Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Lloyd Evans

Rishi’s PMQs victory counts for nothing

Honours dominated the exchanges at PMQs. Sir Keir asked why the Tories have spent an entire week bickering about which Conservative deserves ennoblement. Rishi claimed that he followed ‘established convention’ in approving Boris’s lavender-list. A bit of a whopper. He clearly didn’t support the candidacy of Nadine Dorries who complained in frothing prose about the ‘sinister

The Vodafone-Three merger could be a Brexit win

There are plenty of reasons for viewing today’s huge merger deal between the UK mobile networks of Vodafone and Three with suspicion. It could reduce choice for consumers. It may lead to job losses. And it is possible that they will downgrade their service even more than they already have, cut back on investment, and

Isabel Hardman

Has Labour really U-turned on childcare?

Is Labour U-turning on another big spending pledge? Last week, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back the party’s £28 billion green energy spending plan to take account of a tougher economic picture. Today, reports suggest the party is planning a similar retreat on childcare, dropping plans for a universal system in favour of means testing.

Could cutting inheritance tax keep the Tories in power?

Is cutting, or abolishing, inheritance tax the key to keeping the Tories in power? Inheritance tax is certainly unpopular and is described by some voters as a ‘death tax’. Back in 2007, the Tories were in a similar predicament to the one they find themselves in now: they consistently trailed Labour in the polls. But

Britain must not import America’s abortion culture war

British politicians tend to avoid the issue of abortion. The subject divides America bitterly, yet Britain has opted for consensus. Now and again, however, a debate about abortion flares up – as it did this week after a number of pressure groups reacted with anger to the jailing of a mother of three who induced

Isabel Hardman

Backbench Tories support Sunak at PMQs

Keir Starmer had a dilemma at Prime Minister’s Questions. Focus on the Boris Johnson psychodrama, or the more tangible story about mortgages and interests rates? He went for Tory infighting first. But then Sunak took the curious approach of deciding to use Starmer’s opener as an opportunity to address the Johnson question head on, rather

Why is the SNP refusing to give Sturgeon the boot?

Nicola Sturgeon – progressive icon, feminist champion, scourge of corrupt Tories – is, almost by definition, incapable of wrongdoing. As she insisted after her arrest on Sunday: ‘I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.’ It is her truth. Her MSPs agree and have, we’re told, sent her flowers to soothe

Cindy Yu

Nadine’s revenge

13 min listen

Having said she’ll step down, Nadine Dorries has now said that she won’t formally resign as an MP until later this year… It’s hard to see this as anything other than revenge taken on Rishi Sunak, so as to prolong the by-election pain, Katy Balls says. Cindy Yu also talks to Kate Andrews about the

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries causes Rishi Sunak even more misery

She’s done it again. Having re-ignited the Tory wars with her shock plans to quit parliament last Friday, now Nadine Dorries is delaying her resignation plans – prolonging the by-election misery for Rishi Sunak. The former Culture Secretary may not leave the Commons until the summer recess, pushing a by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency into

Kate Andrews

GDP grows by 0.2% as the economy continues to stagnate

The economy grew by 0.2 per cent in April, following on from a confirmed 0.3 per cent contraction in March. This fits the trend this year of small ebbs and flows in GDP, which all together add up to extremely little overall growth this year. This is now what the big forecasters have predicted, from the Office

Lisa Haseldine

Everything we know about the Nottingham attack so far

Three people have died and three were injured in an attack in the centre of Nottingham yesterday.  In the early hours of Tuesday morning, two students from the University of Nottingham were found stabbed to death on a street to the west of the city centre. Police were called to the scene just after 4

Donald Trump’s arraignment was a circus

The scene in Miami was somewhat less than promised today. The predicted tens of thousands of protesters were replaced instead by the handful of eccentrics who always seem to find ways to show up at things involving Donald Trump – even historically significant things like the first federal arraignment of a president of the United

Kate Andrews

Andrew Bailey’s evidence session was the opposite of reassuring

‘There are obviously lessons to be learned,’ said Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey at today’s House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. It was a point he repeated many times over, in reference to the inflation crisis that has plagued Britain for close to two years now. ‘We have to learn lessons from the experiences we’ve

Melanie McDonagh

Carla Foster’s case isn’t a miscarriage of justice

What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown up by the grim case of Carla Foster, the mother who’s been jailed for 28 months (in practice, it’ll be half that) for inducing an abortion outside the legal limit using pills at home. Her

Steerpike

SNP send flowers to Nicola Sturgeon ‘as a mark of sympathy’

‘Bizarre’ is a high bar in Scottish politics these days, but the SNP has comfortably cleared it once again. The party’s deputy leader Keith Brown revealed Nationalist MSPs have agreed to ‘send some flowers’ to Nicola Sturgeon ‘as a mark of sympathy, given what she has been through over recent days’.  Sturgeon was arrested on Sunday

Ross Clark

Don’t get too excited about deglobalisation

One difference between the rivalry with China and the cold war is that the Soviet Union was completely economically segregated from the western world. That is not the case with China nowadays: cheap goods have flooded western markets for decades. But are we heading back to the multipolar world of the 20th century? China and

Why junior doctors in Scotland voted to strike

Junior doctors in Scotland will strike for three days in July after rejecting the Scottish government’s pay offer. Two thirds of eligible junior doctors turned out to vote on the pay deal, and 71 per cent rejected the offer.  The 72-hour strike will take place from 7am on Wednesday 12 July to 6.59am on Saturday

Stephen Daisley

What good will locking up Carla Foster do?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a 44-year-old woman, Carla Foster, unlawfully aborted her unborn baby. She procured the necessary drugs from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by leading them to believe her pregnancy was just over seven weeks in. In fact, she understood herself to be either 28 or 30 weeks in gestation. A post-mortem

Steerpike

Boris Johnson: ‘I’ll be back’

Boris Johnson formally resigned as an MP yesterday – but don’t expect theformer PM to throw in the towel any time soon. After a pretty unedifying slanging match with Rishi Sunak in the press about his resignation honours’ list, Johnson stepped down from his role as the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. But, Boris wasn’t quite done torpedoing Sunak’s desperate efforts to preserve the fragile Tory peace since becoming leader last

Putin’s anti-western oil alliance is coming unstuck

As Russia frantically attempts to hold on to its territorial gains in the face of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, there are early signs that it is also failing to retain its diplomatic and foreign policy advances. The anti-Western energy alliances it had constructed around the world with many of the leading oil and gas producers,

Gavin Mortimer

Berlusconi was the first leader to glimpse the looming migrant crisis

Silvio Berlusconi should be remembered for more than just his passion for football and sex. He was the first European leader this century to identity illegal immigration as an existential threat to the stability and cohesion of the continent.   Ironically, the former Italian prime minister’s infamous ‘Bunga-Bunga’ parties reportedly owed their name to a joke

Full text: Carla Foster’s sentencing remarks

On 12 June, Carla Foster, 44, was sentenced to 28 months’ imprisonment at Stoke on Trent crown court for aborting her unborn baby using abortion pills after the legal cut-off point of 24 weeks. Here are the remarks made by the judge, the Hon. Mr Justice Pepperall, during her sentencing:

Why do we never talk about Islamic slavery?

The beautiful Siwa Oasis in the far western deserts of Egypt is a remarkable place, for multiple reasons. It’s probably been inhabited, continuously, for 12,000 years. Alexander the Great came here to consult the already renowned Oracle of Amun-Ra in 332BC (some say he is buried here, as he loved Siwa so much). You can swim in Roman cisterns fed

Steerpike

Privileges Committee prepares for Johnson judgement

Get ready for another 48 hours of Boris drama. The Privileges Committee is expected to publish its findings tomorrow into whether Johnson knowingly misled the House, some 14 months after the Commons voted for an inquiry into his statements on Partygate. The former PM claimed that he was advised by senior officials that both Covid rules and

Gareth Roberts

We are far stranger than aliens

You may have missed it amid all the other news of the last few days, but the aliens have apparently landed. In fact, they’ve been landing – or more commonly crashing, the clumsy green scatterbrains – for decades. And just like in the movies, secret military departments around the world have been scooping up the

Should Nicola Sturgeon be suspended from the SNP?

Despite calls for Sturgeon to be suspended from the party, Humza Yousaf has said today that he will not do so, telling BBC Scotland that he sees ‘no reason’ to suspend a party member who has been released without charge. Not all SNP politicians agree with him, though. Angus MacNeil, the MP for Na h-Eileanan