Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from London and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk.

Reform voters are ‘our people’, insists Badenoch

18 September 2024 9:18 pm

How to solve a problem like Reform? The Tories have been scratching their heads on the matter since their rather…

David Lammy: Climate change a more ‘fundamental’ threat than terrorism

18 September 2024 3:34 am

Back to the Foreign Secretary, who seems unable to keep himself out of the headlines these days. It transpires that…

Starmer’s Frockgate saga rumbles on

17 September 2024 10:46 pm

Back to Westminster, where the Prime Minister is facing some rather uncomfortable questions about freebies received from top Labour donor…

Diane Abbott: Keir Starmer treated me like a ‘non-person’

17 September 2024 6:56 pm

All is not well in the Labour party. Diane Abbott has launched an attack on the Prime Minister over his…

Starmer faces backlash over Meloni meeting

17 September 2024 3:14 am

There’s trouble in Sir Keir’s Labour paradise, it seems, after the Prime Minister jetted off to Italy for a migration-focused…

Lib Dem conference plunged into gender row storm

17 September 2024 12:52 am

The Liberal Democrat party conference: surely a bastion of good old-fashioned free speech? Sadly not, it seems, given the storm…

Huw Edwards avoids jail time over child abuse images

16 September 2024 11:07 pm

To Westminster magistrates’ court where Huw Edwards has this afternoon been handed a suspended jail sentence of six months imprisonment,…

Watch: Yvette Cooper’s awkward interview on Lady Starmer’s wardrobe

16 September 2024 9:13 pm

Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t been in office three months yet and already the Labour government is mired in cronyism controversies.…

Lib Dems take a swipe at JD Vance

16 September 2024 12:28 am

Conference season has begun in earnest and the Lib Dems are having a whale of a time in Brighton. After…

David Lammy’s lamentable media round

15 September 2024 11:08 pm

If there’s something bad and you’re in a jam, who you gonna call? David Lammy! That’s right, the flailing Foreign…

Starmer facing ethics probe over undeclared gifts

15 September 2024 7:16 am

Oh dear. It seems that the ‘passes for glasses’ row isn’t going away any time soon. A month after it…

Women’s committee chair struggles to define a woman

14 September 2024 3:12 am

To the Women and Equalities Committee, to which Labour’s Sarah Owen has been elected chair. The Labour MP for Luton…

Watch: Andy Haldane attacks Labour’s blackhole narrative

14 September 2024 2:19 am

Sir Keir’s Labour government hasn’t been in power for long but already his administration is causing quite the stir. Pub…

Could Starmer face a smoking ban rebellion?

13 September 2024 11:19 pm

Oh dear. It appears that Sir Keir Starmer’s own MPs are rather unhappy about the Prime Minister’s proposed smoking ban…

Ed Miliband’s Grangemouth hypocrisy

13 September 2024 3:49 am

To Scotland, where the closure of the country’s only oil refinery has been announced today. The site will shut next…

Policing minister’s purse stolen at conference about theft

13 September 2024 2:38 am

Sir Keir’s Labour government may be determined to deprive daily life of all fun, but there’s still a little humour…

Mick Lynch blasted for ‘bonkers’ pro-Palestine comments

12 September 2024 9:18 pm

To the Trades Union Congress conference, where Mick Lynch is once again at the centre of political controversy. The RMT…

Watch: Farage attacks ‘two tier’ Keir at PMQs

11 September 2024 11:00 pm

With two months to go until his successor takes over, Rishi Sunak only has a handful of PMQs sessions left.…

Watch: Scholz loses his temper as Germany’s migration debate rages

11 September 2024 10:13 pm

Ding ding! It’s not just in Westminster that the debate over illegal migration has got politicians tearing chunks out of…

Labour MP: Afros should be a ‘protected characteristic’

11 September 2024 8:58 pm

Prisoners are out, the unions are striking and pensioners are having their winter fuel payments pulled. With Starmer’s Britain now…

Donald Trump’s Taylor Swift nightmare

11 September 2024 7:06 pm

Look What You Made Me Do. It seems that last night’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris convinced one…

Watch: the key moments in the Trump-Harris debate

11 September 2024 5:46 pm

On Tuesday night the former President Donald Trump and the current Vice President Kamala Harris faced off in Philadelphia for…

Keir Starmer’s prisoner endorsement

10 September 2024 10:26 pm

Happy prisoner release day, one and all! Today’s move to let out the lags is all part of the Ministry…

Watch: Andrew Neil and Piers Morgan ask – has Trump lost his mojo?

10 September 2024 3:57 am

It’s less than 60 days to go until polling day in America and the race could not be closer. Donald…

MPs swap booze for soft drinks

10 September 2024 12:24 am

Whither the future of parliament’s pubs? It was less than three months ago that Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Sue…