Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

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Would voters back a Tory-Reform pact?

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While rumours continue to swirl about whether the Conservatives will strike a deal with Reform UK, exclusive polling shared with the Spectator suggests that voters aren’t all that convinced by the aligning of the Tories with Nigel Farage’s party. In fact, it appears that almost six in ten Brits believe the Tories and Labour are similar to each other – with two thirds of Reform supporters seeing little difference between the UK’s two main parties. How very curious… The data from Merlin Strategy, collected from 2,300 adults on 9 May, backs up concerns that voters are turning away from the UK’s long-established political parties – with just under 70 per

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Oxford’s LTN farce

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Last week’s cheering news that the High Court has deemed Lambeth Council’s imposition of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood on West Dulwich ‘unlawful’, because they failed to take consultations with locals into sufficient account, has given a glimmer of hope to the benighted residents of Cowley in Oxford. In that once liveable outskirt, gridlock on the main roads caused by the imposition of the Cowley LTN has closed down previously thriving small businesses, so that, far from being the utopian ‘15-minute city’ dreamed up by councillors, residents can no longer walk to a printer, a post office or the Co-op. Driving to central Oxford takes ages, and it costs up to £17 to park on a meter for two hours. The buses are slow, expensive and unreliable. You wait twenty minutes, only to

Charlie Peters

Doubted then vindicated, Andrew Norfolk was peerless

Rotherham whistleblower Jayne Senior has endured countless painful conversations with me. Across many years, we have reflected on cases of brutal sexual exploitation and explored cover-ups, bullying and brutal political scheming at the expense of children battling abuse. But the first time I heard her cry was when she phoned to share the devastating news that Andrew Norfolk had died. At the height of the crisis, Jayne passed Norfolk boxes full of key documents exposing the scandal of mass exploitation in Rotherham. When police and the council leadership of the South Yorkshire town were seeking to punish anyone who spoke out, Andrew was the lone voice that heard her and

Nigel Jones

Rupert Lowe faces life in the political wilderness

Rupert Lowe must currently be the most frustrated man in British politics. The MP has been exonerated of accusations brought against him by Reform, yet his political career appears to be over. The police have said that there is insufficient evidence to justify proceeding with charges after leaders of his old Reform party accused the Great Yarmouth MP of bullying his office staff and threatening party chairman Zia Yusuf. Lowe, who has been expelled from Reform and now sits in parliament as an independent MP, responded to the news of him being cleared with an angry tweet accusing party founder and leader Nigel Farage of being a ‘viper’ and added

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer announces Rwanda-style scheme in immigration U-turn

Starmer Chameleon is at it again. Now Sir Keir has announced plans for a Rwanda-style immigration scheme after scrapping a rather similar idea put forward under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative party. It transpires that the Prime Minister has opened formal talks with a number of Balkan states about sending asylum seekers to detention centres overseas – despite blasting the Tory party’s Rwanda scheme as a ‘gimmick’. Talk about a U-turn! During his trip to Albania today, Sir Keir announced that the government is considering sending failed asylum seekers to ‘return hubs’ overseas after they have exhausted all appeal options. Instead of holding people in the UK, the Labour lot want to

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