Steerpike

It’s not a good time to be in Scottish Labour. With nine months to go until the 2026 Holyrood election, the party is still trailing behind the SNP and, at times, Reform UK. And things aren’t going well at a local level either: in recent months the party has suspended five councillors over inappropriate conduct and today one of these, Fife council’s David Graham, has been jailed for 27 months after the 43-year-old was found guilty for sexually abusing a vulnerable teenager. Good heavens… A by-election will be held in Fife’s Buckhaven, Methil and Wemyss Villages ward in due course – with opposition parties keeping tabs on a number of council seats after the suspension of more Labour councillors in Scotland.

Back to the UK's bloated civil service. As if the government didn't have enough on its plate trying to slash Whitehall red tape, the number of sick days taken by civil servants won't help Sir Keir Starmer's army pick up the pace on progress. Civil servant absences are on track to reach a record high – and the Foreign Office is no exception to the trend. Mr S can reveal the number of sick days taken by FCDO mandarins shot up by more than 50 per cent in the financial year ending March 2024 compared to the previous year – while the number of days lost to mental health issues soared by more than three-quarters.

The SNP's former Dear Leader Nicola Sturgeon released her memoir this week – but it has not quite had the reception she anticipated. The trailed excerpts prompted Alex Salmond's allies to accuse Sturgeon of besmirching her former mentor's name, brought her failed gender reform bill to the fore and confused pro-independence supporters after the Queen of the Nats hinted she was considering a move to, er, London. Now another admission in the 450-page tome has led the Scottish Tories to write to the Scottish Permanent Secretary to examine whether Sturgeon broke the ministerial code.

Well, well, well. Back to Scotland's self-identifying 'newspaper', which has planted itself at the centre of a row over the delisting of a gender critical book from a national library exhibition. Women's rights campaigners flagged concerns after The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht – a selection of gender critical essays – was removed from the National Library of Scotland's Dear Library exhibition, after having been previously selected. The Times ran the initial story, titled 'censorship row as library bans gender-critical book'. The National then took it upon themselves to claim this wasn't true – insisting the National Library had 'debunked' accusations of censorship.

Well, well, well. After Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes announced she was stepping down at next year's Scottish parliament election, speculation about who could stand for her Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency has been rife. Some have suggested that Ian Blackford, the former SNP MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and onetime Westminster group leader, could make a return to frontline politics by standing for an area he represented down south for almost a decade. So will he make the leap? When quizzed on Spectator TV about whether he would stand at next year's Holyrood election, Blackford did not rule it out – however he remarked: 'It would be a big push for me to get myself there.

They say good things come to those who wait, but Steerpike will let readers be the judge of that when it comes to Nicola Sturgeon's memoir Frankly. The 450-page account by Scotland's former first minister was supposed to be hitting bookshelves on Thursday, but some shops decided to release it ahead of time and Mr S has got his hands on an early copy, reading it so you don't have to. Here are the top lowlights from Sturgeon's new tome… Trans U-turn One of the controversies that, some suggest, prompted her resignation in 2023 was the gender reform bill – and the scandal of double rapist Isla Bryson being housed in a women's prison.

Oh dear. If Scotland's former Dear Leader thought she could have an interview about her legacy that didn't touch on the question of putting male rapists in women's prisons she was sorely mistaken. Nicola Sturgeon has come under fire for a promotional clip ahead of tonight's ITV interview with the ex-SNP leader. In the clip, the former FM is quizzed on her gender reform bill and the scandal that saw the double rapist Isla Bryson – born Adam Graham – initially housed in a women's prison. And yet despite the outrage the case provoked, Sturgeon still couldn't bring herself to call Graham a man in her latest TV interview. Some people never learn, eh?

As the issue of immigration continues to assert itself as one of the top concerns facing the country, Brits are increasingly concerned about small boats crossings in the English Channel. So much so that some people have started seeing migrant crossing where there, er, aren’t any at all.  Take for example ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who this week raised the alarm about potential illegal immigrants being spotted off Great Yarmouth. The politician was quick to post a photo from the Norfolk coast to social media to rage that:  Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW. Authorities alerted and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported. Enough is enough.

It wouldn't be recess without a sleaze scandal, eh? Now Sir Keir Starmer's wife is in the limelight, after it transpired that she has accepted yet another set of freebies. Victoria Starmer accepted free tickets to Royal Ascot worth hundreds – almost exactly a year on from when Lady Starmer and the Prime Minister were embroiled in a freebie fiasco row over free clothing and hospitality. Dear oh dear… Sir Keir's register of interests revealed that Lady Starmer nabbed £650 worth of tickets for her and two family members to attend Royal Ascot, as reported by the Express. The Prime Minister himself wasn't lucky enough to benefit from the gifts this time, however, as he was busy getting ready to greet Donald Trump ahead of the US President's trip to Scotland.