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
As if there wasn’t enough drama in parliament today. Peers and MPs have just been warned that a suspected agent working for the Chinese government has been trying to infiltrate the Palace of Westminster, in a plot that wouldn’t seem out of place in a James Bond film. Talk about The Spy Who Loved Xi. MI5 has now released
Political parties are very much in vogue at the moment so naturally Gina Miller had to get in on the act. Steerpike’s favourite millionaire barrister has launched her long-awaited centrist initiative this morning, hailing the advent of the ‘True and Fair party’ before an audience of just, er, thirteen people – unlucky for some. Mr S
The mood in Westminster this morning is febrile as Tory MPs plot to consider their leader’s future. Facing questions over partygate, plunging polls and mutinous ministers, can anything save Boris Johnson? Well, yes, but perhaps salvation comes in an unlikely form. For in another typically brilliant intervention, Lord Adonis — Britain’s most ironically titled peer — has reminded Boris-doubters what they stand
In this age of social media, it’s live by the tweet and die by the tweet. And when a Tory PM is in peril, such shenanigans take on an importance of semi-constitutional significance as ministers rush (or hesitate) to signal their allegiances. The most ominous sign for Boris Johnson yesterday was how quiet his Cabinet
You know it’s bad when Rees-Mogg does the media round. Ever since his disastrous interview on Grenfell in the 2019 election, Tory party managers have been keen to keep the Old Etonian’s performances on national television to a minimum. But given both the dire straits in which Boris now finds himself and the half-hearted backing of
Peter Bone was up at PMQs today, asking a rare, non-partygate question to our beleaguered Prime Minister on whether he’d abolish the BBC licence fee (answer: no). But not all the Wellingborough backbencher’s maneuverings in Parliament this week seem designed to be so helpful to Boris, as he battles to save his premiership. For Mr S has spotted
BREAKING: Britain is plunging into autocracy. Well, according to the New York Times at least. Steerpike has grown used to the witterings from America’s least reliable news source in recent years, as it seeks to portray the UK as a plague-riddled, rain-drenched fascistic hell-hole on the verge of democratic collapse but where the trains don’t run on
It’s unfortunate for Boris Johnson that one of his worst appearances at PMQs has coincided with one of Keir Starmer’s best. The Leader of the Opposition has clearly had his cornflakes today as he tore into the shambling PM and did what many of his party have been wanting for months: calling on Johnson to resign.
It’s probably the most difficult PMQs he’ll ever have to face. Boris Johnson is on the back foot today over reports on a garden party which went on in No. 10 in May 2020. Just before he faced questions from MPs, Johnson took the opportunity to finally apologise to the House and to the country,
Westminster’s finest are gathering today ahead of Boris Johnson’s much-awaited appearance at Prime Ministers’ Questions. The embattled premier is expected to be grilled shortly in the Commons about the garden party which took place in No. 10 in May 2020, following a morning media round blackout by the government in recent days. Yet while the House should
She’s the name that’s on everyone’s lips in Westminster. As Tory ministers flounder to defend their beleaguered leader over partygate, their oft-repeated line ‘let’s wait for Sue Gray’s inquiry’ has elevated the little-known civil servant investigating No. 10’s parties into something of a Delphic oracle, the woman whose judgements could make or break a Prime
Amid all the hubbub of cheese, wine and garden parties, it can be hard to focus on non-Covid matters. Still, one Tory MP appears to have managed it, given the decision of Jesse Norman today to table an amendment to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Norman, whose motion is seconded by a trio of well-respected colleagues
To look at the House of Commons this morning, you’d have thought Labour won the last election. The green benches on the government side were bereft of the usual Tory hordes, while the opposition was crammed with jeering Labour backbenchers. The reason? The Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had granted an Urgent Question on the subject of No.
Oh dear. It seems the great government post-Christmas reset isn’t going all too well after last night’s revelation that Downing Street staff were invited to a drinks party in the No. 10 garden during the first national lockdown. Martin Reynolds, the PM’s Principal Private Secretary, sent an email on 20 May 2020 to more than 100 people asking them
Budgets can be tricky things to manage. George Osborne saw two of his unravel in 2012 and 2016, over hot pasties and welfare cuts respectively, while his 2013 effort was derailed by the Evening Standard breaking its embargo. Thankfully Rishi Sunak has largely avoided such embarrassments in his three efforts so far. Helped by a legion of Rolls-Royce civil
Over Christmas, Steerpike was just one of those enjoying the memoirs of doughty Brexit street-fighter Mark Francois. Some 4,000 copies have now been sold, according to the Essex MP, whom Mr S encountered at a favourite Westminster haunt last week. And book sales are not the only cause for the self-styled ‘Spartan’ to be celebrating, as Francois (successfully)
It seems the government reset isn’t going exactly to plan. Michael Gove, Boris Johnson’s trouble-shooter, was due to appear on Radio 4’s Today programme in the coveted 8:10 a.m slot this morning to explain how he has finally solved the long-running cladding crisis as part of his housing brief. But what should have been a moment of triumph turned into
Victoria sponge, cherries jubilee and coronation chicken: a trio of Britain’s best loved foods, all of which share a monarchical theme. Each of these dishes was either created for a member of the Royal Family or to mark a royal occasion, with the three being respectively linked to Queen Victoria, her diamond jubilee in 1897 and finally our own current Queen’s coronation in
Andy Burnham has been undergoing something of a transformation in recent years. Gone is the Cambridge-educated career politician who underperformed in successive Labour leadership contests. Now he’s reborn as the king of the north, an omnipotent Manchester mayor with fans across the capital and the country. His pugilist credentials have been honed by savvy social media skills, with Burnham
Once upon a time it was the ‘Notting Hill set’ which ran the Tory party, with David Cameron, George Osborne and Michael Gove all boasting homes there. Now though, the Cameroons are largely gone and if there can be said to be an alternative London clique, it will be found seven miles south, in the leafy