Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

International Women’s Day is a bit silly

The British do not do seven day mourning the way many Venezuelans are for Hugo Chavez, neither – as a rule – do we flock to the roads to see the bodies of our politicians being driven through the streets. With the exception of Jeremy Bentham we do not – mercifully – put our departed

Drones save lives

‘Drones save lives’ is the title of my piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. President Obama is currently receiving criticism from left and right for his policy of targeted assassination by unmanned drones. I think among a range of bad options drones are the least bad option for dealing with the threat, and explain

Rod Liddle

Tweeting can seriously damage your health

Members of the World’s Most Rational and Peaceable Religion © have been going berserk in the lovely Bangladeshi town of Cox’s Bazar. Some bloke put a photo of a burned Koran on his Facebook page and the Muslims have been rioting, taking out their infantile fury on the minority Buddhist population. Setting them on fire

Rod Liddle

Hugo Chavez dies. Pillocks mourn

According to The Grauniad, the world has lost a colossus, a political giant, an inspiring politician dedicated to rooting out corruption and standing up for the poor, etc etc. It was Hugo Chavez they were talking about, bizarrely. They even wheeled out Tariq Ali to pen a eulogy. Martin Kettle hopped about between the cracks,

Isabel Hardman

Labour will have to get used to about-turns on policies it opposed

Yesterday Ed Miliband reiterated his party’s existing policies on immigration for voters, today Yvette Cooper went into further detail about how Labour would address the policy area in government. Like Miliband’s PPB, Cooper’s speech speech to IPPR included an acknowledgement that politicians don’t like to talk about immigration, and a mea culpa. She said Labour

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron DOES have a magic money tree

So David Cameron says there is ‘no magic money tree’. In his big economy speech today, the Prime Minister said:  ‘Now of course there are plenty of people out there with different advice about how to fix our broken economy. Some say cut more and borrow less, others cut less and borrow more. Go faster.

Isabel Hardman

Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce: the politics

What is the political impact of the Chris Huhne/Vicky Pryce case? It’s a question that you’ll hear a lot from those who view everything through what Edward Leigh might call the merciless prism of politics. And yet, as James Kirkup points out on his Telegraph blog, this is more about a terrible family breakdown than it

Germany realises the limits of the EU project

Britain isn’t the only country whose politicians are getting just a little bit jittery about an increase in Bulgarian and Romanian migrants. In this week’s Spectator, Rod Liddle examines the German and Dutch response to the lifting of transitional controls. We were enjoined by the Romanians to believe that our fears of being ‘flooded’ or

Vicky Pryce found guilty

Vicky Pryce has been found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of perverting the course of justice by taking speeding points for her ex-husband Chris Huhne. Huhne had already pleaded guilty, but Pryce had pleaded not guilty on the grounds of marital coercion. The jury rejected her defence. The pair will be sentenced at a later

Do public sector job cuts hit women disproportionately?

As we move towards the budget we will be hearing more and more warnings about the impact of further cuts in public sector employment. One line, pursued repeatedly by the TUC and the Fawcett Society since Mr Osborne’s first budget, is that such cuts will particularly impact on women. As the public sector employs more

Steerpike

The spy who went into the fold?

What are the Times trying to say about noted Spectator fan and new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby? They have delved into his past. It turns out to have been rather eventful; but they’ve left unexplained the connections between the many interesting dots in Welby’s life. The Thunderer exposé reveals that Welby and his wife

Steerpike

Footsie at the FT

Steerpike is back in this week’s magazine. As ever, here is your preview: How much would you stump up for the Economist? Most of us would draw the line at a fiver, but I’m told that Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York, is drawing the line at £300 million. Bloomberg is busy relocating to London and he’s

Death of a dictator

‘In the ranking of dictators, Hugo Chávez is in the welterweight class’ this magazine said just a few weeks ago. Now the Venezuelan President has gone to that final meeting place of dictators great and small. And after the remnants of the international left have concluded their inevitable period of eulogy and mourning, it will

Alex Massie

Hugo Chavez: A Clown Masquerading As A Threat

As would-be dictators go, Hugo Chavez was on the clownish end of the repressive spectrum. By the end, however, the joke was wearing thin. He was, as Rory Carroll aptly describes him, an “elected autocrat”. But if you judge a man by the company he keeps, Chavez’s legacy takes a darker turn. In the name

Isabel Hardman

Vince Cable’s borrowing bombshell

It is only towards the tail end of his lengthy New Statesman essay on ‘the long economic stagnation of post-crisis Britain’ that Vince Cable lets off one of his bombshells. He’s clearly freelancing, and not at a bad time, either, given it’s his party’s Spring Conference this weekend. Although it’s possibly not enormously helpful for

James Forsyth

1922 Committee: Tory MPs call on Sir David Nicholson to go

Tonight’s meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs was dominated by calls for Sir David Nicholson to quit as NHS Chief Executive over the Mid Staffs scandal. Bill Cash, who was the MP for Stafford and now represents the Staffordshire seat of Stone, stood up and asked, ‘is there a single person in this room

Isabel Hardman

Tories set Labour in their crosshairs over Mid-Staffs

After today’s slightly confusing PMQs line from the Prime Minister about unidentified ‘people’ who ‘should be thinking of their positions’ after the Mid-Staffs scandal, ministers and loyal backbenchers have gone out to bat for the government. After PMQs, the Prime Minister’s sources refused to say who these ‘people’ were who needed to consider their positions.

Lloyd Evans

PMQs sketch: Miliband packs a punch, and Cameron punches back

Whooo that was nasty. Today’s was the most vicious PMQs of the last twelve months. Easily. Ed Miliband started by quoting the case of a Londoner called ‘John’ who was concerned about living standards. ‘John’, however, wasn’t a disabled pensioner but a City fat cat concerned that next year’s bonus might be capped at two

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: David Cameron’s high pay/low benefits problem

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions highlighted the problem Cameron has on high earners and bankers. Ed Miliband chose to attack on George Osborne’s opposition to the EU’s bonus cap, and he had some pretty good jokes to back it up, too. He started his attack with a case study, which tricked Tory MPs into thinking he

Who should we blame for the Mid-Staffs scandal?

As the row over who knew what and when in the Mid-Staffordshire tragedy grows, it’s worth taking a close look at the data involved. When you consider the Mid-Staffs scandal across the timeline of the previous government, the findings present extremely uncomfortable evidence for which the Labour party must be held to account. There are

Alex Massie

The Great Defence Procurement Rip-Off, Housing Edition

There’s no business like government business. Reacting to Philip Hammond’s statement on future army basing yesterday, today’s newspapers have led on either the decision to strip the Desert Rats of their tanks or on the broken promises on basing made to some parts of the country. Bringing the army back from the Rhine makes plenty

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems avoid conference grief on NHS

Norman Lamb’s announcement today that the government will re-write regulations on competition in the NHS seals up one source of grief for the Lib Dems ahead of their spring conference this weekend. Activists had been threatening an awkward showdown with the leadership on the section 75 regulations, and instead ministers (its notable that Lib Dem

Steerpike

William Hague’s beery legacy

Po-faced Labour MP Grahame Morris has been crying into his bitter this morning at young Tories up at York University who hold an annual ‘Hagueathon’ in honour of the fourteen pints the Foreign Secretary necked when he was a student. The game is very simple: right-wing students try to drink fourteen ales, with varying degrees

The truth about Ukip supporters

Who are all these folk jumping on Nigel Farage’s bandwagon? Ukip — which received just 3 per cent of the vote in 2010 — is now averaging about 11 per cent in the polls. Its rise has fuelled all sorts of speculation about where its supporters are coming from and why they’re turning to the

Isabel Hardman

Iain Duncan Smith backs the National Union of Ministers

It is significant that Iain Duncan Smith wouldn’t resist further cuts to the welfare budget in the 2015/16 spending review. This makes him one of the supporters of the National Union of Ministers movement. The Times reports that he has prepared a package of additional cuts, although I understand this doesn’t involve new ideas such