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
From our UK edition
Well, well, well. Angela Rayner may have left the government some weeks ago but the mark she made in one of the highest offices in the country has not been forgotten. A deputy leadership race is rumbling on in the background with both Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell trying to figure out how they can
From our UK edition
The Labour party conference has entered one of its final days and as the time ticks on, politicians are finding it a little harder to keep their frustrations to themselves. The mood in Liverpool has felt rather glum as poll after poll suggests that the party of government is becoming even more unpopular despite winning
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To Labour conference, where a number of conversations are being dominated by another political party: Reform UK. New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has had her first few weeks in the job dominated by the small boats crisis and concerns about immigration – announcing yesterday that she will toughen up Labour’s migration policy. But that wasn’t
From our UK edition
At the last Labour conference before the 2026 Holyrood election, Scottish Labour is enjoying the limelight. With less than eight months to go until the Scottish parliament election, the party is trying to prove that – despite its rather dire polling – it can win. But in an increasingly fractured political world, Labour may have
From our UK edition
Well, well, well. The atmosphere is more than a little tense as Labour conference kicks off in Liverpool. In recent weeks, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has suffered not just from poor poll results – with a recent MRP suggesting his party could fall to less than 100 seats at the next general election – but
From our UK edition
A glorious exchange on GB News this morning. Steve Reed, the new Housing Secretary, has been making a big song and dance this conference about his plans to ‘build baby build.’ Red caps bearing the slogan are being dispersed to delegates who are proudly displaying them around Liverpool. There is just one problem: the government
From our UK edition
To Liverpool, where politicians and delegates are gathering for Labour’s annual party conference. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has just finished his speech on the main stage, where he lead out his vision for his party with just eight months to go until next year’s Holyrood elections. But it was a non-Labour politician that dominated
From our UK edition
Oh dear. It seems that Keir Starmer’s great big conference reset is beginning well. A blizzard of new polls have been published – all of which make for devastating reading for our embattled PM. A major new Sunday Times MRP survey shows that Reform is on course to win 373 seats at the next election,
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It would be putting it mildly to say Sir Keir Starmer’s digital ID card plans have gone down like a lead balloon. The Prime Minister’s proposals to make ID cards compulsory for every British adult have raised concerns about freedom, data security and effectiveness – as it isn’t clear the policy would actually work to
From our UK edition
Just days before Labour politicians head to Liverpool for the party’s annual conference, a story about Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff has been dominating headlines. It emerged that the Labour Together founder’s lawyer advised Morgan McSweenet that he should mark £700,000 of undisclosed donations as an ‘admin error’, according to a leaked document from
From our UK edition
To Woolwich Crown Court, where the case against Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh has been thrown out. The Irish rapper, who performs under the name Mo Chara, appeared on a single terror charge after being accused of pulling out a Hezbollah flag at a 2024 gig in Kentish Town’s O2 Forum. But the case
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Dear oh dear. Labour conference is just days away but as the party prepares to come together it would appear its politicians are coming apart. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham gave a rather revealing interview this week in which he called for ‘wholesale change’ to prevent an ‘existential’ crisis, set out his own brand of
From our UK edition
Reform continues to top the polls as Brits remain concerned about migration to the UK. At the start of the week, Nigel Farage held yet another London press conference in which he announced his plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, make foreign nationals ineligible to claim benefits and introduce an English standards test –
From our UK edition
New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is settling into the job: laying out her firm no-nonsense approach to migration and ruffling feathers just days into the job after she suggested that some people were abusing the justice system in order to avoid deportation from Britain. Now she has a new challenge on her hands: it transpires
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Ding ding ding! US President Donald Trump hit out at London mayor Sadiq Khan at the UN general assembly yesterday and now the Labour man is hitting back. The mayor has accused Trump of showing he is ‘racist, sexist, misogynist and Islamophobic’ after the President claimed Khan was trying to put London under sharia law.
From our UK edition
To Reform UK, which is continuing to lead Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party in the polls. Nigel Farage has led a successful summer campaign on crime rates, small boats and legal migration. But as conference season begins, the Reform leader has come under scrutiny for one of his more bizarre campaign messages – namely that
From our UK edition
Well, well, well. The spotlight is back on Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney – and not in a good way. It transpires that the Labour Together founder’s lawyer advised him that he should mark £700,000 of undisclosed donations as an ‘admin error’, according to a leaked document from 2021 published by the
From our UK edition
Donald Trump’s trip to the UK has finished and it appears his love-in with London has ended too. In a speech at the UN headquarters in New York, the US President took a pop at London mayor Sadiq Khan – calling him a ‘terrible, terrible mayor’ – before claiming that the Labour politician wants to
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After weeks of suspense, the big day has finally arrived. The Scottish government has arranged a meeting in Inverness with quango and industry bosses to discuss what is apparently one of the most pressing issues facing Scotland. Not the future of the oil and gas industry, not the failures in the country’s rural health service
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Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and former wife of Prince Andrew, has come under scrutiny this week after an email that saw her praising paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed. The Duchess’s spokesperson said that Ferguson had received a ‘chilling’ phone call from the criminal after she gave an interview in 2011 confessing to have