Andrew adonis

Is partygate a Remainer plot?

The mood in Westminster this morning is febrile as Tory MPs plot to consider their leader’s future. Facing questions over partygate, plunging polls and mutinous ministers, can anything save Boris Johnson? Well, yes, but perhaps salvation comes in an unlikely form. For in another typically brilliant intervention, Lord Adonis — Britain’s most ironically titled peer — has reminded Boris-doubters what they stand to lose if they eject him by suggesting ‘If Boris goes, Brexit goes’ too. The ardent Remainiac appears to have said the quiet part out loud in articulating the feelings of many Johnsonite critics. Across the Labour party, the wider liberal establishment and indeed in the civil service itself, many are silently hoping that partygate could be the moment they finally get rid

The Steerpike Awards of 2021

Well 2021 is at an end and what a hell of a year it’s been. There were laughs, tears, shock, disgust and despair – and that was just the reaction to footage of Matt Hancock’s video nasty. The past twelve months have seen various ups and downs in Britain and abroad, ranging from the highlights of the vaccine rollout and England’s Euro run to low points like the Capitol coup, the Afghanistan debacle and various pandemic pitfalls. And Mr S has been there throughout it all to chart the gossip, drama, high politics and low shenanigans. Tony Benn once sniffed that it was ‘issues, not personalities’ that mattered; Steerpike holds that the inverse is true when

Coming soon: Andrew Adonis’s Blair best-seller

It’s always difficult to know what to get a politics-mad relative at Christmas. Another Private Eye annual perhaps? Tickets to see Matt Forde’s stand-up tour? A Blu Ray box set of The Thick Of It? Or yet another ‘hilarious’ satirically themed book like ‘Five on Brexit Island‘ or ‘The Illustrated Tweets of Donald Trump.‘  Fortunately for those long-suffering politicos anticipating several cheeseboards and a ‘witty’ festive mug, help will be at hand for next year due to the imminent arrival of what will surely be the Christmas bestseller of 2022. For word reaches Mr S that Lord Adonis, Britain’s most ironically-titled peer, is turning his quill to a subject very close to his

Adonis rapped by Lords Standards Commissioner

Oh dear. It appears the Rejoiner movement has gone a bit People’s Front of Judea. Andrew Adonis, the rampant Remainiac, has today been rapped by the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards over an undeclared directorship he failed to disclose on his Register of Interests. But who was the sharp-eyed snitch who tipped off the watchdog? Surely such shenanigans must have been the instigation of a dastardly Brexiteer, presumably funded with dark Russian money on the orders of Putin himself. Au contraire. Step forward whistleblower Dirk Hazell, Leader of the UK European People’s Party and a fellow ardent Europhile. Hazell and Adonis have become embroiled in the interminable internecine conflicts which have bedevilled the efforts

Watch: Andrew Adonis eviscerated in the Lords

In his bid to reverse Brexit, Lord Adonis has demonstrated few qualms in using any weapon at his disposal. For years now Britain’s most ironically-titled peer has been keeping up a one man Twitter war, stalking the jungles of social media like some Japanese warrior fighting a campaign that ended 30 years ago. Now though, it appears his latest cynical attack on a member of the government has backfired in spectacular style. Adonis, who has previously demonstrated little interest in green issues, suddenly found himself most exercised at the beginning of the week when he saw the government embroiled in difficulties over its Environment Bill. A series of tweets were fired off aimed at

Watch: Adonis grilled on UK vaccine scheme

As President of the European Movement during the current Brussels vaccine crisis, Andrew Adonis currently has his work cut out. With polls currently showing that Brits now have a more positive attitude towards the UK’s future outside the EU than negative by a margin of two to one, any bid to get the UK to rejoin the EU will suffer for as long as the trade bloc’s jab woes continue. Still, Adonis could make it easier for himself and get round to deleting some of his old tweets on the UK’s own vaccine efforts. Appearing last night on Spectator TV the peer was asked by Andrew Neil why he’d tweeted in November that the

New poll gives Brexit a shot in the arm

On New Years’ Eve former Labour minister Andrew Adonis grandly declared on Twitter: ‘The campaign for Britain to rejoin Europe starts at midnight.’ Since then it’s not exactly been going swimmingly. The last nine weeks have seen a stark contrast between vaccine procurement and rollout in Brussels and in Britain, replete with swipes at the Oxford jab, sneers at the UK’s vaccine nationalism and even the spectre an Irish hard border in January. Adonis will join other Remainer panjandrums like Michael Heseltine and Caroline Lucas this weekend to discuss precisely these issues at the European Movement conference, whose programme incidentally makes no mention of the word ‘vaccine.’ Mr S thought it

Jean Vanier’s sad fall from grace

The fall from grace of Jean Vanier is truly a sad story. The founder of the L’Arche communities did extraordinary work, practical, intellectual and spiritual, to advance the idea that those suffering mental handicap had much to teach the rest of us. His was a radical idea about what community can be. Now, however, L’Arche has accepted a report that Vanier, who died last year, had sexual contact with six women from the 1970s onwards. There is no suggestion of any exploitation of the handicapped. Unlike so many claims in abuse cases, these ones seem to have been carefully investigated. The women (all adults) were his devoted followers. Vanier appears