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
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Well that was jolly fun. Kemi Badenoch gave Keir Starmer an almighty pasting at PMQs, predictably lacerating him over the anonymous briefings about Wes Streeting. But – in fairness to Labour’s forces of darkness – the Health Secretary has not exactly been shy about his future intentions. As he told the Guardian in June 2023,
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It is a funny old time for the Tories right now. The government has rather sportingly decided to commit seppuku a fortnight before the Budget. So how are they to get any headlines? Mr S has done some digging and it turns out that the brains of Matthew Parker Street have been hard at work
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Pity the Liberal Democrats. You win 72 seats at an election – and all anyone wants to talk about is Nigel Farage. You then schedule a big morning pre-Budget press conference – and the government decides to tear itself apart. Like most of HM Lobby, Steerpike was unable to make it to this morning’s event
From our UK edition
It’s nice, isn’t it. The quiet. Just sixteen months after their landslide triumph, the Labour party is now in full-on meltdown. The decision by Downing Street sources last night to launch a pre-emptive missile at Wes Streeting appears to have backfired spectacularly, as the popular Health Secretary handled today’s morning media round with aplomb. Gee,
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So. Farewell then Tim Davie. The BBC Director General undertook the first leg of his long goodbye tour today, speaking to some of his 23,000 staff in true Corporation style: on a call with the Director of Internal Communications. Talk about the personal touch. Over 35-minutes, Davie answered questions from the Corporation’s (many) hacks about
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Timing is not always the Bank of England’s strong suit. Britain’s central bank has increasingly faced accusations of being found wanting in recent years. Under Governor Andrew Bailey, the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street has managed to infuriate the crypto bros, failed to spot the Liability-Driven Investments crisis and consistently botched inflation calls too. Both
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There are just two weeks to go until Rachel Reeves’ second Budget. Twelve months after telling the CBI that she was ‘not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes’, she is now planning to do, er, exactly that. All sorts of various measures are being tipped and touted in the newspapers. But the most
From our UK edition
There are just sixteen days to go until the Budget – and the pitch is being well and truly rolled. Having conducted her ‘I can’t talk about that’ press conference last week, the Chancellor has now done an interview with 5Live to drop a few more hints about the truly Awful Statement she is planning
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You know you’re not a proper political party, until you’ve had the obligatory youth wing scandal. Pubescent politicos have long been a feature of Westminster life. In the Starmer army they have NOLS – National Labour Students, where generations of power-crazed identikit drones have been churned out, each bearing the same dead eyes and rictus
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Oh dear. It seems that the BBC is once again setting the news agenda – via tales of its own incompetence. The Corporation has spent days battling accusations that it aired a doctored clip of a speech by President Trump in a Panorama documentary back in January 2021. The White House Press Secretary has called
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Happy Remembrance Sunday one and all. With the Green party soaring in the polls, who better to have on the weekly TV circuit than Zack Polanski? Sporting both white and red poppies – work that one out – the onetime hypnotherapist was grilled by Sky’s Trevor Phillips on the party’s plans for defence. Predictably, Polanski
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The battle on the right is well underway, with competition between Reform and the Tories for attention, ideas and personnel. One front where the Conservatives have had more success to date is on donations, with Kemi Badenoch’s party comfortably outstripping Nigel Farage’s forces in the first quarter of this year. But with Reform topping the
From our UK edition
After a decent conference speech, there was some hope among the Tories that Kemi Badenoch had finally turned the corner. Her PMQs performances are much more assured and there have been some notable Labour scalps secured by the party’s fabled ‘dark arts’ team. But this improvement appears not to have been recognised by the electorate,
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They say that pride comes before a fall – and so it proved today at PMQs. In the wake of the Epping sex offender debacle, James Cartlidge, the Shadow Defence Secretary, opted to lead on the accidental release of prisoners. After forcing David Lammy at the beginning of the session to apologise (again) to the
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Oh dear. It seems that the hapless hero of Haringey has done it again. David Lammy is filling in for Keir Starmer today as our under-fire premier jets off to Brazil for COP30. So it is up to his deputy to fill in at today’s PMQs session. Lammy stepped up to the despatch box with
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The human race, controlled by a soulless, robotic overlord. It is the stuff of countless sci-fi dystopias – but here in Britain, it is just another day of living under Keir Starmer’s government. Our charisma-free premier is not exactly known for his love of humanity: just look at his pre-election Guardian interview in which he
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To Ayrshire, where a former Tory councillor who quit the party in July has defected to Reform UK. North Ayrshire councillor Todd Ferguson has made the leap to Nigel Farage’s party, following in the footsteps of multiple independent and former Conservative councillors across Scotland. The blow is even more painful for Scottish Tory party leader
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Last year, Scotland’s former first minister Alex Salmond had a heart attack during a trip to North Macedonia and passed away. Salmond brought his country to the brink of independence in 2014 and helped establish the Scottish National party as a mainstream group north of the border – but his career was also tainted by
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The royal family hasn’t been able to stay away from the spotlight lately, as scrutiny over Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s links to US paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have dominated the news. Last week, Andrew was formally stripped of his titles by King Charles and the royal will vacate his Royal Lodge mansion after it emerged he had
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On Sunday, it is one year since Kemi Badenoch was elected Tory leader. The anniversary is expected to pass with little in the way of fanfare – though her supporters were cheered by a strong performance at PMQs on Wednesday. One bright spot of her reign has been a healthy return on the donations’ front.
