Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Steerpike

What hard-left plot? Corbyn and Watson go on ‘away day’

This morning, Tom Watson kicked off the day with an appearance on Sky News, where he complained that the hard left are behind a secret Momentum plot to ‘take over the Labour party’ and secure a Corbynite as Jeremy Corbyn’s successor. The comments have provoked a bout of civil war in the shadow cabinet, with John McDonnell accusing Watson

Tom Goodenough

Theresa May will trigger Article 50 next week

The wait is over. Almost. Theresa May will trigger Article 50 – the first formal step in Britain’s departure from the EU – on March 29th, Downing Street has confirmed. Brexit Secretary David Davis said: ‘Last June, the people of the UK made the historic decision to leave the EU. Next Wednesday, the Government will deliver

Fine wine overtakes classic cars as number one investment of passion

‘Investments of passion,’ those objects of desire that are nice to own but will also hopefully rise in value. When I’m editing The Wealth Report, Knight Frank’s annual publication examining wealth distribution, the threats and opportunities for wealth creators, prime property markets and commercial real estate investments, ‘investments of passion’ is the section I most

Steerpike

George Osborne finds old habits die hard

George Osborne became the subject of much mockery over the weekend after Rohan Silva let slip that the former chancellor had only decided to apply to be editor of the Evening Standard editor after friends had come to him for help with their own applications. While Mr S has since advised readers not to approach the

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Why Tony Blair is still wrong about Brexit

Why did 17.4m people vote for Brexit? A long list of reasons have been put forward but Tony Blair thinks he has the definitive answer: ‘authoritarian populism’. The Sun is not impressed; the paper says that it’s a sorry spectacle to see former Prime Ministers ‘slinging insults’ at voters having been ‘defeated and rejected by the

Katy Balls

George Osborne trolls MPs

After George Osborne was announced as the new editor of the Evening Standard on Friday, there was uproar across the House — with Labour writing to the Cabinet Office to complain about the appointment while Tory MPs took to their WhatsApp threads to sulk. Today the drama moved into the Chamber thanks to an Urgent Question from Labour’s

Steerpike

Boris Johnson and the Cursed Theatre Trip

Spare a thought for Boris Johnson. Ever since the Brexit vote, the Foreign Secretary has struggled with the often hostile reception he now receives in London from angry remain-ers. Now it seems things have got so bad that he can’t even enjoy a quiet night out at the theatre. Thandie Newton — the Crash actress —

James Delingpole

What would we do without nutcases like Steve Backshall

Down the Mighty River with Steve Backshall (BBC2) was perfect Sunday-night TV — one of the most enjoyable adventure travelogues I’ve watched in ages. So I was quite surprised to see it reviewed lukewarmly by another critic. One of the critic’s objections was that the scene where Backshall spots a bird of paradise through his

Melanie McDonagh

The great ‘adventure story’ of British Catholicism

Roy Hattersley would never have been born had it not been that his mother ran away with the parish priest who instructed her in the Catholic faith before her marriage to a collier — the priest conducted the wedding; a fortnight later they eloped. This deplorable episode had one happy consequence: the birth of Roy,

Rod Liddle

Europe’s elite rightly feel extinction breathing down their necks

Allahu Akbar! Greetings from Samsun, where Turkish protestors — their eyeballs spinning in orgasmic Islamic rage — tried to set fire to the Dutch flag while chanting the usual ‘Allah’s dead good’ stuff. They used cigarette lighters and some lighter fuel and up it went — and was then jubilantly trampled on by the inflamed,

Whatever happened to Trumpism?

Well, that was quick. Along with President Donald Trump’s preliminary budget proposal, Trumpism as a radical new governing philosophy is dead on arrival. Trump was elected in part by voters who preferred Obama to Romney in 2012. They saw in Trump a different kind of Republican from the green-eyeshades accountants whose passion is cutting government

James Forsyth

Numbers 10 & 11 need to find a better way of working together

Philip Hammond should be sending George Osborne a case of the finest claret. For Osborne’s decision to accept the editorship of the Evening Standard, has distracted Westminster’s from  this week’s spectacular Budget reversal. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, the fallout from it will be felt for some time. Even Hammond’s Cabinet

Martin Vander Weyer

White men grab the chairs

Tesco chairman John Allan provoked feminist fury by telling would-be non-exec directors, ‘If you’re a white male, tough: you’re an endangered species’ — then claimed he was really trying to make the opposite point, that ‘it’s a great time for women’. But to the contrary, this was a week in which tough white males grabbed

Charles Moore

Too many Hoggs spoil it for Charlotte

Charlotte Hogg forgot to tell the Bank of England, of which she had been appointed deputy governor, that her brother Quintin is director of strategy at Barclays bank. She has had to resign. There is something strange about this story. After all, if the Bank of England did not know already that her brother held

Brexit, Ireland and the Trump question

We all have our roles.  In the world order which we inhabit, Ireland has one chief international responsibility: each St Patrick’s Day, its Taoiseach (prime minister) sets off to the Oval Office bearing a bowl of shamrocks. Ireland’s current Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has been in the job since March 2011.  In Ireland’s last elections, last

Melanie McDonagh

St Patrick’s lesson for modern Britain

Happy St Patrick’s Day to the Irish, one and all. There are plenty of Brits who are a bit Irish, and the Irish government tries to include as honorary Irish, or would-be Irish, pretty well everyone else. Obviously, St Patrick himself wasn’t actually Irish, but a Brit, so thank you, Britain, and well done. The

Steerpike

Was George Osborne sloppy second to City AM editor?

Following the announcement that George Osborne is the new editor of the Evening Standard, the BBC’s media editor Amol Rajan was quick to brand the appointment ‘a remarkable move that will dazzle the worlds of politics and media’. But — as dazzling as it may or may not be — did Evgeny Lebedev only turn

Steerpike

David Cameron cheers Osborne from the Whole Foods aisles

Today George Osborne has managed to get MPs and hacks alike in a spin over his appointment as the new Evening Standard editor. Giving an interview to the BBC at the paper’s headquarters in High Street Kensington, Osborne said he could see no issues balancing the role of MP with editor as he can do

Ross Clark

George Osborne is the archetypal part-time MP

For once, Jeremy Corbyn was spot-on. Learning of the news that George Osborne is to be made editor of the Evening Standard he didn’t bleat about Tory domination of the press, but tweeted ‘It’s taking multi-tasking to an extreme level – what a joke’. What is wrong about Osborne’s new job is not that it

Steerpike

MP for Tatton takes up part-time job as… Evening Standard editor

Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Freddy Gray grapple with Osborne’s shock appointment: In recent months, Mr S has kept readers up to date with the multiple jobs (and large salaries) George Osborne has taken up since returning to the back bench. Just last week, the former chancellor used Budget day to sneak out the news that

House prices now more than seven times income

There are many things that beggar belief. The enduring popularity of Mrs Brown’s Boys for one. A continued appetite for the songs of James Blunt. And the appointment of George Osborne as editor of the London Evening Standard. That last one is particularly hard to fathom. But then so is some other news out this

Julie Burchill

Prince William is just a chip off the Charles block

Generally, I am the last person to advocate modesty, sobriety or duty. But then, I have been supporting myself financially, with no assistance from any other source – spouse or State or taxpayer – since I was seventeen years old, and am free to do as I please. The same, sadly, cannot be said of