Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

How long can Miliband’s net zero wheeze last?

The current head of energy policy in this country is Muppet-made-flesh Ed Miliband. While he makes a speciality of eye-catching policy announcements; notably playing a tuneless rendition of ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ under a wind turbine, he is proving less capable of any form of actual policy implementation. His absolutism is increasingly bringing him into conflict

Freddy Gray

Can the Democrats save themselves?

17 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Semafor journalist David Weigel about the Democrat’s summer meeting in Minnesota which was cut short following the tragic shooting at a school today. They discuss what we know about the shooting so far, how the Democrats can reset their stance on law and order, and whether they can unify their stance

Steerpike

‘Cash for questions’ Tory MP cleared

‘Tory gain!’ is a cry heard less and less frequently these days. But in a rare piece of good news for the current HM Opposition, Tory MP George Freeman has today been cleared of ‘Cash for Questions’ accusations by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. The former Science Minister referred himself to the watchdog back in June following

Elon Musk is wrong about Nigel Farage

Elon Musk, the tech titan who has revolutionised space travel and electric cars, has once again waded into British politics with the subtlety of a Cybertruck crashing into a late summer vicarage garden party. His latest intervention came via a tweet endorsing Advance UK, the fledgling splinter group led by Ben Habib, former Reform UK

James Heale

Reform’s new MSP is a portent of the future

Another red-letter day for Reform as the party unveils its second defector at Holyrood. Graham Simpson, a Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), has today crossed the floor to join the ranks of Nigel Farage’s ever-expanding army. He is Reform’s second ever MSP, after Michelle Ballantyne’s short-lived spell from January to May 2021. Simpson,

Steerpike

Labour: Farage wants Britain to fail

Following Farage’s deportation declaration yesterday, Labour have gone on the attack. In a speech today on the future of EU relations, Europe Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds hit out at Farage, declaring he wants Britain to fail. Speaking at The Spectator, he told the assembled great and the not-so-good of HM Press Gallery that: Aside for his

Gavin Mortimer

France has lost control of its borders

The cynic might wonder if Keir Starmer and his government aren’t a little relieved that France is once more on the brink of political chaos. Now they have a convenient excuse for why waves of small boats continue to land on English beaches. Starmer’s Gallic counterpart, Francis Bayrou, has called a vote of confidence in

James Heale

Labour’s latest Farage attack? Brexit

As recess draws towards its close, two issues continue to plague the government. The first: how best to attack Nigel Farage, riding high on a wave of migration outrage? The second: how to frame ministers’ modest protest, at a time when the national mood favours radical change? Today, it was the turn of Nick Thomas-Symonds

Migrant riots have come to Switzerland

A stolen scooter, a police chase, and a fatal crash left a 17-year-old of migrant background dead. Within hours, Lausanne erupted in the worst rioting Switzerland has seen in decades. Two nights of violence tore apart Switzerland’s image as a stable and quiet country. Masked youths, overwhelmingly black, took to the streets, setting bins alight,

Can Kim Jong-un be persuaded to meet Donald Trump?

Hours after his first bilateral meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, the South Korean President Lee Jae-myung admitted that he feared that his one-to-one would become a ‘Zelensky moment’. Although the reality was far from the case, it made for somewhat vomit-inducing listening. As Lee showered Trump with praise for his handling of North

Can Taylor Swift make marriage great again?

Taylor Swift is engaged – and women the world over are rejoicing. Not merely because they care about Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce or the Ralph Lauren shorts he wore at the proposal, but because, in a profound way, her story has become theirs. Swift is not just the world’s biggest pop star;

It’s time to stop treating Anna Netrebko as a pariah

When I learned that the Royal Opera House had booked Russian soprano Anna Netrebko to sing Tosca in the new production which opens its 2025/26 season next month (and, later in the season, Turandot), I felt a surge of anger. How could they be so callous, so blasé, about the boycott of Russian artists with

With Love, Meghan 2 is just as ghastly as season one

Like death and taxes, the second instalment of With Love, Meghan has come around again, sloughing into view to the usual chorus of disapproval and confusion. The news recently broke that Netflix has deigned to allow Harry ‘n’ Meghan another five years of deciding not to make their future projects. In light of that, this

Brendan O’Neill

Migrant protests and the twilight of luxury beliefs

There are dark whispers on the internet about Britain’s coming ‘race war’. The protests outside migrant hotels prove the ‘native English’ have had a gutful of these ‘invaders’, say nefarious actors on X. Others foresee a civil war: a showdown between a haughty left and a resurgent right over the very soul of the kingdom.

James Kirkup

Farage is right: paying illegal migrants to leave is a good idea

Nigel Farage’s latest immigration plan contains a proposal that deserves to be taken seriously. Reform UK’s ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ promises mass deportations, detention camps, and the withdrawal from international treaties. Those elements will raise both legal and moral challenges. But another part of the package is something that deserves attention and credit: a scheme to

Steerpike

Angela Rayner in storm over council tax

Power, said Henry Kissinger, is the ultimate aphrodisiac – but it also seems to improve your property prospects too. Angela Rayner is back in the headlines, having just purchased a new £800,000 property in Hove. She is under fire amid questions about her two residences: a grace and favour flat in Admiralty House and her

Steerpike

Corbyn’s party seeks a new name

The magic grandpa is back in town! Jeremy Corbyn’s new leftwing outfit – ‘Your Party’ – is seeking a rebrand, ahead of its long-awaited launch. The outlet has so far got off to a rocky start, after co-leader Zarah Sultana shocked some involved by launching it late one Thursday night. But now, in a bid

Farage finally unveils his deportation plan

13 min listen

Today James Heale has been on quite the magical mystery tour. Bundled into a bus at 7.45 a.m. along with a group of other hacks, he was sent off to an aircraft hangar in Oxfordshire where Nigel Farage finally unveiled his party’s long-awaited deportations strategy. The unveiling of ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ was accompanied by some

In defence of Notting Hill Carnival

Every August Bank Holiday my neighbours in Notting Hill Gate pull down the shutters and disappear. Cornwall, Tuscany, anywhere but here. ‘You’re mad to come back for it’, they tell me. It is, of course, the Notting Hill Carnival. Does two million people celebrating together lose its value because a few hundred are arrested? I

Trump’s military purge is a disaster waiting to happen

The Duke of Wellington, assessing newly arrived British soldiers during the Peninsular War, is supposed to have said, ‘I don’t know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but by God, they terrify me.’ Having watched Donald Trump greet Vladimir Putin with a red carpet in Alaska a week ago, then direct his

Australia has finally woken up to the Iranian threat

Geographically, eastern Australia is about as far from Israel and Gaza as anyone can get. But given the Australian government’s provocative decision to recognise a Palestinian state while Hamas still exists, you could be forgiven for thinking the conflict is being fought on our doorstep. And on Tuesday, it was revealed that, in a very

James Heale

Farage sets out his mass deportation plan

In an Oxfordshire aircraft hanger this morning, Nigel Farage finally unveiled his party’s long-awaited deportations strategy. For six weeks, asylum and small boats has dominated the airwaves. Now, after a successful summer offensive, Farage laid out his plan to deal with the problems he has exploited so successfully. To stop the small boats, he is

Alexander Isak and the stunning hypocrisy of Liverpool fans

Anyone who has looked at modern football and muttered ‘the game’s gone’ has a point. Nothing confirms this belief more than the obscene amounts of money and the hypocrisy surrounding the drawn out transfer saga of Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak. Liverpool fans think Newcastle are behaving badly by not selling them their best player, yet

Ross Clark

Record jobless benefits are a national scandal

Quietly, without even a press release let alone a fanfare, Britain over the past 12 months has just passed a grim milestone. The number of people on out of work benefits has surpassed the peak reached in the early 1990s. Indeed, it is higher now than it was at the peak of Covid-19 in 2020.

Does Virginia Giuffre have the power to finish off Prince Andrew?

There’s an old saying that revenge is a dish best served cold. The late Virginia Giuffre has gone a step further by serving up her final helping of vengeance against Prince Andrew by publishing her sure-to-be-revelatory memoir, Nobody’s Girl, from beyond the grave this October. Giuffre collaborated with the American writer Amy Wallace on a 400-page book

Is this the end for Emmanuel Macron?

Prime Minister François Bayrou has recalled parliament for a confidence vote on 8 September, betting he can outmanoeuvre a surging protest movement before it paralyzes France. The grassroots ‘Bloquons tout’ campaign, echoing the gilets jaunes and fuelled by the hard left, plans to halt trains, buses, schools, taxis, refineries and ports. It is a general

Tom Slater

Will Donald Trump meet Lucy Connolly?

‘Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government & politicians with them. I feel physically sick knowing what these families will now have to endure. If that makes me racist, so be it.’ Britain’s free-speech wars are

Gareth Roberts

Where did it all go so wrong for Britain?

If I had to summarise, in a word, the mood of the nation in 2025, I’d probably plump for fraught. There is something in the air that I can’t quite recall having sniffed before, the kind of crackle that might be quite exciting or intriguing if you were standing a little bit further back from