Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories

Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves’s mortgage reforms reek of desperation

Just how desperate is Rachel Reeves to achieve her elusive economic growth? Desperate enough, it seems, to risk a rush of repossessions in a future housing crisis. One of the big announcements in her Mansion House speech this evening, it has been reported, will be a new, permanent mortgage guarantee scheme, plus changes to mortgage

James Heale

The MoD Afghan leak is a national embarrassment

Some days the British state really does embarrass itself. It can now be revealed that a Ministry of Defence data leak has cost the UK some £7billion and put thousands of Afghans at risk of death. A dataset containing the details of nearly 19,000 people who applied to move to the UK following the Taliban

James Heale

James Cleverly’s case against the revolutionary right

There is a revolutionary air on the right at present. Whether it is Kemi Badenoch’s call to ‘rewire the state’ or Nigel Farage’s attacks on ‘broken Britain’, few have much good to say about our current political set-up. Step forward James Cleverly to offer balm to all that inflammation. At a speech this morning at

Coffee House Shots Live: Are the Tories toast?

Watch Spectator editor Michael Gove, political editor Tim Shipman and assistant editor Isabel Hardman as they discuss where the Tories go from here, in a livestream exclusively for Spectator subscribers. The strange death of Tory England has been predicted before. But never has the ‘natural party of government’ faced a greater challenge to its survival. The Conservatives are facing attacks on all fronts from

James Heale

Starmer’s veteran woes are just beginning

As hundreds of veterans marching past the Cenotaph brought Whitehall to a halt yesterday afternoon, inside parliament a debate was held on the government’s plan to repeal the Northern Ireland Legacy and Reconciliation Act. Passed by Boris Johnson, this aimed to prevent veterans from being prosecuted for all but the most serious crimes committed during

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Freddy Gray

Why does Trump like Starmer so much?

12 min listen

It can now be revealed that a Ministry of Defence data leak has cost the UK some £7 billion and put thousands of Afghans at risk of death. A dataset containing the details of nearly 19,000 people who applied to move to the UK following the Taliban takeover was released in error by a British

Freddy Gray

Is Texas eating Hollywood?

20 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by editor-at-large of The Spectator World, Ben Domenech. They discuss why Hollywood productions are being drawn away from California to states like Texas, and what this could mean for the future of filmmaking in America. Ben writes about this in the new edition of Spectator World, and you can subscribe to

Rachel Reeves’s ‘Big Bang’ is doomed

We probably won’t see the return of shoulder pads, big hair, or yuppies swilling champagne in the bars around Liverpool Street. Even so, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will promise a return to the go-go spirit of the 1980s in her Mansion House speech this evening, with a pledge of ‘Big Bang’ style deregulation to boost

Steerpike

Watchdog: most aid now spent on migrant hotels

Immigration is never off the news agenda these days, as Brits remain concerned about the influx of people to the country while the cost of living crisis and housing pressures only seem to worsen. Last week Sir Keir Starmer sealed a ‘one in, one out’ migrant returns deal with France’s President Emmanuel Macron which some

Theo Hobson

What liberalism’s critics get wrong

Perhaps we are living in the early sixteenth century. Think of the ideology of the West as a sort of religion. It needs a reformation, a purging, a back to basics movement. In a sense this is well underway: for many years now, countless thinkers have attacked the flaws and complacency of the dominant Western

The BBC Gaza documentary report is a cover-up

The BBC’s long-awaited editorial review of its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was published today. It reads not like a rigorous investigation into serious journalistic failures, but like a desperate institutional whitewash. The report bends over backwards to defend the indefensible, trying to sanitise a catastrophic editorial misjudgment as little more than ‘a significant oversight

Steerpike

Layla Moran’s nimbyism backfires

Oh dear. It seems that Layla Moran – the oracle of Oxfordshire – has been left with egg on her face once again. Since her election in 2017, the pansexual pioneer has distinguished herself in two ways. First, her consistent embrace of every passing progressive cause. And second, her determined commitment to oppose any new

Trump is turning ‘Biden’s war’ into his own

It’s official: President Trump is tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody shenanigans. While he won’t admit it, it’s likely Trump feels strung along and publicly humiliated. Every time he ends a conversation with Putin that he’s relatively pleased with, he learns a few hours later that another batch of Russian drones and missiles have

Are you a ‘working person’?

10 min listen

Tomorrow Rachel Reeves will deliver her big speech in the City. The annual Mansion House address is a chance for the Chancellor to set out her vision for the British economy. But amid a gloomy set of economic indicators (including two consecutive monthly GDP contractions) it is difficult to see what good news she can

King Charles and Harry won’t be reconciling any time soon

The news that appeared in the Sunday newspapers was intriguing, to say the least. A meeting has taken place at (appropriately enough) the Royal Over-Seas League club between Meredith Maines, the latest in Prince Harry’s apparently endless line of California-based press officers, Liam Maguire, who has that similarly thankless task in this country, and Tobyn

Steerpike

Gaza documentary report finds BBC misled viewers

Back to the BBC, which is better at making the news than breaking it these days. This afternoon a report has found that the Beeb’s Gaza documentary that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official breached editorial guidelines and misled audiences. The review adds that viewers ‘should have been informed’ about the identity

Will the new anti-Semitism report change anything?

For any Jew – or anyone who is alive to Jew hate – a report from the commission on anti-Semitism to be published tomorrow will make for uneventful reading. That is no slur on the report or its authors. The Board of Deputies of British Jews asked Lord Mann, the Labour peer who is the government’s

Steerpike

Who are working people? All Labour’s definitions

The Labour party has long been dubbed the party of working people – but despite the term being integral to the group’s existence, Sir Keir Starmer’s army have so far demonstrated an extraordinary degree of ineptness when pushed on its definition. After new transport minister Heidi Alexander caused a flurry of excitement at the weekend

Steerpike

Wallace’s BBC return ‘untenable’ after complaints upheld

Another week, another bit of bad news for ex-Beeb star Gregg Wallace. A report into the former MasterChef presenter has substantiated a whopping 45 complaints against the TV personality – making any return to the public service broadcaster ‘untenable’. A seven-month inquiry by legal firm Lewis Silkin was carried out on behalf of the programme’s

James Heale

Who exactly is a working person?

Tomorrow is Rachel Reeves’s big speech in the City. The annual Mansion House address is a chance for the chancellor to set out their big vision for the British economy. But amid a gloomy set of economic indicators – including two monthly GDP contractions in a row – it is difficult to see what good

Sam Leith

Banning disposable vapes was a waste of time

When we’re debating the introduction of a new law – ban this, ban that, crack down on the other – most of the energy in the public conversation goes into the question of whether this, that, or the other is something that deserves to be cracked down on. It seems to be after the event,

How political ideology corrupted science

Science is no longer regarded or respected as an objective pursuit, one in which the principle of impartiality is sought with due diligence. This is the inference we can make from comments made by Ella Al-Shamahi, presenter of the new BBC science series, Human. ‘We do have to be a little honest,’ she says, ‘to

The UK should not have to ration water

The UK’s steady decline continued today with reports that water companies are looking to introduce ‘surge pricing’ in order to ration demand. Trials are being introduced by 15 water companies across the country this summer, with customers either paying more for water as they use more, or charged more at certain times of year.  Higher

In defence of Christian Horner

Christian Horner has very beady eyes. If you sit opposite him, his shark-like spotlights will dart around you, probably in the hope there’s someone more important he can talk to, but also spying for threats and opportunities. His sacking as the team principal of Red Bull Racing after 20 years in the job has caught the paddock off-guard. We were at

Reform is right to reject Liz Truss

Reform UK topping the opinion polls and winning local council elections has prompted several leading Tories to defect. But now Nigel Farage’s insurgent party is riding so high that it is getting choosy about which Conservatives it will accept into its swelling ranks. If too many Tories join Reform they will begin to look like