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.

Mick Lynch mocks Labour’s outfit freebies

23 September 2024 2:03 am

Poor Keir Starmer. One of the first things he did after becoming prime minister was to stuff the unions’ mouths…

Richard Burgon fails to draw a crowd at Labour conference

22 September 2024 10:24 pm

Oh for the days of ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’. It only seems like yesterday that the likes of John McDonnell and…

Starmer approval rating hits record low

22 September 2024 6:51 pm

Sir Keir Starmer is having a tough time of it, what with his ongoing freebie fiasco, the cronyism row and…

Now Rayner’s register of interests is under scrutiny

22 September 2024 6:38 am

This weekend Labour hosts its party conference in power for the first time in 15 years. The great and the…

Abbott: Starmer is in the ‘pocket of millionaires’

21 September 2024 9:02 pm

As if Sir Keir Starmer didn’t have enough on his plate what with his freebie scandal, Sue Gray inquiry and…

Farage plots his next US trip

21 September 2024 4:30 am

It’s his sworn ambition to become Prime Minister of the UK by 2029. But is Nigel Farage perhaps spending a…

PM must keep Tory switchers on side, warns report

21 September 2024 3:27 am

Reform’s party conference is in full swing in Birmingham, as the leadership continue to hammer home their pivotal role in…

Lee Anderson takes a pop at Sadiq Khan – again

21 September 2024 2:31 am

Ding ding ding! The gloves are coming off today in Birmingham, where Reform UK is hosting its day-long party conference.…

MPs slam Starmer over freebie fiasco

21 September 2024 1:51 am

Sir Keir’s frockgate scandal is only gathering pace, it appears, after a rather calamitous week for the Prime Minister. Donations…

Watch: Starmer’s top team ‘over-controlling’, says Jess Phillips

20 September 2024 9:26 pm

Sir Keir Starmer will be hoping his first Labour conference as Prime Minister this weekend goes better than the last…

‘Ignorant’ Lammy urged to retract Azerbaijan remarks

20 September 2024 3:35 am

It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy. Now the Foreign Secretary has come under fire after he hailed Azerbaijan…

Abbott: I’ve never had a nice chat with Starmer

20 September 2024 3:09 am

Diane Abbott is on the warpath, and her target is Sir Keir Starmer. Earlier this week, the Labour MP hit…

Watch: James O’Brien attacks Nigel Farage in scathing rant

20 September 2024 1:45 am

Good heavens. Does no one teach journalistic etiquette these days? This afternoon James O’Brien caused a stir on social media…

Revealed: Starmer’s top five freebies

19 September 2024 11:56 pm

The Prime Minister has been generating scores of headlines lately – for all the wrong reasons. It has transpired this…

End Tory leadership race early, says Tugendhat

19 September 2024 9:07 pm

While Labour’s dirty laundry over ‘frockgate‘ is being aired in public, it would be easy to forget there are still…

Labour minister: Freebies are ‘part of the job’

19 September 2024 7:36 pm

Dear oh dear. Things are only getting worse for Sir Keir, as it now transpires that the Prime Minister accepted…

Sue Gray paid more than the Prime Minister

18 September 2024 11:48 pm

To Westminster, where more trouble is afoot. It now transpires the Prime Minister is paid less than, er, his own…

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.…