Steerpike

Tally ho! That sound you can hear is Keir Starmer's barmy army charging into the fray once more. Having waged war over the Chagos Islands, assisted dying and hereditary peers, now the Labour party has found another cause on which to burn precious political capital: trail hunting. This is the process whereby hounds following a scent-based trail rather than live animals, following the ban in the New Labour years. A decision that Tony Blair rued bitterly in his memoirs... Ministers promised a consultation on trail hunting in early 2026, with an announcement expected this month. But opponents are not sitting on their hands, with a serious fundraising operation in the countryside now underway.

It is a difficult time to be a Labour MP. With the Greens on the left and Reform on the right, many are contemplating an electoral pasting in their patches come May. Now, a fresh challenge presents itself, at a time when open questions are being asked about Keir Starmer's leadership. In the coming days, the party is expected to start asking Labour MPs if they wish to confirm they are seeking re-election. This is to allow the process later this year to begin for 'trigger ballots' – a vote of branches and affiliates of a Constituency Labour Party (CLP) with a Labour MP who wishes to stand again at the next election. Roll up, roll up one and all...

Oh dear. It seems that the spectre of the Chinese dragon is rearing its head over Westminster again. After three men were arrested earlier today on suspicion of spying for China, Scottish Labour MP Joani Reid has now been forced to say that she has never seen anything to make her suspect her husband, David Taylor, has 'broken any law'. In a statement she said: I am not part of my husband’s business activities, and neither I nor my children are part of this investigation, and we should not be treated by media organisations as though we are. The Met Police took the men into custody on Wednesday morning on suspicion of assisting a foreign intelligence service, and as part of a wider investigation into national security offences related to China.

Happy spring statement day one and all. As Rachel Reeves valiantly tries to wrestle the public narrative back from her critics, it seems that there is yet more pain from the Gorton and Denton by-election last week. For a new poll is out for YouGov today – and it shows Zack Polanski making gains at Labour's expense. The Greens have now leapfrogged Labour into second place, boasting 21 per cent – just two points behind Nigel Farage's Reform. Talk about enlargement... The poll for the Times and Sky News found that support for the Green has risen four points in a week with the party now supported by one in five voters. At the same time Labour have recorded their lowest ever polling score – supported by just 16 per cent of voters – down two points on the previous week.

So. Farewell then Josh Simons. The Macclesfield MP has quit his job at the Cabinet Office following the revelations about his time as head of Labour Together. Back in 2023, the think tank – which helped Keir Starmer get elected party leader – spent thousands paying APCO Worldwide to dig into the background of journalists who wrote stories about them. Simons has now quit as a minister, days after Starmer asked his ethics adviser to investigate him. He's not having a great week, eh? In a statement, Simons said he welcomed being cleared by Sir Laurie Magnus but that he was resigning as he had 'become a distraction from this government's important work.

Poor old Sir Keir. It turns out that there was indeed a large anti-Reform tactical vote in Gorton – it just is not willing to vote for his party. Following the Greens' runaway success in last night's by-election, it was left to Starmer to do the time-honoured tradition of beleaguered party leaders: do five minutes with the broadcasters in which the proverbial gets kicked out of them. Talk about good telly... The Prime Minister cut an unconvincing figure as he admitted that it had been a disappointing night – but that he is going nowhere. He told Sky: I will also fight against the extremes in politics, on the Right and the Left, parties who want to tear our country apart.

Peter Mandelson is in a right old funk. Having been ignominiously hauled in by the Met for questioning on Monday, his lawyers have now been firing off furious statements, indignantly asking why the rozzers viewed him as a flight risk. Who could have tipped them off? But now the mysterious source has chosen to identify themselves. Ahead of Prime Ministers' Questions, Lindsay Hoyle revealed today that it was he who told the Met that he had heard Peter Mandelson was planning to leave the country. Dun dun duh.... Mandelson blames this tip-off – which he claims was wrong – led to him being arrested by the police, rather than being allowed to attend an interview voluntarily.

Oh dear. It seems that Ed Davey – the most righteous man in all of parliament – has got it wrong again. He and his party must have thought it a terrific wheeze when they announced that they would today be pushing for documents on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's appointment as a UK trade envoy to be released, following his arrest last week. But poor old Sir Ed had a torrid time on the morning media round, given his historic support for Andrew's position when he was a business minister in the Coalition government. Whoops! Invited on to the Today programme, host Nick Robinson pressed Sir Ed on his 2011 comments that Andrew was doing an 'excellent job' as trade envoy and dismissed concerns around him at the time as 'innuendo'.

If you didn't laugh at this Labour government, you would cry. The Anti-Corruption Minister has resigned over corruption; the Homelessness Minister quit over making people homeless. The Police Transport Minister went after being accused of lying to the police – while the Housing Secretary did not pay £40,000 tax on her house. Now – get this – the minister for inquiries is... the subject of an inquiry! Yes, that's right: somehow Josh Simons is still clinging on at the Cabinet Office. The now-MP was formerly the head of the Labour Together think tank when it commissioned a 2023 report into the background of journalists reporting on them.

Happy birthday to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He has today been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, after photos showed cars arriving at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk earlier this morning. Thames Valley Police have previously said they were assessing a complaint over the alleged sharing of confidential material by the former prince with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a statement, the force said: As part of the investigation, we have today (19/2) arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in police custody at this time. We will not be naming the arrested man, as per national guidance.

Just what is happening in Washington? It was only yesterday that the State Department was trying to merrily wave through Keir Starmer's great Chagos sell-out, issuing a glowing statement suggesting that 'The United States supports the decision of the United Kingdom to proceed with its agreement with Mauritius concerning the Chagos archipelago.' Nothing more to see here guv. So it was presumably to some diplomatic chagrin then that Donald J Trump clearly thinks rather differently about the wisdom of such a deal.

The Chagos deal is set to return to the House of Lords after recess. But a group of islanders are determined to do all they can to avert the handover, by protesting right up until the point of surrender. On Monday, a four-man landing party landed on the archipelago to establish a permanent settlement, more than 50 years after the population was evicted from the British colony. Talk about stop the boats... They were led by Misley Mandarin, First Minister of what was – until then– the Chagossian government in exile. Standing on the beach and looking back out at the Indian Ocean, he declared that hundreds more Chagossians would soon follow.

You wait years for a right-wing party – and then a veritable fleet comes along at once. After Advance UK, Heritage and Reclaim, now we have Restore Britain. It is being fronted by Rupert Lowe, the Great Yarmouth MP who currently sits as an independent. He initially set up Restore Britain as a 'political movement' after he was suspended from Reform UK last March. Cue the likes of board members Susan Hall and Gavin Williamson signalling they will be cutting ties... Restore Britain is now expected to act as an umbrella political party, with locally based political parties – such as Lowe's own Great Yarmouth First party – acting as partners.

The SNP might be heading to another victory – but all is not going swimmingly for the nationalists. The party's former chief executive Peter Murrell – best known as Nicola Sturgeon's estranged husband – is in the firing line over more allegations concerning the party finances. Murrell is facing a charge of embezzling £459,000 from the party over a period of more than 12 years, according to a copy of an indictment seen by the BBC and Scottish Sun. Uh oh... According to the document, Murrell is accused of embezzling the funds between August 2010 and January 2023. He is is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.

When a PM is in crisis, what do they do? Sack the head of the civil service. Having lost both his Chief of Staff and Director of Communications at the beginning of the week, Keir Starmer resolved to make it a hattrick by dispensing with the services of his short-serving Cabinet Secretary. Poor old Chris Wormald is on the way out – but it does not look like his intended replacement is going to be easy for Starmer either... For Simon McDonald, the former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, has now popped up in the news to warn No. 10 about plans to replace Wormald with Antonia Romeo without a new appointment process.

Just stop Doyle! It was another bad Prime Ministers' Questions this week for Keir Starmer today. Once again, one of those mysterious appointments for which the Prime Minister is never responsible came back to haunt him in public. After Peter Mandelson last week, this time it is Matthew Doyle, Starmer's former comms chief who was ennobled last month. Talk about jobs for the boys... Unfortunately just four weeks after his ennoblement, Labour have already been forced to kick him out of their party in the House of Lords, after it emerged Doyle had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.