Steerpike

With the weather improving, small boat arrivals look set to increase in the coming weeks. So what better time for Zia Yusuf, Reform's Home Affairs spokesman, to take a trip to the States to learn how the Trump administration has stopped illegal migration there? Yusuf is in Washington this week for meetings with congressmen, Senators and officials on behalf of Nigel Farage. So much for the relationship between the MAGA movement and Reform cooling eh? Yusuf has been among the most ardent enthusiasts in Farage's party for a plan to mirror the Trump administration's push for mass deportations. So he must therefore be delighted to be meeting members of MAGA – the Make America Great Again movement – as part of his bid to learn from Tom Hogan, Trump's 'Border Czar'.

AI has taken the world by storm, and few workplaces have been immune to its impact. In the House of Commons last year, Written Parliamentary Questions from MPs and peers doubled compared with 2024. The Department of Health and Social Care saw a 97 per cent increase, with the Home Office up 92 per cent, the Department for Education up 97 per cent and Housing a whopping 101 per cent. And who was blamed for the rise? Had MPs and peers discovered a new zeal for seeking answers from ministers in the name of democratic accountability? Not quite, according to Commons clerks. AI, apparently, was responsible. Now, Mr S can reveal Parliament has deployed a new AI mechanism to crack down on MPs over-reliant on the very same tech.

With Rachel Reeves in the Treasury, many employers are having to make cut backs. But in the case of Reform UK, it is the exact opposite, with Labour's woes proving a great boost to Nigel Farage's fortunes. After topping the local elections on 7 May, Reform is now facing the challenge of having to hire scores of staff to run their newly-acquired offices in Cardiff Bay and Holyrood. Talk about the problems of success... But Mr S hears that the party has at last found a new man to run communications north of the border. After a veritable shellacking by elements of the Scottish press in last month's campaign, the man tasked with building post-election ties with the Holyrood lobby is Tony McGuire, the long-serving Scotland reporter at GB News.

People will say almost anything to win power. Sir Keir Starmer’s rise is a case in point. In 2020, he won the Labour leadership by presenting himself as a candidate who would preserve much of the Corbyn-era policy agenda. Once in charge, many of those promises were diluted, abandoned, or quietly reinterpreted. By 2024, he had done something similar on a national scale. Now, his rival for the throne has taken a leaf out of his playbook. Despite a Labour leadership contest not even having formally begun, the Andy Burnham seems to have no qualms about making constant breakneck turns on policies he advocated just months ago. The Manchester Mayor is also already spitting out swathes of new policies which he thinks will get Labour MPs – and the country – behind him.

If you're not a fan of any of the current contenders for Labour leader, then why not try Darren Jones? Yes, that's right, if you're not a fan of the likes of Andy Burnham or Angela Rayner, then do not despair. After nine months as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, good old Darren now fancies a crack at his boss's job, if media reports are to be believed. Described by one Westminster wag as 'like Wes Streeting without the charm', Jones is one of those ambitious Labour men who has never been backwards about coming forwards. Unfortunately for the Rt Hon DJ, it seems that he has become the latest of this tribe to be afflicted by the curse of the Prince of Darkness.

Another day, another BBC apology. This time, the corporation has said sorry to Nigel Farage after presenter Matt Chorley misquoted the Reform leader on Newsnight. In an interview with Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday, the former Times Radio presenter claimed Farage had called for ‘white cold rage’ in response to the tragic death of Henry Nowak. He hadn’t. The term the Reform leader actually used, in a broadcast clip, was ‘pure cold rage’. Furious friends of Farage warned that the misquote changed the meaning of what he said, making it sound racialised. Owning up to the error, which was made three times on camera, Chorley posted on X: I owe Nigel Farage an apology. This was a mistake on my part, a misremembering of the quote.

A co-sponsor of Kim Leadbeater’s failed assisted suicide Bill has privately admitted to constituents that MPs trying to ram through similar legislation are likely to fail. Peter Bedford was a leading cheerleader for euthanasia in the last parliamentary session. But the Tory MP now seems to have softened his stance on getting assisted suicide over the line quite so quickly. In an email to a constituent, Bedford’s office said the politician ‘does not think it will succeed if brought back as a Private Members’ Bill again during this parliamentary session and does not agree with this being debated again in the near future.