Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Isabel Hardman

Boris thinks he can ride this scandal out

Boris Johnson has now apologised for receiving a fixed penalty notice for attending a lockdown-busting party. In a clearly very carefully scripted statement read to camera, the Prime Minister also made it clear he hadn’t thought he was breaking the rules by attending the gathering in the Cabinet Room, which lasted ‘less than ten minutes’.

Steerpike

Boris and Carrie apologise for lockdown fines

This evening the Johnsons have apologised for the fines dished out by the Metropolitan police earlier today. First up was Carrie Johnson who it appears organised the infamous birthday party in June 2020 that led to her husband and next-door neighbour both being fined. Whoops! A spokesperson for the First Lady of Downing Street said that: ‘Mrs Johnson

Katy Balls

Is Rishi politically naive?

Before the war in Ukraine, ministers and Tory MPs believed a fixed penalty notice for the Prime Minister would mean the end of Boris Johnson. It would result in enough no-confidence letters from Tory MPs to trigger a leadership contest which would run into the summer. There would be a new Prime Minister in time

Robert Peston

This is a constitutional crisis

The police have today concluded that Boris Johnson, the Chancellor and the PM’s wife all attended illegal parties that breached Covid laws written by the PM. This is most serious for the prime minister of the three of them because it was he who told MPs on 8 December that he had been ‘repeatedly assured’ there

Isabel Hardman

Boris and Rishi fined: what happens next?

15 min listen

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been told that they are going to be fixed penalty notices by the Metropolitan Police over parties held in Downing Street. The Chancellor has already had a tough week – might he now resign? Could Tory MPs push the Prime Minister out of No. 10? Isabel Hardman speaks to

Patrick O'Flynn

Why Boris may well survive

When the original Sue Gray report was published at the end of January it seemed indisputable that Boris Johnson would be toast if he received a fixed penalty fine as a result of the partygate furore. Back then the PM was hanging on to majority support on the Tory benches in Parliament by his fingertips.

Steerpike

Six times Boris and Rishi denied breaking the law

Well, that’s that then. This afternoon the Metropolitan Police fined the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of Exchequer for breaking lockdown laws. It follows an investigation into alleged Covid law-breaking at 12 gatherings in Whitehall and Downing Street. Both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have maintained their innocence right up until this week. Below are six of

Alex Massie

The Prime Minister must go

It isn’t just the fines. It isn’t just the behaviour that has led to the Prime Minister being issued a fixed penalty notice by the Metropolitan police. It isn’t just the lies told about that behaviour, lies issued with the most sweeping confidence inside and outside the House of Commons. It isn’t just the fines

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak fined over partygate

Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are both to receive fixed penalty notices for attending lockdown parties, it has just emerged. The police fines for breaking Covid laws, which these two men created, throw everything around the Prime Minister and the Chancellor into the air. Previously, many Tory MPs had said this would be a resigning matter

Katy Balls

Are Tories faced with another sleaze scandal?

11 min listen

Crispin Blunt, a Conservative MP, was forced to apologise today after he tweeted support last night for Imran Ahmad Khan, another Tory MP who was found guilty of sexual assault. His statement called the verdict ‘a dreadful miscarriage of justice’ that relied on ‘lazy tropes of LGBT+ people’. ‘The condemnation has been pretty universal. I

What next for Imran Khan, Pakistan’s ousted leader?

On Sunday, Imran Khan became the first prime minister in Pakistan’s history to be ousted by a no-confidence vote. Followers of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party naturally took to the streets; much of their anger has been directed at the generals who engineered their leader’s downfall. It was a clash with the all-powerful military that, like

Why are councils blocking homes for Ukrainian refugees?

Over the course of three days in September 1939, 1.5 million evacuees were sent to rural locations across Britain considered to be safe from the impending war. In a staggering logistical feat facilitated by thousands of volunteer helpers – from teachers to railway staff – children were swiftly relocated, with gas masks around their necks,

Freddy Gray

Will Hunter Biden finally bring down his father?

It was meant to be a kumbaya moment for the Democrats. Barack Obama, the still revered 44th President, would make his first formal visit to Joe Biden’s White House – and sprinkle some of his leadership magic over a struggling administration. Barack and Joe, the old duo, were to mark the 12th anniversary of what

Steerpike

Defra director: I’m with Extinction Rebellion

Westminster’s favourite millionaire environmentalists are it again. It seems that one or other of the Goldsmith brothers can’t go three months without sticking their foot in it. Today it’s the turn of Ben, the less prominent but no less gaffe-prone millionaire, who is one of the non-executive directors in Defra – the environment department in which

Patrick O'Flynn

It’s time to clamp down on militant protesters

The right to protest against the policies of the government of the day, the system in general or even just to ‘stick it to the man’, as 1960s radicals used to put it, is fundamental to a free society. But when the freedom to protest is deliberately used by activists to take away the freedom

Steerpike

Crispin Blunt’s extraordinary intervention

Crispin Blunt has had quite the 24 hours. The Tory MP yesterday made an extraordinary intervention in the case of Imran Ahmad Khan, the Wakefield backbencher found guilty of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Blunt decided to release a highly unusual and hyberbolic statement which lambasted the conviction as a ‘dreadful miscarriage of justice’ incited by ‘lazy

Tom Slater

Why is Durham trying to ‘decolonise’ maths?

Is maths racist? That’s the question apparently troubling the department of mathematical sciences at Durham University at the moment. As the Telegraph reports, the department has put out a new guide on ‘decolonisation’, urging maths academics to ensure their teaching is ‘more inclusive’ and not dominated by a Eurocentric view on the world. Of course,

If Sunak goes the Treasury needs a real low-tax Tory

It could be Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister. Or Nadhim Zahawi, the education minister, and before that the minister who helped make the vaccine roll-out such a success. Or perhaps Sajid Javid will even get his old job back. With an investigation opening into his financial affairs, and with questions over his judgment growing by

Steerpike

Exclusive: disgraced MP to quit

Independent MP Imran Ahmad Khan has today decided to stand down from the Commons – three days after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy. Elected in December 2019 for the ‘Red Wall’ seat of Wakefield, the backbencher had the Conservative whip removed in June 2021 after he was charged for the offence.  The outgoing MP has

The Scottish Greens are in cloud cuckoo land on trans rights

A minister in the Scottish government has likened people who share my opinions to racists or anti-Semites. Apparently my views on how best to support and include transgender people in society place me on the same footing as those who condemn and exclude others based on their race. This latest outrage comes from Lorna Slater,

Ross Clark

Could we be heading for a second Covid recession?

The political story for the moment is the cost of living crisis. But by the end of the year could we be talking about a recession instead? We shouldn’t read too much into one year’s economic growth figures, especially given how often they are revised upwards or downwards. But February’s figures, published this morning, have

Steerpike

CCHQ’s unfortunate Jimmy Savile link

Oh dear. Just last week, on the day that Boris Johnson raised National Insurance, it was pointed out to the bright young things at Tory high command that they might want to remove from their website his, er, manifesto pledge to not hike the tax. It’s still proudly displayed there online as part of six manifesto commitments, adorned

Russia is trying to destroy Ukraine’s energy sector

We are seven weeks into the war and the level of destruction in Ukraine is mounting. Every single day we learn more about Russia’s scorched earth tactics and about the atrocities its forces have committed in the areas they once occupied. But with another Russian surge in Ukraine’s east looming, one trend is not sufficiently

Stopping the next Hunter Biden laptop cover-up

Hunter Biden reportedly paid over $1 million in back taxes for income he never claimed, but which was found in his emails — the ones from his laptop that had been dismissed by the mainstream media as Russian disinformation. The FBI is conducting an ongoing investigation into Hunter’s business activities based on the contents of

Gavin Mortimer

France is set for serious social unrest

So it’s Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen once again, and for many millions of French that is a deeply depressing prospect. There were violent protests in the Brittany city of Rennes shortly after the result of the first round of voting was announced, as an estimated 500 people vented their anger against ‘fascism’ and

Steerpike

Nicola Sturgeon’s adolescent troubles

After the Derek Mackay scandal, you’d have thought the SNP would want to distance itself from 16 year-olds. Far from it, it seems, for the bairns of tomorrow are central to Nicola Sturgeon’s ambitions today. Support for independence is flagging. The public sector services are creaking. Calls for an investigation into the ferries fiasco are growing.

Freddy Gray

Like him or loathe him, Macron is Europe’s driving force

If you want to know why Marine Le Pen almost certainly won’t win the French presidency on 24 April, listen to the speech of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the man who came third in today’s first round of the presidential election. ‘We know who we will never vote for!’ said Mélenchon, the far-left autodidact who somehow outdid

Jonathan Miller

French election: Macron has been weakened

The polls have closed in France and projections show President Macron on 28.5 per cent with the rightist Marine Le Pen on 24.6 per cent. The ultra-leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon is in third place on 20.3 per cent and is thus eliminated from round two on 24 April. The result looks dangerous for Macron. The nationalist right

Sunday shows round-up: Sunak’s wife story ‘unfortunate’

How quickly political fortunes can change. Rishi Sunak’s Covid boost was always likely to fade once the purse strings were retightened. Is this the end of his prime ministerial ambitions? Just as the National Insurance rise begins to kick in, the Sunak family’s tax affairs have been bought under serious scrutiny. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips resumed

Jake Wallis Simons

Could Ukraine learn from the Mossad Nazi hunters?

Since the start of the war, many comparisons have been drawn between Israel and Ukraine, not least by President Zelensky. Last week, he said he wanted his country to become a ‘big Israel’ in terms of its focus on security in the years to come. And, of course, in terms of a plucky, advanced democracy