Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Steerpike

Listen: Ed Miliband hosts toilet discussion on Radio 2

Poor old Ed Miliband. The former Labour leader was once convinced he was destined for Downing Street. Now, he’s hosting discussions about toilets on Radio 2. Standing in for Jeremy Vine, Miliband introduced music, chatted politics – and talked to guests about what types of loos they have. The Labour MP even asked one guest to flush their WC to hear

David Lidington resets relations with the judges – but can it last?

As the Brexit negotiations kicked off in Brussels yesterday, an equally delicate act of diplomacy took place in London at the Royal Courts of Justice, where David Lidington was sworn in as the new Lord Chancellor. Ceremony aside, this was a big political moment, involving one of the most important speeches of Mr Lidington’s career so far. He

Steerpike

Could Vince Cable be the Lib Dems’ answer to Jeremy Corbyn?

There was a time when progressives thought that politics had become too much of an old boys’ club. In the place of ageing male politicians, liberals called for more women and ethnic diversity in politics. However, times are a’changing. After Jeremy Corbyn defied all expectations in the snap election by hoovering up 40 per cent of the vote,

Spend your pension pot wisely

There was an almighty hoo-ha when George Osborne introduced pension freedoms. In the biggest change to pensions in a generation, anyone aged 55 and over is now allowed to take their entire pension pot as a lump sum, paying no tax on the first 25 per cent and the rest taxed as if it were

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Terror returns to London

‘Another week, another grotesque terror attack on peaceful civilians’, says the Daily Mail. While in the Finsbury Park attack the alleged perpetrator ‘may have different coloured skin’ from those who have carried out previous atrocities, ‘their motivation was the same – to sow hate and division in our tolerant society’. Already, the Mail warns, ‘extremist groups’

Katy Balls

What’s wrong with the 12 new Scottish Tory MPs?

Although the snap election result was disappointing for the Conservative party as a whole, there was reason for celebration north of the border. Ruth Davidson led the Scottish Conservatives to unprecedented success, with 13 MPs elected in total. Now that David Mundell is no longer the Tories’ only MP in Scotland, the Secretary of State for

Katy Balls

‘Constructive’ Brexit talks get off to a shaky start for David Davis

To kick the Brexit negotiations off, David Davis and Michel Barnier exchanged mountain-themed gifts, of a hiking book and walking stick. Given that the EU’s chief negotiator previously warned Brexit would be a ‘steep and a rocky’ path, the choice seemed apt. Although the Brexit secretary said he had been encouraged by the constructive approach both

Isabel Hardman

Will Theresa May become Brexit’s scapegoat?

Normally in the run-up to a Queen’s Speech, Westminster watchers wonder how radical the Prime Minister feels like being – and how much political capital they have available to spend. But of course this year’s Speech is rather different, because the Prime Minister has no political capital and the negotiations with the DUP haven’t concluded.

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

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,

Tom Goodenough

Finsbury Park attack: What we know so far

One man is dead and ten people have been injured after a van drove into a crowd close to Finsbury Park Mosque in north London Theresa May said it was a ‘sickening’ terrorist attack A 48-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and terrorism offences Security minister Ben Wallace said the suspect was

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