Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

What a gay sex tape says about the state of Iran

The revelation that an Iranian official in charge of Islamic values has been caught on video having sex with another man will have come as no surprise to much of the Iranian population.   The hypocrisy of the ruling class has long been a topic of discussion among Iranians Few care about the individual’s sexual preferences but

Gareth Roberts

The BBC deserves its declining audience figures

So, the figures are in. The total weekly audience for BBC Radio 2 has dropped by a million in the last three months. Those are the three months, significantly, since the somewhat rushed and awkward departure of its biggest draw, the immaculate and imperturbable Ken Bruce. Radio 4 has likewise managed to lose 1.3 million

Steerpike

Five of the worst Gary Neville moments

Having previously been known simply as ‘that footy pundit off the telly’, over the past year Gary Neville seems to have been trying to manoeuvre his way into politics. The former Man Utd captain signed up as a Labour member, conducted a cringeworthy Q&A with Keir Starmer at last year’s party conference, and has consistently

Steerpike

Rishi Sunak, the ‘Swiftie’

Taylor Swift mania has hit Los Angeles this weekend as the best-selling songstress takes her sold out Eras tour to the Sunny State. It means local residents are on high alert that there is a chance they cross paths with Swift. So spare a thought for the young woman who headed to an early morning

Cindy Yu

Do chess players make for better politicians?

11 min listen

Rishi Sunak is apparently looking to expand the teaching of chess in schools, and to install chess sets in public parks, and will unveil the policy alongside a giant chessboard in the No. 10 garden. What is the Prime Minister thinking? And what does it say about Sunak’s idea of education?  Cindy Yu speaks to

Will this Scottish by-election bring down the SNP?

The first by-election in Scotland since the SNP’s change of leadership is a huge test for First Minister Humza Yousaf. If the nationalists lose the seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, made vacant when constituents recalled their MP Margaret Ferrier after she broke Covid rules, Yousaf will face difficult questions about his party’s direction of

Beijing is right to be worried about the Chinese economy

Going by the number of state and Communist party plans to ‘boost consumption’ over the summer, it appears that Beijing is rattled about the Chinese economy.   It is right to be worried. Deep-seated and systemic issues that predate Covid are tearing away at China’s fabled dynamism. These include excessive debt, low productivity, a flawed real

Steerpike

Why won’t Keir Mather apologise to Germaine Greer?

Labour’s newest and youngest MP, Keir Mather, is fresh out of Oxford – and on a path to the very top of his party. But the 25-year-old, who overturned a 20,000-vote Tory majority to win the Selby and Ainsty by-election last month, shares more than his first name with his party leader and boss, Keir

Why should I pick up my dog’s poo?

In my local countryside lanes and wooded walks, no one is bagging the excrement deposited by the deer, foxes, rabbits or birds. There are luxuriant piles of horse manure in the fields. Cow dung is positively welcomed on the common by boho surburbanites for its contribution to biodiversity. Pet cats deposit their poop not just

Alexei Navalny’s ‘Stalinist’ jail sentence is no surprise

Alexei Navalny – the most high-profile figure of Russia’s political opposition – has just been sentenced to 19 years in a ‘special regime prison colony’. This was no surprise. Navalny himself predicted the ‘Stalinist’ sentence for a variety of criminal charges, some relating to ‘extremism’, in a blog post the day before the sentence was handed down: ‘The formula for calculating

Freddy Gray

UFOs – is the truth out there?

18 min listen

The US government is apparently hiding a programme to capture and reverse-engineer UFOs. At a congressional hearing last week, David Grusch, a former intelligence official who worked with a Pentagon team looking into UFOs, said ‘non-human’ objects had been recovered by the government. Are they finding aliens, or Chinese and Russian drones? What’s behind the

The private sector won’t save the NHS

NHS waiting lists are at record levels, with the number of people in the queue for treatment at 7.5 million. Patients referred to specialists are waiting longer than ever for hospital appointments and vital health investigations. The government’s announcement today that it will use the private sector to help tackle the backlog is surely logical

Steerpike

Watch: Tory minister prepares for a Labour election win

Oh dear. It seems Health Minister Maria Caulfield failed to get the memo on government lines to take this morning, when she made the fatal error of assuming that her own party would be defeated in the next election. Speaking to Sky News as part of her morning broadcast round, she questioned the consequences of

Cindy Yu

If Rishi halves inflation, will you feel richer?

14 min listen

Rishi Sunak is likely to hit his target of halving inflation by the end of the year, according to the latest Bank of England forecasts. But is that enough to make people feel better off, and will the Tories reap any political benefits for doing it? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Simmons.

Ross Clark

Is the ‘era of cheap food’ over?

Not so long ago, some were arguing that cheap food was a problem in Britain. We’re unlikely to hear such complaints now that food inflation remained at 17.3 per cent in June, not far off its peak of 19.2 percent in March. Is this a blip? An economist from PwC thinks not and has declared that the ‘era

Gavin Mortimer

Macron is pushing France to tipping point

In the last three years, Mali, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Niger have all undergone coup d’états. The most recent regime change was last week in the west African nation of Niger, where Mohamed Bazoum was overthrown by the elements of the presidential guard.   The coup’s leader is Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane. Last Wednesday he

Could Trump’s indictments boost his election chances?

When Donald Trump’s attorney and spokeswoman Alina Habba took to the streets on Thursday in front of the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, she described the former president as ‘the leading candidate right now for president for either party’. It’s a slight stretch, but only slightly. Trump is within the margin of error against Joe Biden

Is Sadiq Khan trying to make London’s schools more dangerous?

London’s schools are about to become less safe. The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has decided to appoint Maureen McKenna to join its violence reduction unit (VRU), with a view to reducing crime by ‘driving down exclusions in schools’ while ‘increasing a sense of students’ belonging’. The VRU has equally noble aims: ‘we believe violence is

Will Justin Trudeau’s divorce affect his career?

Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, have jointly announced on their Instagram accounts that they are separating after 18 years of marriage: Hi everyone, Sophie and I would like to share the fact that after many meaningful and difficult conversations, we have made the decision to separate. As always, we remain

Stephen Daisley

Locking up shoplifters won’t solve Britain’s crime problem

The Conservative party has had an idea. It’s not a very good idea, but it’s an idea and those are rare for the Tories. The idea is to start banging up repeat shoplifters and other low-level offenders. Transport minister Richard Holden has complained that ‘the police haven’t concentrated enough on some of these offences’ even though ‘they

Steerpike

Where did it go wrong for the Scottish Greens?

Dear oh dear. Things haven’t been going well for for the Green party lately and now they’ve just got a whole lot worse. The Green’s first UK parliamentarian and former leader of the Scottish Greens Robin Harper has quit the party, announcing that the Greens have ‘lost the plot’. Mr S wonders how long it

Stephen Daisley

Robin Harper is right: the Scottish Greens have ‘lost the plot’

Robin Harper, the first Green parliamentarian elected in the UK, has resigned from the Scottish Greens, saying his former party has ‘lost the plot’. His resignation letter cites ‘serious concerns’ about the party’s handling of trans issues and hopes ‘the Scottish parliament will return to listening mode’ following the Cass and Sandyford reviews into gender identity services

Chess doesn’t need Rishi Sunak’s cheesy cheerleading

There’s something embarrassing about Rishi Sunak’s plan to revive chess in Britain. The PM is set to announce half-a-million pounds funding for the English Chess Federation. The money could be used to send teams to international tournaments, install chess tables in parks and teach the game to school kids. But Rishi’s cheesy cheerleading for government-sponsored

Is Scottish Labour embarrassed by Starmer?

They had balloons, handmade posters and a big red van lit up with ‘Michael Shanks: A Fresh Start’ flashing on the side. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election is Labour’s to lose and don’t they know it. Despite the pressure on the modern studies teacher and now-Labour candidate Michael Shanks, the atmosphere at Labour’s by-election

Freddy Gray

Why has Trump been indicted…again?

19 min listen

Freddy Gray sits down with Jacob Heilbrunn to discuss Donald Trump’s latest indictment over January 6th. The former President faces 78 charges which, if found guilty, could mean he will spend several years in prison.