All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
It could be a bleak Christmas party for Arsenal Football Club on the 22 December, as Steerpike hears their planned festive bash booked in at Brocket Hall in Berkshire may be a little austere thanks to a lack of the hall’s usual furniture. Since Lord Brocket’s spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, the artistic accountant has been forced
Why is Libby Lane the first woman bishop appointed by the Church of England? She was one of the first to be ordained as a vicar 20 years ago when the Church approved women priests, and today she was unveiled as the Bishop of Stockport. But she was not one of the favourites, and so
The £31 million al-Sweady Inquiry is in. And it describes claims that up to 20 Iraqis were killed and mutilated by British troops after a battle in 2004 as “without foundation”: ‘Sir Thayne Forbes said Iraqi detainees who alleged they were tortured and abused – and subjected to mock executions – had given evidence that
The conventional wisdom, at least in Britain, seems to be that Barack Obama’s presidency has been a desperate disappointment. That is partly a reflection of the extravagant – impossibly so – expectation that accompanied him to the White House and partly, of course, a simple reminder of political reality. And yet it seems to me
Time travel came to PMQs today. The leaders discussed what year it will be in 2020. The answer, naturally, isn’t 2020. Ed Miliband quoted the OBR and claimed that the Coalition plans to shrink the state to the sort of slim-line figure it last sported in the 1930s. Rubbish, said Cameron. His diet will trim
It is difficult to describe with equanimity the culture shock that has been administered to Arts Council England, the 69 year-old benefits office for the creative industries. Invented by Maynard Keynes to nurture the grass shoots of an English renaissance with a few quid here and there – £25,000 for Covent Garden, £2,000 for the
Today’s PMQs was the last one before the holidays. But there was not much Christmas cheer on display. Cameron and Miliband clashed on the economy, with the Labour leader keen to drive home his line that the Tories are intent on taking Britain back to the 1930s. Cameron had prior notice of Miliband’s first question
John Bercow has lost his biggest attempt at a power grab after MPs recommended that the appointment process for the Commons clerk be terminated. The governance committee set up after the row over the Speaker’s desire to appoint Carol Mills became too big to handle has called for a new director general job to be
Ukip’s commonwealth spokesperson Winston McKenzie – he of Carnival of Colour fame – is never far from controversy. It was only a matter of time before a devout Ukipper compared their hero Nigel Farage to a deity and we should have all guessed it would be Winston: ‘Jesus was one man. We are his army. Nigel
Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the ‘P’ word: privatisation. Ed Miliband’s team hasn’t done the hard policy work to revitalise Labour as a party of government, and it is beginning to show. His platform for next May has a lot of sticky plaster policies, but very little that addresses structural problems like
Wow. Anyone who still harboured the idea that Australia was led by no-nonsense, common sense speaking politicians should look away now. Here is Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, talking about the motivations of the man who held a shop full of people hostage earlier this week and then murdered two of them: ‘The point
Today’s Guardian long-read on the Scottish referendum is a great piece of journalism. Both Alistair Darling and Danny Alexander argue in it that when David Cameron stepped out of Downing Street and announced his support for English votes for English laws he allowed the SNP to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, to argue
What’s wrong with eating reindeer? Well, if you normally eat meat, then I’d argue, absolutely nothing. But not everyone agrees with me. The fact that Lidl are selling packs of the meat – with festive golden reindeer on the box – has upset a number of people; presumably because they associate it with a certain
Here’s a challenge for Coffee Housers. Find a speech that beats this one by Culture Secretary Sajid Javid. It is one of the finest speeches from a government minister I have ever read. The field of fine speeches from government ministers is admittedly not particularly crowded, given ministers often have to give speeches on subjects
Ministers are to hold the first of a series of meetings aimed at helping food banks after pressure from MPs to address hunger in the UK, Coffee House understands. Early in the New Year, the Cabinet Office and the department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs will host a summit for all the big supermarkets
Ukip has confirmed this morning that Nigel Farage’s wife is still in receipt of public money — despite an on air denial from her husband. The party could not have paid for better PR on Channel 4 last night, with Farage meeting Gogglebox poshos Steph and Dom for a special one off programme. One exchange caught
MPs are often fond of complaining that they are ignored by senior figures in their parties as orders are passed on from central HQ with no explanation or opportunity for backbenchers to discuss strategy. Yesterday’s mess over Labour’s internal memo advising MPs on tackling Ukip partly explains why that high-handed approach often happens. Emailing strategy documents
Yesterday it was Sydney. Today it is Peshawar. Yesterday a coffee shop. Today a school. Yesterday a lone gunman. Today a gang of them. If anybody wondered about the global and diffuse nature of the challenge that Islamic fundamentalism poses, the last 24 hours have given another demonstration of the problem. Yet what is amazing, after
I have been passed a snap of the Christmas tree inside Brighton and Hove’s Green Party run council building. Or more accurately, I have been passed a snap of some bits of old shit collected from Brighton beach and put on a shelf under the title ‘One Planet’. After a year where rubbish has gone
William Hague is unveiling his EVEL plans in the Commons at 12.30 today. Just in case you were trying to work out what sort of atmosphere will greet this discussion of English votes for English laws and how far to in introducing that principle to Parliament, Coffee House can give you a quick taste. I
Steph and Dom are the posh-sounding, drunk couple from Gogglebox – the surprise hit programme where people are recorded sitting on sofas giving a running commentary on the TV shows they are watching. If they had been reviewing Steph And Dom Meet Nigel Farage, I like to think, they’d have been very rude. ‘What a
It was a scene that Australians are hitherto unfamiliar with. Terrified civilians forced at gunpoint to press a black flag, bearing the shahādah – the Islamic declaration of faith, most notably used as a battle banner by Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria – against the Lindt café window. The gunman, aside from a
William Hague is today setting out the Government’s EVEL plan – which includes options for English votes for English laws that some Labourites see as an evil plan to deprive their party of a majority to pass budgets and so on. Those EVEL plans have three options: 1. A ban on Scottish MPs voting on
From Mr N.M. Gwynne Q. Have you any suggestions on how I could milk my newly raised profile (as a bestselling author on English grammar and Latin, and a regular BBC Radio 5 broadcaster on how to speak and write English, and that sort of thing) to make the acquaintance of the kind of people
Would you invite Nigel Farage around for drinks and dinner? Steph and Dom Meet…Nigel Farage shows what happened when the ‘posh couple’ from Gogglebox did just that. The Ukip leader comes across as a pretty ordinary bloke — or at least his projection of one. This Gogglebox special could be seen as either a Ukip party
As Fraser points out, David Cameron has gone from saying the deficit has been brought down by a third to claiming it has been halved, but with the often unspoken caveat that this is as a share of GDP. After the Prime Minister dropped this claim into his speech today without that very important small print,
Can the Tories really be planning to fight the next election lying about the deficit? I ask because in his speech today, David Cameron has just repeated an untrue claim which made its debut in a George Osborne newspaper article a few days ago: that they have ‘halved’ the deficit*. Here’s what the Prime Minister
The government has published its Charter on Budget Responsibility, which at one stage was supposed to be a Labour trap but which now appears to be something that Labour can have a bit of fun with. In his ‘black cloud’ economy speech this afternoon, David Cameron announced that the Charter ‘would have the structural current
Roger Scruton writes in today’s Daily Telegraph, a sentence that in itself fills me with a sense of Wa – harmony, order. He writes: ‘Whether or not our political class has the ability or the will to control immigration, we have to accept that many of the millions who have come to this country in
Stuck with gift ideas for that slightly xenophobic, older family member this Christmas? Then look no further than the Ukip website. They are currently auctioning off a painting of their dear leader. Donate a fiver for the chance to win this horrific oil on canvas of Nigel Farage. No one mention Mr Toad…
David Cameron is talking about the ‘great, black, ominous cloud’ that Labour’s economic plans would put over the British economy. Labour is talking about its immigration policies while trying not to talk about a document that suggests it shouldn’t talk for too long about them. The Lib Dems are complaining that the Tories would damage
Conservatives always say the world is going to the dogs, and we’re usually wrong. But how else do you respond to the news that people are taking selfies outside the hostage situation in Sydney? ‘OMG I’m literally right outside a terrorist attack!’ ‘OMG, that’s terrible. Your boobs look amazing though’ Spare us, Lord. We all
How will Labour respond to the threat from Ukip? Thanks to today’s scoop by the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith, we now know. A leaked internal memo (pdf here) singles out immigration as the biggest issue to tackle and advises activists ‘moving the conversation on’ to another topic — something that has annoyed many in and outside of the party. With
Theresa May will announce changes the Mental Health Act this week that mean mentally ill teenagers are never held in police cells when they should be in a hospital bed. As I reveal in The Times this morning, the Home Secretary will on Thursday publish a review of sections 135 and 136 of the Act