Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Gavin Mortimer

How long can Macron’s message of hope survive?

It says much about the extraordinary rise of Emmanuel Macron that some commentators are describing the outcome of Sunday’s second round of voting in the parliamentary elections as something of a disappointment for the new president. His La République en Marche [LREM] party won an estimated 359 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly,

Please can the bullying of Theresa May stop?

We all remember it from school, whether as perpetrator, or assistant of perpetrator, or victim: the moment when everyone turns against another pupil and it becomes legitimate to be vile to her. When she is ‘down’, it becomes more and more enjoyable to torture her and to find endless new aspects of her to be

How to avoid a holiday from hell

As the UK basks in beautiful sunshine, it’s tempting to abandon all thoughts of a holiday abroad and opt for a staycation. But we all know the vagaries of British weather. It’ll probably be raining tomorrow. With this in mind, the financial information company Defaqto has taken a close look at potential nightmare holiday scenarios

Home ownership fall is driving wealth inequality

Consider this: 1 per cent of adults own 14 per cent of the nation’s assets. That’s some 488,000 people in ownership of about £11 trillion. At the other end of the financial scale, 15 per cent – 7.3 million people – either own no assets at all, or are in debt. It’s safe to say this

Jo Swinson: Why I’m not running to be Lib Dem leader

It feels like an age since I was knocking on doors in the pouring rain in the final hour before polls closed, then hearing the shock of the exit poll on the car radio heading home to a hairdryer and somewhat less bedraggled attire for the count. Yet here we are just a few days

Spectator competition winners: a song for Europe

This week you were invited to fill a gap by providing lyrics for the European anthem. The powers that be behind the anthem, which has as its melody the final movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, chose to dispense with Friedrich von Schiller’s words. ‘There are no words to the anthem; it consists of music

Freddy Gray

Corbyn copy: Why Jeremy and Trump are (almost) the same

Since the election, Jeremy Corbyn has been parading himself as prime-minister-in-waiting. ‘Cancellation of President Trump’s State Visit is welcome,’ he tweeted this week, ‘especially after his attack on London’s Mayor and withdrawal from #ParisClimateDeal.’ The message was clear: unlike ‘Theresa the appeaser’, Jeremy is willing and able to tell that climate change-denying Islamophobe across the

For all his faults, Helmut Kohl was a political colossus

The British public never really warmed to Helmut Kohl. In Britain, he was always seen as too bossy, too bumptious, too… well, too Teutonic. Margaret Thatcher thought so too. ‘My God, that man is SO German,’ she told Charles Powell, after Kohl’s attempt to woo her with his favourite dish, stuffed pig’s stomach, fell horribly

James Forsyth

Why an extended, Brexit transition is now on the cards

The Brexit talks start on Monday. Theresa May hoped that they would be beginning with the UK government’s hand strengthened by her enhanced majority. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, the opposite has happened. The indecisive election result means that there is again uncertainty about the government’s Brexit position. There is lots

Apart from independence, the SNP stands for nothing

The deposed Scottish Nationalist MP for East Lothian, George Kerevan, found solace this week in the words of a distinguished former editor of The Spectator. Kerevan tweeted: ‘I believe every Scotsman should be a Scottish nationalist’, John Buchan, House of Commons, 24 November, 1932.’ Hundreds of disconsolate Nationalists took to their keyboards to embrace Buchan’s

The infinite sphere of Helmut Kohl

Helmut Kohl, architect of German reunification, has died at the age of 87. Here Christian Caryl, writing in 1994, explains how Kohl became a titan of German politics. Like everyone else in Germany, I’ve spent the past five months listening to the press ruminate about the secret of Helmut Kohl’s success. Much of the theorising had to

Tom Goodenough

Armed police arrest man outside Parliament

Armed police have arrested a man on suspicion of carrying a knife outside Parliament. The suspect, in his 30s, was pictured being held by officers this morning. Scotland Yard said a Taser was discharged during the incident. In a statement, police confirmed that no one was injured. Joe Murphy, the Evening Standard‘s political editor, said

Steerpike

Conservatives’ election blame game goes on

In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Nick Timothy writes exclusively about why the Tory campaign was a failure. Theresa May’s former chief of staff says that nobody in CCHQ was prepared for the exit poll which predicted a hung Parliament. He recounts how Lynton Crosby said the party would ‘do well’ while Jim Messina’s modelling

Tom Goodenough

Grenfell Tower: Theresa May’s ‘Hurricane Katrina’ moment?

We don’t yet know what caused the Grenfell Tower blaze. Yet already one thing is clear: this devastating fire, in which at least 17 people – and possibly many more – lost their lives, should never have happened. Grenfell Tower is turning into Theresa May’s ‘Hurricane Katrina’ moment, says the Guardian, which contrasts Jeremy Corbyn’s

Fraud hotspots revealed by Which?

Norfolk is the dating fraud capital of England and Wales, Surrey is the hotspot for investment scams, and mid-Wales suffers cold calling computer cons. That’s according to new analysis by Which?. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Which? collated thousands of fraud reports from Action Fraud, the main reporting body for UK fraud. The data also reveals

Steerpike

Tory MP takes a dig at Theresa May

Oh dear. Although Conservative MPs are supposed to be rallying around their beleaguered leader as Theresa May attempts to form a minority government, not everyone has received the memo. Step forward Tim Loughton. The Conservative MP – who ran Andrea Leadsom’s short-lived leadership campaign – has taken to social media to vent his frustration that the