Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

James Forsyth

What Ed Balls told the bankers

Ed Balls knows how to talk to bankers. Having been Gordon Brown’s right hand man and City Minister under the last government, he is well known in the Square Mile—and far more popular than you might think. Earlier this month, Balls was to be found having lunch at HSBC’s private bank in St James. He

Fraser Nelson

The wit and wisdom of David Blunkett

David Blunkett has announced that he’ll be standing down at the next election. ‘It is clear that the leadership of the party wish to see new faces in ministerial office and a clear break with the past,’ he said — I’m not sure if that’s a coded reference to Miliband’s unfinished purge of those who

Britain is not alone in its mad attitude to Islamism

There is a tendency in Britain to think we are alone in our national madness. So I thought I would cheer everyone up on this lovely weekend by pointing out that one of the big stories in the Netherlands this week has been whether or not a pro-ISIS demonstration should be allowed in the Hague. The demonstration

Isabel Hardman

Is Ed Miliband’s Welsh tour wise?

Ed Miliband is in Wales with the Shadow Cabinet today, and they’ve been busy praising the Labour government there for ‘leading the whole of the United Kingdom into economic recovery’. It’s interesting that the Westminster Labour party is so keen to hang out with Welsh Labour, as doing so simply allows the Tories to attack

Steerpike

Dominic Cummings hits back at David Cameron

It’s a row that won’t go away, after Mr S revealed yesterday that the PM had labelled Dominic Cummings a ‘career psychopath’, Michael Gove’s former special adviser has hit back, blogging: “At the PolEx party (18/6), Cameron said that I am a ‘career psychopath’. A) No10′s first reaction was to decide not to react to my

Lara Prendergast

Isis on social media

Yesterday evening, I returned home, made a cup of tea and slumped down to catch up on the day’s news. A piece on Twitter caught my eye. Posted by Channel 4, it was titled ‘#Jihad: how ISIS is using social media to win support’. Click. Soon I was learning about how ISIS was calling for

Rod Liddle

World Cup diary: Progress? What progress? England were witless

The pundits will be doing some quick revisionism. Far from ‘making progress’ if not being “quite the finished article” (© everyone), England has performed less well than they did in the last tournament in which we took part and when everyone agreed we were shite. In fact so far this has been England’s worst ever

Isabel Hardman

All not well with welfare cap

A tough message on welfare is one of the ways that both Labour and the Tories think they can win in 2015. Ed Miliband upset some on the left yesterday with his plans to freeze child benefit and dock jobseekers’ allowance from under-21s not in employment or training, while the Tories constantly trumpet the gains

James Forsyth

Obama announces military advisers for Iraq

President Obama has just announced that the US is prepared to launch strikes against ISIS in Iraq if the situation on the ground requires it. The US will send up to 300 military advisers to the country. It is understood that they will provide intelligence on what targets US air power should hit. But Obama stressed

Tories set to take a dozen seats from Lib Dems in 2015

How many seats will the Conservatives take from the Lib Dems at the next election? According to Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling, a dozen or so Tory-Lib Dem marginals look set to change hands. Surveying 17,000 voters in 17 seats*, Ashcroft has found the Lib Dems’ share has dropped by 15 per cent (compared to eight per cent

Steerpike

Why so shy, General Petraeus?

Former CIA director and US Army General David Petraeus is in town hosted by the Henry Jackson Society. But that’s classified. For some reason Petraeus is being very shy in front of journalists (well, most journalists). The event in the House of Commons this afternoon is being held under the Chatham House Rule. All media,

Steerpike

David Cameron attacks ‘career psychopath’ Dominic Cummings

There must be an election in the offing because the PM was out and about last night looking for a manifesto. He addressed Policy Exchange’s (PX) annual summer bash in Westminster College Gardens. It was a gag a minute. He cracked rotten jokes about pig semen, and claimed that he was one of the founders of

Spectator Event report: Will artificial intelligence put my job at risk?

Will computers make humans redundant? It might be the biggest question of our time. Last night Spectator Events, in partnership with Microsoft, hosted a panel discussion to answer the question ‘Will Artificial Intelligence put my job at risk?’ A fascinating and wide-ranging conversation about the technological revolution ensued. The Spectator’s chairman Andrew Neil was joined by

Why the left needs to back families and commitment

The last Labour government oversaw a major expansion of support for families, with new investment in childcare, tax credits, maternity leave and children’s centres. Despite this investment, the left still struggles to demonstrate its ‘pro-family’ credentials and to affirm its backing for parents and committed family relationships. Too often, this leaves us conceding important political

Rod Liddle

World Cup diary – Thank God the reign of Spain is over!

It is a wicked thing to revel in someone else’s misery. Trouble is, occasionally it can’t be helped. So – bye, bye Spain! I think I would have traded England winning tonight (and therefore prolonging the agony) for Spain’s magnificently rapid exit from this world cup. Oh, Chile – you brave sons of Pinochet and

175 years of watchmaking expertise

A watch isn’t necessarily something that you think of as being a feat of engineering. But there is far more to a watch than meets the eye. Underneath its face, a vastly complicated machine is silently chugging away. In that way, Patek Philippe are very similar to their products; a simple Swiss brand on the