Steerpike

Just days before Labour politicians head to Liverpool for the party's annual conference, a story about Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff has been dominating headlines. It emerged that the Labour Together founder’s lawyer advised Morgan McSweenet that he should mark £700,000 of undisclosed donations as an ‘admin error’, according to a leaked document from 2021 published by the Conservatives on Tuesday. But today, the Electoral Commission has announced it will not be probing the case. How interesting… Over the time McSweeney ran the think tank, more than £700,000 of donations were not properly registered – including a whopping £100,000 gifted to the think tank while McSweeney was running Starmer’s Labour leadership campaign in 2020.

Dear oh dear. Labour conference is just days away but as the party prepares to come together it would appear its politicians are coming apart. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham gave a rather revealing interview this week in which he called for 'wholesale change' to prevent an 'existential' crisis, set out his own brand of lefty politics – Manchesterism – and refused to rule out a return to Westminster. Now communities secretary Steve Reed has hit back in a defence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer – dismissing Burnham's 'potshots'. Ouch. Speaking to Sky News, Reed remarked: [Burnham] is entitled to his view, but we’ve heard these kinds of comments before. When Labour was in opposition, there used to be people that would take potshots at Keir Starmer.

Ding ding ding! US President Donald Trump hit out at London mayor Sadiq Khan at the UN general assembly yesterday and now the Labour man is hitting back. The mayor has accused Trump of showing he is 'racist, sexist, misogynist and Islamophobic' after the President claimed Khan was trying to put London under sharia law. The gloves are coming off… In an interview with BBC London, Khan fumed that 'I appear to be living rent-free inside Donald Trump's head'. He went on to rage: People are wondering what it is about this Muslim mayor who leads a liberal, multi-cultural, progressive and successful city, that means I appear to be living rent-free inside Donald Trump's head. I think President Trump has shown he is racist, he is sexist, he is misogynistic and he is Islamophobic.

Donald Trump's trip to the UK has finished and it appears his love-in with London has ended too. In a speech at the UN headquarters in New York, the US President took a pop at London mayor Sadiq Khan – calling him a 'terrible, terrible mayor' – before claiming that the Labour politician wants to put the British capital under sharia law. He knows how to grab headlines, eh? In a scathing address to the UN's general assembly, Trump fumed about Khan: I have to say, I look at London – where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor – it's been so changed. Now they want to go to shariah law. But you're in a different country, you can't do that. Turning his guns on the European Union, the President raged to leader that: 'Your countries are going to hell.

Labour might have recognised Palestinian statehood and green-lighted a new Gatwick runway, but Nigel Farage has once again managed to steal the show. This morning the Reform UK leader held a London press conference in which he announced his plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, make foreign nationals ineligible to claim benefits and introduce an English standards test – which would be retaken every five years. Crikey! Reform has planned its headline domination well, with Farage and his head of policy Zia Yusuf taking aim at ex-prime minister Boris Johnson and the 'Boriswave' of immigration that came after Brexit.

Liberal Democrat party conference – four words which turn the blood of any lobby journalist cold. Yes, it is that time of year again: the annual five-day bonanza in which the perennial third party of British politics desperately tries to find some relevance. In his never-ending quest for headlines, Sir Ed Davey – the clown prince of Westminster – has alighted on a new stunt: leading a marching band, drum and all. Less Orange Book, more Orange Order... But for Davey, who furiously complains that his antics are not getting enough airtime, one wheeze is not enough. The Kingston MP is reprising his Love Actually routine by talking tough on Donald Trump and his administration. His latest target? Elon Musk, the owner of X.

The otherwise run-of-the-mill First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament came to a dramatic conclusion this afternoon. Before the Presiding Officer moved onto the next item of business, former Conservative leader Douglas Ross made a point of order alleging that he had been assaulted by an SNP government minister. Crikey!   He told SNP First Minister John Swinney: ‘As I left the chamber yesterday, I was physically assaulted and verbally abused by your minister for parliamentary business, Jamie Hepburn.’ Ross went on to urge Swinney to confirm he takes ‘a zero-tolerance approach to threatening and intimidating behaviour by his ministers’. Talk about the bare minimum, eh? The incident followed a clash in parliament yesterday over, er, seagulls.

Sadiq Khan has taken to the august pages of the Guardian today to vent about the US President, just hours after Donald Trump touched down in Britain. London's Mayor fumed about Trump's tariffs and the US president's criticism of the capital, before launching into a rant on how 'President Donald Trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world'. Crikey! Khan continues: Six years later, the tactics we see from today's White House seem no different. Scapegoating minorities, illegally deporting US citizens, deploying the military to the streets of diverse cities. These actions aren't just inconsistent with western values – they're straight out of the autocrat's playbook. Talk about pulling no punches!

You spend ages waiting for a defection then two come along at once. On the same day that former Tory health minister Maria Caulfield defected to Reform, Mr S can reveal that Henry Smith, the former Conservative MP for Crawley, has also jumped ship. Smith was first elected to parliament in 2010 and was a member of a number of parliamentary committees – and will join Nigel Farage's party as an ordinary member. Meanwhile his colleague, and former minister, Caulfield proclaimed on GB News this morning that 'the future is Reform'. She told the outlet that: If you are Conservative right-minded, then the future is Reform. The country is going to change a lot. The same people who thought that Brexit would not happen think that Reform will not happen. They are in for a shock.