Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Ross Clark

The real scandal of HS2

As if the saga of HS2 could not get any worse, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander will reportedly announce today that, actually, the railway line will not be open by its latest proposed date of 2033, and that 2035 is now more realistic. But I wouldn’t book your ticket just yet. Some analysts believe the line

Melanie McDonagh

MPs have opened the door to infanticide

Well, it’s hello to prenatal infanticide now that Tonia Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill has passed the Commons after all of two hours’ debate with 379 MPs voting in favour. Can we get our heads round what that means? Nothing a woman does in relation to her own pregnancy can make her

Why Britain needs Israel to win against Iran

It’s understandable that the focus of coverage of Israel’s strikes on Iran, and the Iranian regime’s response, has been entirely on the potential regional consequences of Israel’s mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. But although this may seem more like a version of Neville Chamberlain’s infamous ‘quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom

Nick Tyrone

Why liberals ignored the grooming gang scandal

For many years, liberals refused to talk about the grooming gangs scandal. The systematic sexual abuse and rape of hundreds, possibly thousands, of vulnerable children by offenders from ethnic minorities was a story that too many people were happy to ignore. There was an effective prohibition on discussing it in left and liberal circles. Grooming

MPs vote to decriminalise abortion

MPs have voted to make the biggest change to abortion laws in 50 years this evening, backing the decriminalising of abortion for women at any point in their pregnancy. An amendment to the crime and policing bill was passed by 379 ayes to 137 noes after MPs were given a free vote on the issue

Steerpike

Ex-Tory MP pleads guilty to harassment

To Cardiff, where a former Conservative politician has pleaded guilty to harassing their ex-wife. Katie Wallis, formerly Jamie Wallis who represented Bridgend from 2019-2024, today admitted to sending unwanted messages both over the phone and via voice note and will be sentenced next month. Wallis had been in a relationship with ex-wife Rebecca Lovell for

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves’s non-dom crackdown has truly backfired

Rachel Reeves may finally have seen sense. A report in this morning’s Financial Times suggests she is ‘exploring’ performing a 180 on the changes to inheritance tax rules which meant non doms would have to pay the death tax on their global assets – even on wealth earned before they came to the UK. As I explained in

James Heale

Kemi Badenoch defends the Tories’ record on grooming gangs

Kemi Badenoch said that ‘survivors and their families’ have been ‘ignored for far too long’ as she appeared alongside those affected by the grooming gangs’ scandal. ‘What this morning is about is not the politics, but giving…(victims) a platform to say what they want to see from a national inquiry,’ the Tory leader said at

Can you ‘take the politics out’ of the grooming gangs scandal?

13 min listen

Yesterday Yvette Cooper announced a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal after the Casey Review found that a disproportionate number of Asian men were responsible and that governments and authorities had failed to step in over fears of racism. Anxious to press Labour on their U-turn – memorably, Starmer accused the Tories of ‘jumping

Israel isn’t close to victory over Iran

Amongst a swirl of pronouncements from Tel Aviv, Washington and Tehran – and against the dramatic backdrop of an Iranian TV presenter’s rather tired fire and fury being interrupted by the sound of bombs – Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel is close to “victory.” Yet despite Ayatollah Khamenei being hidden in a bunker, experiencing regular panic

France’s toddler screen ban is pure state overreach

The French government is preparing to ban all screen time for children under the age of three. The measure, announced by the Minister of Labour, Health, Solidarity and Families, Catherine Vautrin, will form part of a broader national plan to combat screen use among the very young. Due to be launched in the autumn, the

A grooming gang inquiry will expose Labour’s guilty men

Sir Keir Starmer claimed in January that those who were concerned about the systematic rape and abuse of little girls were ‘calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right’. Yesterday, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, promised that victims would finally get the full national inquiry which campaigners have been

Will the Maga isolationists forgive Trump for Iran?

That was fast. In the space of a few weeks, President Donald J. Trump has gone from being the idol of the Republican isolationists to the hero of the hawks. Only a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal editorial page was complaining that ‘Maga isolationists want the President to pressure Israel to stop the war before Iran’s nuclear

Michael Simmons

The good and bad news about the UK-US trade deal

Donald Trump and Keir Starmer’s transatlantic trade deal has finally been signed. Before making an early exit from the G7, the US president approved an executive order giving legal effect to parts of the US-UK deal. The outline of the agreement was settled weeks earlier during a conference call, with Trump in the White House

Steerpike

Casey hits out at ‘politicisation’ of grooming gang report

As Westminster continues to dissect the truly troubling findings laid out by Baroness Casey’s report into Britain’s grooming gang scandal, the crossbench peer has now given her thoughts on the political reaction to the review. Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Monday, Casey hit out at parliamentarians for how they’d responded to the project,

How Iran is piercing Israel’s state-of-the-art missile defences

Since the beginning of ‘Operation True Promise III’ – launched after Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, leadership targets, and military sites – Iran has fired over 370 ballistic missiles at Israel, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on Monday. This is not the first time Israel has faced large-scale Iranian missile attacks. Similar volleys

The remarkable quest to identify Captain Cook’s Endeavour

The announcement that a shipwreck in Newport Harbor, 200 miles up the coast from New York City, has been proven to be James Cook’s HMS Endeavour, will not surprise those who have followed the search for years. In 1768, when Cook set out to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti, the first of his

Steerpike

Is this the worst Labour MP in parliament?

The publication of Louise Casey’s report into rape gangs was a sobering affair. But not, apparently, for Shaun Davies, Labour MP for Telford since July 2024. He previously served as the Shropshire town’s council leader from 2016 to 2024. More than 1,000 children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades, according to the Independent Inquiry for

Israel will not be cowed by Iran

Yesterday morning, as families in central Israel emerged from bomb shelters after yet another sleepless night, the air was once again rent by sirens and the thunder of incoming missiles. Fires ignited across multiple cities. In Petah Tikva, a building lay smouldering from a direct hit. In Haifa, Iranian missiles struck near the port, severely

Is France succumbing to the British disease?

Sometimes one can almost get away from today’s worries. I spent the other weekend at a big family get-together in a village overlooking a famous cathedral city – the great church was visible on the horizon. There were people from all walks of life, all ages, and from many parts of the country. People smiled

Stephen Daisley

Why is the US so reluctant to fight Iran?

MAGA (Make America Great Again) isolationists all agree: the United States must not be drawn into the Israel-Iran war. Donald Trump was not elected president to become entangled in pointless foreign conflicts. Over on Truth Social, Trump’s hokey-pokey routine continues – in, out, in, out, send the Fifth Fleet out? – and America Firsters despair

Max Jeffery

Ballymena got what it wanted

Thursday evening. All quiet in Ballymena so far, after three nights of wrath. On the kerb of Waring Street – just off Larne Street, which rioters tore through on Tuesday and left burning and beaten – sit James and Casper, both 16. James is wearing a balaclava with a Rottweiler’s face printed on the front.

Freddy Gray

Operation Rising: will Trump get dragged into the Israel-Iran conflict?

20 min listen

Relations between Iran and Israel are deteriorating rapidly, with comparisons being drawn to Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be advocating for regime change in Tehran, reportedly encouraging the United States to take military action. Donald Trump, who previously came close to authorising a strike, is

Baroness Casey has not held back

Baroness Casey’s ‘national audit’ of child sexual exploitation was published this afternoon, and it’s now clear why the government changed course so quickly over the weekend, and why they’ve immediately accepted all of Casey’s recommendations. She doesn’t hold back. She identifies the scale of the rape gangs, the specific ethnic groups who make up the

Kemi was at her best skewering Labour on grooming gangs

Yvette Cooper had come to the House of Commons to shut, as loudly and with as much gusto as she could manage, a stable door long after the horse had bolted. The government was finally doing what it had long derided as ‘a far-right bandwagon’ and agreed to a national inquiry into the Pakistani rape

Isabel Hardman

Will Labour actually act on the Casey grooming gang report?

Has the government really U-turned on grooming gangs? Six months after resisting a national inquiry into the crimes committed against young girls by men of predominantly Asian heritage, ministers have announced one. But Yvette Cooper’s statement to MPs this afternoon about the exact nature of that inquiry suggested the government had executed something a little