Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Steerpike

Angela Merkel’s Theresa May jibe

Theresa May’s not having a good few weeks. With Tories scrambling to either criticise their leader or covertly campaign to be the next leader, May’s premiership appears to be on shaky ground once more. Add to this a backlash from Conservative Brexiteers and a government Brexit forecast leak and it’s safe to conclude things aren’t

China vs America: the espionage story of our time

Why aren’t spy stories sexy anymore? The revelations last year that Beijing destroyed America’s espionage ring inside China a few years ago, including executing a number of US informants, got a brief flurry of attention and then subsided beneath the waves. News reports of American bureaucrats arrested for passing information to the Chinese have also barely raised

Could Michael Gove be the one to fix Britain’s tax problems?

Sir:  Sir James Dyson is right (Letters, 20 January). We need big farming; that is where our food comes from. But the elephant in the room is tax — inheritance tax and roll-over relief — which of course he conveniently skirts. Farming at this level needs subsidy precisely because land is too expensive for food production

Steerpike

Philip Hammond loses power

Oh dear. After a weekend of on-the-record briefings against him, it’s safe to say that Philip Hammond has found himself on the wrong side of the Brexiteers. The Chancellor’s comments at Davos about close alignment and minimum change have led his colleagues to see red – with Nadine Dorries calling for him to be sacked.

James Forsyth

Don’t sweat the Brexit transition deal

There are many things to worry about with Brexit, but the terms of the transition should be pretty low down that list. The transition was always going to have to be off-the-shelf (if you could negotiate a bespoke transition, you might as well do the final deal) and as long as it is time-limited, it

The truth about Iran is now of little importance to Jeremy Corbyn

If any further evidence was needed about the disingenuousness of Jeremy Corbyn and the dangers a government led by him might pose internationally – not just for Britain but also for Britain’s Nato allies – it is worth watching Corbyn’s interview on Iran with the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday. ‘You’ve been very reluctant to condemn

Stephen Daisley

The one where millennials don’t get Friends

All progress is war on the past and millennials are particularly merciless combatants. The arrival of Friends on Netflix UK has had this neo-Victorian generation reaching for its fainting couch. Through woke eyes, the hit NBC sitcom isn’t a diverting entertainment but an artefact of racism, sexism and homophobia. If you were a twentysomething during

Katy Balls

Conservative MPs should be careful what they wish for

How much trouble is Theresa May in? Just three weeks ago, it looked as though the Prime Minister was at her strongest point since the disastrous snap election. Now, the BBC 10 o’clock news is leading on questions about her survival – with reports of irrepairable drift, Brexit rifts. The Sunday papers are filled with a

Steerpike

Toff sends Downing Street into a spin

Since Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Conservatives have been left with a dilemma over whether to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff kindly volunteered to utilise her million followers for the party only for brains at CCHQ to block any such move over concerns she’s

Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn’s short-term memory on Iran

It’s happened. Jeremy Corbyn has finally broken his silence on Iran. To be fair, he was rather forced into doing so when Andrew Marr raised the topic live on air this morning. Marr put to the Labour leader – who says ‘to stay neutral in times of injustice is to side with the oppressor’ – that

Charles Moore

Justin Welby is in a corner over the case of George Bell

It is quite unnecessary and truly sad that the Archbishop of Canterbury has painted himself into a corner over the case of George Bell, the heroic, long-dead Bishop of Chichester. Last week, several historians who have studied Bell wrote to him to say that the Carlile report (which the Archbishop had himself commissioned) had clearly

Roger Alton

Jamie Murray is wrong about doubles players’ earnings

Who doesn’t love the Murray family? Andy, a unique sporting hero; Judy, a magnificent coach and the best tennis mum. And, er, Jamie? Fine doubles player of course. But he’s now gone way off piste calling for vastly more prize money for doubles players, adding: ‘There’s a lot of excitement around the doubles game.’ Are

Defence cuts should trouble us all

This week, General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of the General Staff, made it quite clear how he would like to fight the Russians should they invade Eastern Europe or start a war with NATO: We should identify Russian weaknesses and then manoeuvre asymmetrically against them. First and foremost, perhaps we should be in the business

Charles Moore

Why isn’t the Tory power vacuum more exciting?

As I walked across Horse Guards one day last week, everything seemed eerily quiet. No one was about, and the only object I could see was a sleek limousine parked where one is not allowed to park, facing Downing Street. As I approached, I could read its number-plate, which said ‘1 VEN’. Was this the

Katy Balls

David Davis attempts to ease Tory nerves over Brexit transition

A row is underway in the Conservative party over the Brexit transition period. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the all-powerful European Research Group (the Brexit wing of the Tory party), has said he would rather extend Article 50 than have a transition period in which the UK is a rule-taker from the EU. Despite this,

Steerpike

Amber Rudd’s fighting fund

Amber Rudd is frequently touted as a frontrunner in any Tory leadership race, but the Home Secretary has kept schtum on whether or not she actually fancies her chances. So, is Rudd secretly readying herself for a shot at getting the top job when May steps down? Mr S. only asks because Rudd lists a

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump (sort of) says the hardest word

Wow. As far as I know, Donald Trump has only apologised twice since he emerged as a presidential candidate in 2015 — never apologise, never explain seems to be his usual rule. Once he said sorry after the famous ‘locker room’ talk Access Hollywood tape was leaked in 2016. And today, with his pal Piers Morgan,

Steerpike

Watch: Chris Williamson’s hostile reception on Question Time

Although Chris Williamson recently exited the Labour frontbench – by mutual agreement – the loyal Corbynista has vowed to do what he can for Jeremy Corbyn from the back bench. And this he did on Question Time on Thursday when he joining David Dimbleby for the weekly current affairs show. Speaking on a panel comprised

Ross Clark

Theresa May’s stop-and-search shake-up is costing lives

Theresa May has a very big failure to her name, but strangely few people seem to want to pick her up on it. The latest crime figures show a sharp increase in recorded offences in England and Wales, especially in knife crime, which rose 21 per cent to 37,443 incidents. This continues a trend which

Camilla Swift

Is avoiding plastic making your grocery bills soar?

There seem to be quite a few bogeymen doing the rounds at the moment, but plastic is one of them. As Ross Clark wrote in last week’s Spectator cover feature, it’s the fashionable issue among environmental types at the moment – which is why the government has chosen to focus on it. There are of