Estate agent Kevin Hollinrake trying to make an iffy comparison between a Reform pin badge and one worn by Nazis didn’t go down well with elements of the Conservative chair’s party. Nigel Farage is busily denying claims from a Jewish former pupil at their posh alma mater, Dulwich College, that he taunted “Hitler was right”, “gas them” and simulated the sound of concentration camp gas showers, yet the Hollinrake assault backfired. Kemi Badenoch was forced to insist the attack was “made in jest” and may have reason to be worried. Three Tory former MPs on defection watch voiced disapproval. Miriam Cates branded it “politically illiterate”, Jonathan Gullis “shameful!” and Tom Hunt “unbelievable”. Suella Braverman, once linked to Reform, called it “wrong, irresponsible and highly counter-productive” and said her party chair “does not speak for me”. Is clumsy Kevin now home alone?
Keir Starmer may have no favourite book, film or poem and doesn’t dream, but he does have a favourite holiday. In a friendly interview with the budget airline EasyJet, the PM revealed his favourite getaway was a trip to the Greek island of Santorini. “A beautiful place and a massive moment in both our lives” – it’s where he got engaged to wife Vic – he cooed. “Then, for the honeymoon, we went to a beautiful little village just up in the hills overlooking the Amalfi coast.” Starmer showed a bit of political leg too, telling the airline: “It’s really important that everyone can access brilliant experiences in Europe. Making it accessible, affordable, easy for people to travel, allows them to experience a lot more places, try cuisines, enjoy festivities, traditions, things that they might not otherwise be able to do.” Perhaps he’s also pining for freedom of movement.
Resurrection man Douglas Alexander burped his way through a recent cabinet meeting, we hear. The Scottish Secretary, back at the top table after returning to parliament in 2024, may be struggling to swallow Anas Sarwar’s growing frustration that the government in London is strangling Labour’s prospects of ousting the SNP in Edinburgh next May.
Eco-socialist Zack Polanski is a warrior for the left, so many were surprised when the Green Party’s two peers entered the House of Lords – a chamber he criticises as serving the wealthy – and voted against Labour’s Employment Rights Bill by supporting an amendment that weakens efforts to end exploitative contracts and improve job security. Baronesses Jenny Jones of Moulsecoomb and Natalie Bennett of Manor Castle had stayed out of the parliamentary ping-pong before siding with hereditaries, bosses and ranks of Tories and Lib Dems. Comrades flirting with the party may care to check its commitment to the cause. Deeds not words, the suffragettes would cry.
Ahead of Rachel Reeves’s Budget, one Labour MP noticed a game of “footsie” being played in the Commons. Sorry to disappoint readers looking for scandal: he was using a metaphor. “Watch very carefully and what you see is Labour and the Lib Dems being very polite to each other – there’s a lot of, ‘I agree with my honourable friend.’” What’s behind the flirting? “I think we’re seeing the groundwork for a Labour-Lib Dem coalition or arrangement to stop Reform getting into government next time.” Ooh stop it, you tease.
There was a touching moment at the annual Aneurin Bevan memorial lecture. The health minister Stephen Kinnock was just getting into his stride when there was a late arrival at the door, announced in an unmistakable baritone voice. “I’ve been in the bloody Macmillan room!” declared peer père Neil who had not received news of the late change of venue to a committee room upstairs. Still, the minister recovered his poise. And when he said later in his speech, regarding the NHS, that “if we cherish something we have to be prepared to change it”, proud daddy Lord Kinnock of Islwyn nodded approvingly.
Geordie Tory frontbencher and ex-MEP Martin Callanan has been going rogue in House of Lords debates on the Diego Garcia Bill, defying the express wishes of his upper chamber leader Nicky True. So far perhaps so obvious for someone with a reputation for being a bit out there, yet what most bemused fellow peers was Callanan’s reference to Chagos as an “Archie Pelago”. While that may sound like a Scottish-Argentinian footballer, it’s actually a Brooklyn music trio whose tunes include “Interloper” and “Clammy Customer”. “Turn a Deaf Ear”, sang Tyneside folk rock band Lindisfarne in Callanan’s youth.
MPs faces many hazards and obstacles in their line of work, but an unexpected one is their actual workplace. The constant maintenance issues with the 155-year-old Palace of Westminster are becoming a bugbear for 2024-intake MPs. (Their more experienced colleagues have presumably learned to live with them.) Top of the grievance list are broken escalators and parliament’s chronic mice problem, not to mention the constant plumbing outages. On that subject, renovation work (and the closure of the urinals) means Portcullis House now has its first gender neutral toilet. Nobody tell Kemi.
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This article appears in the 26 Nov 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Last Stand