Steerpike

Purdah is one of those words familiar to anyone covering the world of Westminster. It refers to the 'pre-election period of sensitivity,' when government activity and public communications are restricted to ensure impartiality. In these times of political crisis, it seems to be the word on everyone's lips: indeed, back in February, when Keir Starmer's days looked to be numbered, the Financial Times ran a piece titled: 'Political crises lead to ‘perma-purdah’ in Whitehall.' But while the Pink 'Un is happy using the term, it seems that the right-on mandarins of SW1 are a little too squeamish to do the same. For as Antonia Romeo, the new Head of the Civil Service, gets cracking in the role, it has been confirmed that purdah is dead and buried in Whitehall.

With almost 5,000 wards up for grabs, it's all hands to the pump at these local elections. And in their desire to field a full slate for 7 May, the good Conservatives of Greenwich have turned to a familiar face to stand in the unpromising territory of Woolwich Arsenal. Hugh O'Leary, best known as Liz Truss's husband, is standing next month, having previously contested other unwinnable wards back in 1998, 2002 and 2006. A victory here really would be the mother of all comebacks... O'Leary is believed to be the first spouse of a Prime Minister to stand for political office after leaving Downing Street since Margaret Lloyd George, who sat on Criccieth Urban District Council from 1919 to 1941.

It seems that the Chagos deal is the grift which keeps on giving. The government last night confirmed that it had been forced to pause the legislation granting the islands’ handover, following a U-turn by Washington. Now, Mr S can reveal that humiliation follows humiliation for our poor, beleaguered Prime Minister. Sir Keir has made much of his career as a human rights lawyer. But now it seems that he is himself accused of breaching the very same rights that he has championed… This week the Chagos Government’s Attorney General, James Tumbridge, filed a petition to the United Nations (UN), specifically accusing Starmer personally of committing a ‘crime against humanity’.

Reform's approach to these local elections seemed to be a variation on a wedding classic: 'something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.' As well as the fireworks and the town hall-style meetings, there are a fair few ex-Tories now swelling Nigel Farage's ranks. Mr S has done some counting and it seems that a decent chunk of former Conservative MPs are now standing for Reform. Currently the count is four. There is Damien Moore, formerly the Honourable Member for Southport, now on the slate in Westminster. Next up is Marco Longhi, the ex-Dudley North MP, who is staying and fighting in his local patch. Then there is Henry Smith, the onetime Crawley champion, now battling in Reigate.

When is an adult not an adult? It’s a question that the Labour party does not seem to be able to answer. Having struggled for years with the definition a woman, the party is now struggling to explain what constitutes a child. In their manifesto, the government committed to giving 16- and 17-year-olds the vote, arguing that it was necessary to ‘increase the engagement of young people in our vibrant democracy.’ In a press release last year they went further, arguing: Young people... already contribute to society by working, paying taxes and serving in the military... This will bring UK-wide elections in line with Scotland and Wales and is a major step towards meeting a manifesto commitment, ushering in the biggest change to UK democracy in a generation.

As we head towards the Scottish parliamentary elections in May, one party leader has a particularly unenviable job: step forward Anas Sarwar. Only a couple of months ago the Scottish Labour leader was calling for the party’s national leader, Sir Keir Starmer, to step down. Now he has to convince the Scottish electorate to put his party in charge north of the border. Speaking to Michael Gove on the Quite Right! podcast, Sarwar did not say he had any regrets. Asked if it was the right thing to call for Starmer to resign, he responded that: ‘I think honesty is always the best policy… I've got to look people in the eye over the course of the next six weeks in Scotland and ask them to put their faith and trust in me.

An own goal or back-of-the-net? The pundit class are divided on Reform's latest stunt, with Nigel Farage rocking up to Portman Road to snap pictures waving an Ipswich Town shirt. But while some are describing it as 'PR suicide', within Milbank Tower there is delight at the 'cut-through' of the Clacton MP's latest photo opportunity. One senior source told Mr S that the mood among Reform HQ’s digital team was one of 'a job well done'. So much for The Blues, eh? Content related to 'Ipswich-gate' was seen nearly 15 million times in the first 72 hours across Farage and Reform’s platforms. The core digital team – among whom there are a few twenty-somethings 'Barclaysmen' – have tapped into the 'banter' of football Twitter to create what one calls a 'popcorn-worthy shitstorm'.

Morgan McSweeney may be out of office – but he is certainly not out of the headlines. A mystery concerns the ex-No. 10 chief of staff's phone, amid ongoing Tory pressure to release the so-called 'Mandelson files': all the messages relating to the appointment of the (now former) US ambassador. The Sun reported on Saturday that McSweeney's phone was nicked on 20 October – days after Labour officials began to worry that a motion would be put to parliament demanding the release of McSweeney's messages to Mandelson. As one put it to Steerpike's colleague Tim Shipman: 'If the Tories pass a humble address motion, Morgan is fucked.

Ding, ding, ding! In the teal corner, it's Tim Montgomerie, longtime Tory sage turned Reform defector. And, in the, er, other teal corner, it's, um, Matt Goodwin, onetime academic turned Reform parliamentary candidate. Goodwin's latest book Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity has come under fire online over the veracity of its claims and alleged use of ChatGPT. So Montgomerie decided that now was the perfect time to stick the boot in, writing on X that: The whole controversy over @GoodwinMJ 's book reminds me of the early warning sign that Rachel Reeves' dodgy footnotes provided about her. @reformparty_uk should now fully investigate Mr Goodwin's book and if there are repeated examples of factual error he should be removed from the candidates list.

Was that the worst PMQs of the year? Amid Kemi Badenoch's constant questioning about Peter Mandelson, Keir Starmer turned into the Incredible Human Deflector, constantly grabbing at anything approaching even a half-response. Greenland, Iran and even, er, Nick Timothy's tweets – all were seized by a flailing Prime Minister for whom even ChatGPT would struggle to come up with a decent line. So it was left to Andrew Snowden, the Bolton bruiser, to deliver the highlight of this week's session. The Tory MP hammered Starmer, bemoaning how 'Every week, the Prime Minister comes here and reads out this pre-scripted nonsense that bears no resemblance to the questions he's answered.

In opposition, Keir Starmer was at pains to emphasise how different he would be to those wicked old corrupt Tories. But in government, it has proved quite another matter, what with Lord Alli's clothes, Louise Haigh's phones and Angela Rayner's missing £40,000 stamp duty. Now, Mr S brings news of another example where this government has proved to be less than whiter-than-white... A fortnight ago, Tory MP Greg Stafford rose in the House to ask Darren Jones about the appointment of Ellen Atkinson as the new head of the Cabinet Office's Propriety and Ethics (PET) team – a position once held by Sue Gray. Jones was asked if this 'was appointed without an external recruitment process or written ministerial sign off', to which he replied 'no and no'.

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.