Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Labour’s ‘levelling up’ agenda – Michael Gove interviews Steve Reed

28 min listen

On the eve of Labour’s party conference, the Spectator‘s editor Michael Gove sits down with Steve Reed MP, the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government. The government has announced an historic £5 billion package of funding for ‘national renewal’ – designed to revive high streets, parks and public spaces. Reed explains

Is Labour trying to kill the gambling industry?

It seems Labour will not rest until the gambling industry is dead and buried. In the latest attack, more than 100 Labour MPs have signed a letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves calling for significant tax rises on ‘harmful online gambling products’. The letter, written by MPs Alex Ballinger and Beccy Cooper, both members of the

James Kirkup

Ming Campbell was too good for politics

Sir Menzies Campbell’s death means the loss of one of the most inconspicuously interesting people I’ve known in politics, not to mention one of the nicest. Ming, who led the Lib Dems from 2006 to 2007, had naturally faded from the limelight in recent years, but there was a time when he was everywhere. He

Starbucks has lost its cool

The news that the once-beloved, now-beleaguered coffee chain Starbucks is to fire nearly a thousand staff and close dozens of shops in both North America and Britain may not come as a surprise to many. Like many other relics of the Nineties – such as the Friends theme tune, Cool Britannia and vodka Red Bulls

Steerpike

The SNP’s hypocrisy over digital ID

It would be putting it mildly to say Sir Keir Starmer’s digital ID card plans have gone down like a lead balloon. The Prime Minister’s proposals to make ID cards compulsory for every British adult have raised concerns about freedom, data security and effectiveness – as it isn’t clear the policy would actually work to

Nigel Farage has a point about migrants eating swans

When Nigel Farage appeared to ape Donald Trump by noting the problem of migrants mistreating British wildlife, his comments were swiftly condemned. Speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Wednesday, the Reform leader suggested that ‘swans were being eaten in Royal Parks in this country’ and that ‘carp were being taken out of ponds’. Who was

ID cards are the perfect policy for Starmer

‘The Global Progress Action Summit’ is exactly the sort of event Keir Starmer loves. It’s a sort of Blairite seance, where all the ghouls of a dead liberal order are summoned and live again to spend 24 hours doing their favourite thing: bloviating. It’s a pretty cast-iron rule that an organisation with two words for

Sam Leith

Tony Blair can’t save Gaza

There’s a very short list of important questions, these days, to which the right answer is ‘Tony Blair’. I mean, a really short list. In a round of the US gameshow Jeopardy, when the host says ‘Tony Blair’, nobody is going to win a doublewide trailer by piping up: ‘Who would be the best person

The disturbing arrest of Pete North

Last night, Pete North, a well-known political campaigner and veteran of the Brexit movement, was arrested by North Yorkshire Police, allegedly for posting on his Twitter account. A video released by Pete shows police arriving at his house around 9:30 p.m. On the video, an officer explained that he had ‘posted something on the internet’

Steerpike

Electoral Commission won’t investigate McSweeney over undeclared £700k

Just days before Labour politicians head to Liverpool for the party’s annual conference, a story about Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff has been dominating headlines. It emerged that the Labour Together founder’s lawyer advised Morgan McSweenet that he should mark £700,000 of undisclosed donations as an ‘admin error’, according to a leaked document from

James Heale

Starmer’s Reform solution? ID cards

It has been another difficult week for Keir Starmer. He has lost his director of communications, and his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is under constant fire. The economy is stagnant and he faces near-constant manoeuvring from Andy Burnham. So today’s speech at the ‘Global Progress Action Summit’ in London took on an added weight.

Steerpike

Kneecap court case collapses

To Woolwich Crown Court, where the case against Kneecap member Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh has been thrown out. The Irish rapper, who performs under the name Mo Chara, appeared on a single terror charge after being accused of pulling out a Hezbollah flag at a 2024 gig in Kentish Town’s O2 Forum. But the case

When Curtis Yarvin met Alastair Campbell

A video has been doing the rounds in which a woman holds an iguana up to the glass window of an aquarium. A beluga whale emerges from the murk. For a brief moment two creatures whose very existence is incomprehensible to each other – who would never, in millions of years, have met but for

The case against Andy Burnham

A New Statesman profile for the issue published in the week before Labour Party conference. A lengthy interview in the Daily Telegraph on the eve of a major international conference of global progressive leaders, including the newly-elected prime ministers of Canada, Australia and Norway. This is your standard press management for a party leader in

What’s so bad about ID cards?

Back in 2009, when the Labour government piloted a voluntary biometric identity card, I signed up immediately. In fact – claim to fame – since the scheme was actually launched in my hometown of Greater Manchester, I was one of the first in the country to acquire this pioneering piece of ID. Mine for just 30

Do not dismiss Trump’s Gaza plan

The recent moves by Donald Trump to promote a plan to end the two-year war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza appear this time to be more serious and promising than in the past. The American administration, led by Steve Witkoff, the President’s special envoy for international conflicts, has been formulating for several weeks a

How the judiciary took down Nicolas Sarkozy

A Paris court has sentenced France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy to five years, three of which must be served behind bars, for criminal conspiracy tied to alleged Libyan funding of his successful 2007 presidential campaign. He’ll be imprisoned within weeks, irrespective of any appeal. The image of a former French president heading to prison is

Labour women must stop crying sexism

Does the Labour party have a problem with women? It’s not just Conservatives – who enjoy comparing their own three female prime ministers with Labour’s failure to get any woman into the top job – who seem to think so. It turns out many on the left think their side of the aisle is riddled

Why Brits are no good at learning foreign languages

The British media has got into one of its regular funks about Britons not learning foreign languages. As the only monoglot in a family of polyglots, it is an issue I have had a lifelong sensitivity about. But as always, the national hand-wringing displays more ignorance than insight. The wailing follows a regular pattern –

Ross Clark

Digital IDs are a nightmare of Tony Blair’s making

Is Tony Blair pulling the strings of Keir Starmer’s government from beyond the political grave? Only two days ago the Tony Blair Institute released a report calling for digital ID cards. Now Starmer is expected to announce that the UK public will indeed have digital IDs forced upon them. The juxtaposition of these two things

James Heale

Labour unveils its Reform fightback

After a summer of drift, Labour today launches a fresh fightback against the rise of Reform UK. Leading the charge is Steve Reed, the recently promoted Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). In an interview with Michael Gove for The Spectator’s YouTube channel, he explained the thinking behind his department’s new ‘Pride in

Max Jeffery

The cult of Obama is over

Everyone wanted to get close to the president. For three hours outside the O2 Arena in London, a queue of admirers pawed at and posed with a fifteen-foot-tall billboard of his face. All of the marketing for yesterday’s event, titled ‘An Evening with President Barack Obama’, had used his official presidential portrait from 2012 in

Reeves needs to save the London Stock Exchange

Flutter, the gambling giant that owns Paddy Power, has already London, and the British chip designer ARM decided to float in New York. There have been reports that AstraZeneca may move its listing too. Now we learn that even Goldman Sachs may be giving up on the City, as it delists Petershill, the majority-owned investment

Michael Simmons

What is Andy Burnham talking about?

Andy Burnham is worried about becoming Liz Truss. In an interview deemed so important it currently appears on the New Statesman’s website three times, he said: ‘We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.’ His worry, it seems, is that the main economic policy he’d like to introduce,

Steerpike

Labour splits as cabinet minister slams Burnham

Dear oh dear. Labour conference is just days away but as the party prepares to come together it would appear its politicians are coming apart. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham gave a rather revealing interview this week in which he called for ‘wholesale change’ to prevent an ‘existential’ crisis, set out his own brand of

Starmer’s make-or-break conference

13 min listen

Labour conference kicks off this weekend in Liverpool – but the mood going in is far from triumphant. On today’s Coffee House Shots, Lucy Dunn is joined by Tim Shipman and More in Common’s Luke Tryl to take the temperature ahead of Labour’s big set-piece. They discuss why some voters already see Starmer as ‘just

Michael Simmons

The problem with removing the child benefit cap

Despite having a £30 billion fiscal hole to fill Rachel Reeves might be about to splash the cash. If reports are to be believed, in the coming weeks the lifting of the two-child benefit cap will be announced. The cost is £3bn every year.  The cap was introduced under George Osborne to stop families claiming

Steerpike

Watch: Boris defends the Boriswave

Reform continues to top the polls as Brits remain concerned about migration to the UK. At the start of the week, Nigel Farage held yet another London press conference in which he announced his plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, make foreign nationals ineligible to claim benefits and introduce an English standards test –

No, Nigel Farage: Eastern Europeans like me aren’t eating swans

The Royal Parks have spoken: no, London’s swans are not being roasted for supper. Their cygnets are intact, their lakes tranquil, their wildlife officers alert. Yet for a moment this week the nation was asked to imagine Eastern Europeans stalking Hyde Park by moonlight, stuffing swans into shopping bags. Nigel Farage, on LBC, suggested as