Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

How Iran will respond to Sinwar’s death

The death of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on Thursday is an incredible achievement for Israel. It is also a blow to Iran and its axis of terror across the Middle East.  Since July, Israel has decapitated the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah – with the killings of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah’s secretary-general Hassan

Robert Jenrick must do more

When Kemi Badenoch took to the floor during GB News’s TV Q&A on Thursday evening, the atmosphere in the room climbed a notch. Robert Jenrick had just finished his pitch to the party and handled questions well, but it was clear even before the audience rated their leadership candidates that it was Badenoch the majority

The Iranian diplomat trying to stop Armageddon

‘The embassy is being invaded. The ambassador has had to lock himself in his office upstairs, and there are people on our balcony. Your government is responsible for the safety of our diplomats and embassy. We will hold you accountable…’ The voice at the other end of the line was calm, though there was no

Iran, you have been warned

Bombs send messages. Yesterday it was announced that the United States sent B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to hit underground Houthi weapons stores. The aim was to frighten Iran. Using America’s most potent bomber to hit bunkers controlled by a militia force which has no sophisticated air defence systems might seem over the top – a

Who will lead Hamas now?

It took more than a year of waging war, but Israel has finally succeeded in killing its top target in Gaza: Yahya Sinwar. Alongside Mohammad Deif, who is thought to have been killed by an Israeli strike in July, Sinwar was the man most responsible for organising the horrific attacks of 7 October. At the

Benjamin Netanyahu has been vindicated

The death of Yahya Sinwar, the top military commander of Hamas, is an important and symbolic moment in Israel’s ongoing war against the terror group. His elimination was finally made official by an evening statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following hours of rumours fuelled by the circulation of unmistakable pictures of his corpse. Yet

The horror – and glory – of Sandbanks

In the showy harbourside enclave of Sandbanks, in Dorset, properties regularly go for upward of £7 million; one bungalow there recently sold for £13 million. Footballers and screen stars call it home. But there are two things money can’t buy when it comes to Sandbanks: sunshine and style. It’s a desperately cramped, traffic-ridden place Estate agents

Robert Jenrick can change the Tories’ fortunes

If you speak to anybody unfortunate enough to have spent time canvassing for the Conservatives during the general election, they will tell you that one issue came up on the doorstep: immigration. The failure to control our borders using Brexit powers led voters to defect en masse to both the Liberal Democrats and Reform. Any

Patrick O'Flynn

The Tory leadership contest is Kemi Badenoch’s to lose

Were Kemi Badenoch not to be unveiled as the next Conservative party leader in a couple of weeks it would now go down as a very notable upset. Exposed to a demanding hour of cross-examination on the GB News leadership special, Badenoch landed her pitch almost perfectly. As the strong favourite with the bookies, Badenoch

Did Labour make its own Budget trap?

15 min listen

A scoop from Bloomberg has revealed that a number of Cabinet ministers have written formally to the Prime Minister to complain about the budgetary decisions they are being asked to make in their respective departments. Rachel Reeves seems to have an impossible task ahead of the Budget – but was this a trap of Labour’s

Steerpike

Tory councillor’s wife jailed over social media riot post

The wife of a Tory councillor has been jailed for 31 months over a social media post during the riots. Lucy Connolly, married to Raymond Connolly on the West Northamptonshire Council, took to social media in July with some rather controversial words in the wake of the killing of three children in Southport. In her

Katy Balls

Tories to raise MP threshold for confidence vote

How long will the next Tory leader last? As I write in this week’s issue of The Spectator, it’s the question being asked in the shadow cabinet after no candidate managed to muster more than a third of parliamentary support. ‘It would have been healthier had one of them bombed’, says a shadow minister of

Steerpike

Watch: Jenrick backer suggests Badenoch ‘preoccupied with children’

As the two finalists for the Tory leadership race are preparing to go head-to-head in tonight’s GB News special, more Tory MPs are speaking up for their favoured candidates. In an interesting interview, veteran politician Sir Christopher Chope has revealed who he is backing – and for rather curious reasons. The Christchurch MP told ITV

JK Rowling deserves a peerage

Kemi Badenoch has suggested that JK Rowling deserves a seat in the House of Lords. The Tory leadership contender said in an interview with Talk TV: ‘I don’t know whether she would take it but I certainly would give her a peerage’. Rowling certainly deserves credit for her tireless stand against the transgender madness. For

Let’s see if ‘Patriotic Millionaires’ really want more tax

Dubai, Italy or perhaps the Bahamas? Many multi-millionaires are discussing where they should flee to as the Rachel Reeves prepares to raid their bank accounts in the ‘Horror Budget’ scheduled for the end of this month. But not, as it turns out, Patriotic Millionaires, the group that campaigns tirelessly for higher taxes on the rich.

Mark Galeotti

Zelensky’s ‘victory plan’ is unlikely to impress Europe

After confidentially briefing it around various Western capitals, President Zelelsnky has unveiled – to a degree – his much-trailed ‘victory plan’ to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. His statement on the plan came ahead of today’s meeting with the European Council. Along with three additional secret codicils shared only with certain partners, the plan has

Ross Clark

Reeves’s Budget is looking increasingly messy

The tragedy of the coming Budget is that it could have been a great reforming Budget. Instead, it now looks like being an extremely messy one, with the Chancellor buffeted by political winds into coming up with tax changes which are bizarre, punitive and which end up pleasing no-one. The latest symptom of this is

The strange timing of Jacinda Ardern’s damehood

Jacinda Ardern has been made a dame for her services to politics during the five turbulent years she spent as prime minister of New Zealand. An ‘incredibly honoured and very humbled’ Ardern was officially recognised by the Prince of Wales at Windsor Castle. This week’s investiture came more than a year after she was first

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Rachel Reeves in?

The countdown to Labour’s first budget for 14 years continues. Unfortunately for Rachel Reeves, the mood music is not particularly promising. While the Chancellor was offered a ray of light on Wednesday with the news that inflation has fallen to 1.7 per cent (therefore leading to speculation of rate cuts sooner rather than later), Reeves’

Melanie McDonagh

The slippery slope of assisted dying

Critics of the Assisted Dying Bill have been warning for a while that it would lead to a ‘slippery slope’. Their fears are looking increasingly legitimate. The bill, introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, had its first reading in the Commons yesterday. In the last few days, some of those with conditions that might not

Steerpike

Science Secretary failed to declare Taylor Swift tickets on time

Dear oh dear. Science Secretary Peter Kyle has certainly had better days in office. Despite Kyle insisting in the Commons today that his party ‘raises standards in public life’, it has now emerged that the Science Secretary, er, failed to declare his own gifted Taylor Swift tickets in time. Talk about hypocrisy… Members of parliament

Freddy Gray

Could the Catholic vote decide the election?

27 min listen

Trump won the Catholic vote in 2016 and Biden won it in 2020. Polling suggests that Trump is on course to win it back this year. With issues such as immigration and abortion high on the agenda for voters, where will the Catholic vote land?  Ryan Girdursky, the Catholic founder of the 1776 Project PAC

Steerpike

Treasury breaks silence over Labour donor hire

If it’s not the freebie fiasco dogging Sir Keir’s Labour party, it’s the cronyism row. Back in August, the curious case of Ian Corfield hit the news after it transpired that the banker had donated more than £20,000 to Labour before bagging a job as a director of investment at the Treasury. Politico revealed the

Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer is full of bilge

Who runs Britain’s foreign policy? Not the government, that’s clear. At PMQs, Sir Keir Starmer got a monumental roasting from Rishi Sunak whose patience seems to be wearing thin.  Technically, Rishi was asking questions but in fact he was correcting Labour’s latest raft of blunders. He began by urging the PM to have a discreet

Scottish visas are a terrible idea

The last thing Labour needs right now, after the last hundred days of scandal and mishap, is a row over immigration. So the party will not have been pleased this morning to see reports in the Scottish press suggesting that the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is considering introducing a separate Scottish immigration visa, which would

Can the US force Israel to bow to its demands on Gaza?

The White House wants Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and implement humanitarian ceasefires within 30 days. If they don’t, the US has threatened to withhold military aid to the country. That’s according to a leaked letter sent over the weekend by secretary of state Anthony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin in which

Starmer denies being soft on China

13 min listen

Starmer and Sunak debated Labour’s position on China at today’s PMQs, with Starmer denying going soft on the Asian superpower. Did Sunak draw inspiration from Katy Balls’s cover article in last week’s Spectator? Katy and Isabel Hardman speak to Oscar Edmondson about the party dynamics behind the debate; how much pressure is each party under from