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
To Aberdeenshire in Scotland, where a fourth Scottish Tory councillor has defected to Reform UK. It transpires that Dominic Lonchay – represents the East Garioch ward on the council – has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s real army in another blow to the Scottish Tories. Lonchay’s defection makes him the 13th councillor to join Reform
To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a
Just what is it with Oval Office encounters? Three months after his spat with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump is at it again. The US President ambushed a visiting Cyril Ramaphosa today, playing footage that appeared to show white South Africans being persecuted. Trump ordered aides to dim the lights and play a video showcasing what he
Rupert Lowe may have left Nigel Farage’s Reform party, but he’s certainly keeping himself busy. Now the MP has tabled an early day motion calling for a review of sentencing practices to ensure non-violent social media offenders don’t get locked up – after the wife of a Tory councillor, Lucy Connolly, was imprisoned for posting
To Prime Minister’s Questions, where Sir Keir Starmer has announced that the Labour lot will in fact reverse parts of the controversial winter fuel payment – just weeks after the reds suffered defeat across the country over the policy in the May elections. Addressing the Chamber, Starmer remarked that ‘we want to ensure that as
Back to the case of the fires linked to Sir Keir Starmer. Now a third man has been charged over arson attacks on properties belonging to the Prime Minister. A 34-year-old Ukrainian national, Petro Pochynok, has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. It comes after two other men were
To the Commons, where just after midday Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivered a statement on his brand new UK-EU deal. Sir Keir told MPs that the new agreement would ‘strengthen our borders’ and ‘release us from the tired arguments of the past’ on Brexit. But as opposition politicians heckled – ‘tell that to the fishermen!’
In a blast from the past, the UK’s onetime deputy prime minister Nick Clegg popped up again in London today to muse, 15 years on, about his party’s coalition with the Conservatives. But despite this being the purpose of his talk, it didn’t take the arch-Remainer long to get to the subject of the European
Last week, fires at two properties and a vehicle linked to Sir Keir Starmer were being probed by police – and now a second man has been charged in connection with the series of arson attacks on properties owned by the Prime Minister. It transpires that 26-year-old Stanislav Carpiuc, a Romanian national, has been charged
With more than 650 councillors and a new MP to boot, Nigel Farage’s teal army is clearly on the up. But while Reform UK is always happy to call out others’ volte faces – including Starmer’s Brexit ‘betrayal’ – Farage’s party now appears to be U-turning on one of its own manifesto promises: voting reform. Reform’s ‘Contract with You’, published last July,
Two and a half years have passed since Liz Truss entered – and swiftly exited – Downing Street. The former prime minister has not laid low since then, however, keeping busy by setting up the ‘PopCons’, releasing her memoir and appearing at CPAC alongside Steve Bannon. Yet while the ex-PM will be remembered by the history books for her short but eventful
Ding ding ding! Sir Keir Starmer may have lauded it a ‘landmark’ deal but his agreement with the EU has gone done like a bucket of cold sick with the UK’s most senior Brexiteers. Former prime minister Boris Johnson is the latest to take to Twitter to lambast the move – and the gloves are
While members of Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party have long struggled with the concept of biological sex, his voter base appears more confident on the subject. YouGov polling reveals that half of those who backed Starmer’s army in last year’s July election agree with the Supreme Court ruling that saw judges unanimously agree that ‘sex’
Today’s the day of Sir Keir Starmer’s big UK-EU summit and just hours ago it was confirmed that the UK had indeed struck a broad-ranging deal covering defence, immigration, food trade and fisheries with the European Union. The Prime Minister will hold a Lancaster House presser at 12.30 p.m. today to share the details –
Good riddance, Gary Lineker. The ex-England striker has now quit the Beeb in a huff, having presented his final Match of the Day show on Sunday. It comes after Lineker shared a social-media post featuring an ‘anti-Semitic’ rat emoji and declared that Israel’s response to the October 7 terrorist attacks was ‘beyond depraved’. Lineker – the
From Runcorn to Durham, Labour is losing their core vote everywhere. Now, even the luvvies are turning on them. It was less than a year ago that Elton John headlined a celebrity rally, held in the final week of the general election campaign. ‘Let’s get behind Labour to win on July 4!’ the singer declared.
Counterterrorism forces have arrested a second man in connection with arson attacks on two homes and a vehicle associated with Keir Starmer. The Metropolitan Police arrested a 26-year-old man – whose nationality remains unknown – at Luton airport on Saturday afternoon on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. In a
It is the perennial question of British politics: who is next in the ministerial sack race? For a while, it seemed, the answer was Bridget Phillipson – the minister waging a one-woman-war on the Tories’ school reforms. But today, the Times suggests that the Education Secretary has been told her job is safe, citing private
They say that the children are our future. So what better way for a party to demonstrate its potential than by winning support among the nation’s yoof? Britain’s universities are often depicted as hotbeds of leftism, incubators for the kind of avocado-eating, chai latte-drinking wokerati that sends Jonathan Gullis into a tizzy. But now Mr S
‘You are focusing on Pakistani grooming gangs, because, probably, you’re racist.’ That’s what Emily Maitlis told ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe when he had the misfortune of appearing on the News Agents podcast yesterday. But is she right? In fact, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than
