leak after it was revealed that the pair both attended a lunch with the Queen that year. Clegg has expressed outrage that Privy Council members would dare to divulge details of private conversations with the Queen: ‘I find it rather distasteful to reveal conversations with the Queen.’ So imagine Mr S’s surprise on reading the Mail on

Today’s Sun claims on its front page that the Queen backs Brexit. The paper reports that the Queen clashed with Nick Clegg, who was then Deputy Prime Minister, over Europe at a lunch in 2011. During a heated discussion on the EU, Her Majesty is reported to have declared that the EU was ‘heading in the wrong direction’. While Clegg has said on Twitter that the story is ‘nonsense’, the Sun claim that a ‘highly reliable source’ says otherwise. So, who else was at the lunch? As the BBC’s Nick Sutton points out, a look through the court circular suggests there was only one lunch Nick Clegg attended with the Queen in

It is one of the great counterfactuals of contemporary history, what if Mikhail Gorbachev had walked out of that Chequers lunch with Margaret Thatcher in 1984? As Charles Moore explained at last night’s Spectator event to celebrate the launch of the second volume of his Thatcher biography, that lunch—where Thatcher and Gorbachev debated capitalism and Communism—was key to the ending of the Cold War. For Thatcher then persuaded Ronald Reagan that he should meet Gorbachev and that Gorbachev was someone they could do business with. But Gorbachev had almost left Chequers early, his wife had mouthed to him across the table ‘should we go now?’ as Thatcher hammered away at

Today Jeremy Corbyn has cancelled his attendance at what would have been his first meeting of the Queen’s Privy Council due to ‘prior commitments’. Of course naysayers have been quick to jump on this, with Alan Duncan claiming that Corbyn snubbing his first chance to be sworn in suggests that he is not a serious political figure. As for the Corbynistas praising their leader for sticking to his republican values by giving Her Majesty a miss, they would do well to remember that another politican has a far more impressive track record when it comes to snubbing the Queen. During Nick Clegg’s time as Deputy Prime Minister, he managed to earn himself a reputation for repeatedly snubbing Her Majesty. When

Given the criticism that Jeremy Corbyn received when he failed to sing God Save the Queen at a Battle of Britain memorial service, the Labour leader faces a new dilemma when he is sworn into the Privy council. Although it is custom to get on bended knee and kiss the Queen’s hand, the republican politician is said to be undecided over whether to adhere to this. However, according to John Prescott he may already be spared from one part of the ceremony. Speaking on the Sunday Politics,the former deputy Prime Minister told Andrew Neil that the ceremony does not actually require any kneeling, instead it consists of a fair amount of hopping: ‘When I was first asked

When the Labour party began, its purpose was the representation of labour (i.e. workers) in the House of Commons. Indeed, its name was the Labour Representation Committee. Its goal was gradually achieved, and then, from the 1980s, gradually annihilated. With the victory of Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader is supported by only 10 per cent of the party’s MPs, and yet it is imagined, at least by his backers, that he will eventually be able to get into government with them. It is an impossible situation. What is needed today is the opposite of how it all started — a Parliamentary Representation Committee in the Labour party. When the history of

With Jeremy Corbyn accepting an invitation to join the Privy Council, the republican will have to kneel before the Queen and kiss her on the hand when he takes the position. Of course this is unlikely to go down well with his far-left supporters, as well as the man himself — who today appeared to refrain from singing God Save the Queen at the Battle for Britain memorial service. So Mr S suspects that Corbyn may wish to take a leaf out of Tony Benn’s book on this one. In a Radio 4 series, Benn discussed his political diaries, including samples of the original recordings from which he had first dictated entries onto