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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The SNP look just about set to keep hold of Holyrood with an overall majority – but not without some major casualties. Spare a thought for Angus Robertson, who has been ousted from his Edinburgh Central seat by another nat – only this time from the Scottish Greens. The former government minister and party deputy
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Louise Haigh today became the first Labour grandee to (publicly) suggest Sir Keir Starmer should head for the door. The backbench powerbroker presented the prime minister with an ultimatum, urging him to make a sharp turn left or set out a timetable for exiting so someone else – read: Andy Burnham – can. The leader
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No one enjoys a first encounter with an ex after a break-up. But surely few less so than Robert Jenrick and his one-time Tory leadership cheerleader, Victoria Atkins. The unlucky pair were parked side-by-side on the Beeb for a painfully awkward local elections post-mortem. In an Oscar-worthy admission, Atkins revealed that Jenrick hasn’t spoken to
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Allahu Akbar, one and all. It’s been a big night for Green and independent candidates standing in the Gaza – sorry, British – local elections. While Reform has much to celebrate in gaining ground across the country, so too, it seems, do the people of Palestine, who now find themselves represented in town hall decision-making
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It’s been a stonking set of local elections for Reform, with a turquoise wave sweeping through country showing no signs of slowing down. The party has penetrated the backyards of wannabe prime ministers Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham and has swept to victory in the former Tory stronghold of Havering. Already Reform is up 250
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Good old Zack Polanski spent the night before the local elections pontificating once again on – you guessed it – Palestine. The searing insight Britain’s own former breast-enhancing hypnotist offered this time was that Israel does not have a right to exist. This, the philosophising Green leader proclaimed, is because no country should enjoy such
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Sir Keir Starmer’s desperation to get down with the kids hit new lows in the run up to the local elections. The Prime Minister’s team genuinely think that the best way to bring the ‘real Keir’ to the youngsters is bypassing the lens of the evil right-wing media and heading straight to… TikTok! Given its
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Happy polling day one and all. While the political parties knock up doors, the Financial Times has brought some merriment to Westminster by revealing plans for the forthcoming Kings’s birthday honours’ list. There are the usual City grandees including the bosses of Barclays, Citigroup and the London Stock Exchange Group (up the workers eh?) But Steerpike’s
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Andy Burnham has once again sent Labour’s Blairite backbenches into a storm. The wannabe Prime Minister has a knack for infuriating his party’s ‘right’ and today is no exception. His latest wheeze? Signing up to a ‘progressive rally’ in East London, where he’ll be parked alongside such political luminaries as former Green leader Caroline Lucas
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With a day to go before voters head to the polls, Zack Polanski is determined to go out with a bang. Having already issued a quasi-apology to the police after criticising their handling of the Golders Green knife incident, the great Green boob whisperer decided the morning before local elections day would be the perfect
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Zack Polanski is no stranger to reinventing himself. He’s been an actor, a hypnotherapist capable of enlarging breasts, a nightclub promoter, a mental health counsellor and even… a Lib Dem. Now the Times has uncovered another entry on the already well-stuffed Polanski CV. According to the Green leader, he once served dutifully as a spokesman for the
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With two days to go before voters take to the ballot box, leadership manoeuvring, that perennial Westminster pastime, has slipped into a higher gear. Allies of Angela Rayner, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have been making the rounds among ever more febrile backbenchers. And their respective teams are at work to ensure plans are in
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A key component of Kemi Badenoch’s pitch to the country is that ‘you will always know where you stand with me’. Yesterday, out on the local elections campaign trail, the Tory leader jumped at the opportunity to prove it. You may not agree with me, but you will always know where you stand with me.
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Oh dear. Just when you thought the Greens could sink no lower on crime and justice, along came Zack Polanski yesterday with his take on the Golders Green stabbing. The ever-online left-wing leader thought it appropriate to share a post on X, criticising cops for kicking the knife-wielding Somalian attacker in the process of apprehending
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Back in February, Steerpike’s old friend Ed Miliband vowed to liberate Britain’s nuclear industry from the stranglehold of bureaucracy. Red Ed promised to take a sledgehammer to the ‘archaic rules’ holding back the construction of power stations across the land. He even admitted that Britain’s record on nuclear is diabolical on a global scale, with
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Many in SW1 have remarked that Kemi Badenoch has come on quite a bit since her early PMQs’ appearances. The Tory leader can now land a blow on television and can address the Commons with the confidence and clarity she lacked in earlier days. Significant progress, then. But alas, yesterday brought a reminder that live
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With a week to go before voters take to the polls, the race for victory is heating up. But it is not merely the familiar scramble over potholes, bin collections and municipal leisure centres that is exercising Westminster. The other contest – the one to replace Sir Keir Starmer – is acquiring a momentum of
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Wakey wakey! Whoooo remembers the United Kingdom Independence Party? Steerpike has fond memories of Ukip, Nigel Farage’s previous-but-one political vehicle which he then left to lead the Brexit Party back during the not-so-sunny days of Theresa May’s government. Along the way, a fair few Kippers have followed Farage on his journey and now ended up
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As a darling of the progressive commentariat, Gary Lineker is not usually one to let injustice pass unremarked. The former BBC star has become a tireless outrider for the Palestinian cause, devoting generous acreage on social media and in interviews to Gaza. On that subject, dear Gary has told us that ‘when I see some
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It has been a pretty grim day in Golders Green. Two Jewish men have been stabbed, with the Metropolitan Police formally declaring it a terrorist incident. Both the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council have said they are ‘sickened’; Sir Ephraim Mervis, the Chief Raabi, warns that ‘today’s event proves that if you are
