Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Make History Great Again!

Why don’t today’s children know more about history? In an age when information has never been easier to access, it’s alarming how many youngsters are ignorant about the past. In July, a survey of 1,000 schoolchildren found that four out of ten had no idea what the Battle of Britain was, while another four out

Ross Clark

Should we be scared of the Omicron variant?

Why is the government so scared of the Omicron variant? So far, most of the evidence we have for transmissibility and virulence of Omicron is based on very limited data from South Africa, but the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has now published its own preliminary study of the variant — the results of which

Why Britain should not extradite Julian Assange

Julian Assange is facing extradition after the high court ruled there is no legal impediment to him facing espionage charges in the United States. The decision would seem to justify the fears that the WikiLeaks founder and his supporters have long harboured: that the UK has essentially served as a holding pen until such time as a

Freddy Gray

Ian Maxwell on the treatment of Ghislaine

24 min listen

The trial of Ghislaine Maxwell has gripped the world, a woman accused of truly horrendous crimes. But have we as a society thrown out the cardinal rule of innocent until proven guilty? Freddy Gray sits down with her brother Ian Maxwell who believes that her treatment pre-trial has been nothing short of torturous.

Steerpike

Ian Maxwell: Ghislaine thinks Epstein was murdered

Away from the shenanigans of Westminster, the details of Ghislaine Maxwell’s ongoing trial have been filling our national newspapers this week. Images have been released of the British socialite cavorting with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein at Balmoral, the Queen’s home in Scotland, with Maxwell facing allegations that she facilitated and participated in the

Emily Hill

Emily Ratajkowski is having her cake and eating it

After listening to an hour-and-a-half of Emily Ratajkowski talking about My Body I had to look up naked pictures of her on the internet to understand what she was complaining about. She arrived fully clothed to the ‘How To Academy’ to be interviewed by Pandora Sykes. This made it hard to know whether her dangerous-sounding upbringing

Steerpike

Whitehall hit by party cancellations

After a fraught few months, you’d have hoped the hard-pressed masters and mandarins of Whitehall could let their hair down with a good old Christmas bush. Unfortunately, in the wake of ‘partygate’ a wave of cancellations is now sweeping Westminster with No. 10 canning their planned shindig on Wednesday and Rishi Sunak now calling off his

Katy Balls

Is Boris in for a Christmas rebellion?

12 min listen

Boris Johnson’s problems are not going away anytime soon and he is facing extreme pressure on several fronts going into the weekend. Hypocrisy charges from the media and the Labour Party, more scandal regarding the No. 10 flat refurbishment, and a massive Tory rebellion regarding his Plan B measures. Not to mention his recent announcement

Steerpike

Diane Abbott shills for China

With No. 10 in crisis and his party opening up a six point lead in the polls, can anything ruin Keir Starmer’s Christmas? Well the Socialist Campaign Group seem to be doing their damnedest, given their propensity for high-profile interventions to remind voters of the collection of cranks still adorning Labour’s collection of cranks. The latest leftie

Kate Andrews

The economy was stagnant even before Plan B

The economy is tantalisingly close to returning to pre-pandemic levels, now just 0.5 per cent off recovery. But this last hurdle may be the most difficult to overcome. The economy was more or less at a standstill in October, with GDP climbing by a measly 0.1 per cent. Services output grew by 0.4 per cent,

No, there is no Downing Street Christmas party loophole

Was 10 Downing Street really a rule-free zone when it came to the coronavirus regulations, the laws which have governed our lives to varying extents since the pandemic first erupted? Steven Barrett writing on Coffee House, says that it was: ‘the regulations almost certainly never applied to No. 10 anyway,’ he argues. I’m not convinced.

Katy Balls

The three problems facing Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson may be celebrating the birth of a baby daughter but that doesn’t mean the pressure on him is eased. Instead, the Prime Minister is fighting on three fronts going into the weekend. The first is the alleged Downing Street parties with more claims emerging that there were several events. While cabinet secretary Simon

Freddy Gray

Jussie Smollett and the rise of American hate hoaxing

The actor Jussie Smollett has been jailed for 150 days after staging a hate crime against himself. Freddy Gray wrote about the rise of hate hoaxing in December… So Jussie Smollett, the world’s most notorious hate hoaxer, has at last been found guilty of lying to the police.  Smollett, you may remember, was the actor

Stephen Daisley

China is right to laugh at the west

Signs of the enervating weakness of the west’s governing elites aren’t that hard to find but the case of the Winter Olympics may be the most demeaning. The UK and Canada have followed the US and Australia in announcing a diplomatic boycott of February’s games in Beijing over China’s human rights record. It’s a crushing blow

Steerpike

Revealed: Whitehall’s £33 million WFH spend

Throughout much of 2021, ministers have been keen to get civil servants back into Whitehall. Oliver Dowden called for mandarins to ‘get off their Pelotons and back to their desks’; his fellow Tory Jake Berry has accused them of ‘woke-ing from home.’ But the civil servants themselves have proved somewhat reluctant to do so, with Dave Penman, the leader

Ross Clark

Has Boris seen the Omicron data?

There was nothing but gloom about the Omicron variant at yesterday’s No. 10 press conference. But with reporters preoccupied with last year’s Christmas parties, no one thought to bring up a statement by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, who earlier told reporters that there is ‘some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta, but again

Not all Durham students want to silence Rod Liddle

A week on from Rod Liddle’s appearance at a dinner at Durham university’s South College, the fallout continues. Yesterday, my fellow students gathered outside the college, brandishing signs saying ’No hate’ and ‘Principal without principles’. Their target? The college’s head, Tim Luckhurst, who made the fateful decision to invite Liddle to speak and then to

Steerpike

Hillary Clinton’s latest masterclass

It’s been a tough few years for poor old Hillary. Since losing the 2016 contest to Donald Trump, the ‘most qualified candidate in history’ has mostly dedicated herself to collecting honorary degrees and blaming the Russians for Brexit. But now the former Senator has sallied forth for her biggest blunder since Benghazi to present her own ‘Masterclass’

The battle for Ukraine has already been lost

Forget the ‘commitment‘ of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ukraine’s sovereignty, the EU’s ‘firm and decisive’ support, and Liz Truss’s vow to ‘stand firm‘ with Ukraine. The hard truth is that the West has already lost, or rather abandoned, Ukraine. Even if it is not overrun by Russian tanks this winter, the Kremlin has a

Katy Balls

Backbench anger at Boris Johnson is at fever pitch

Boris Johnson has had a chaotic 48 hours. After a Downing Street press conference video leaked which saw aides joke about a No. 10 Christmas party, the Prime Minister has lost a senior aide, faced new allegations about illegal parties, announced new Covid restrictions, had the electoral commission rule that his refurbishment of the Downing

Robert Peston

The problem with No. 10’s drinking culture

One challenge for the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case in deciding whether a group of people drinking together is a party is that there was something of an evening drinking culture in 10 Downing Street, especially on Friday nights and especially in the press office. He’ll have to begin his adjudication of the propriety of Downing

Patrick O'Flynn

Boris cannot ask us to sacrifice more freedoms

If Boris Johnson is brought down by his team’s lax attitude to the Covid restrictions they imposed on everyone else then Keir Starmer will be fully entitled to claim a share of the spoils. For yesterday Starmer, or more likely a scriptwriter with real political nous, delivered an understated killer of a line at PMQs.

The BBC is right to ditch the ‘Bame’ label

Broadcasters in the UK have declared they will no longer use the acronym BAME to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Following a report by the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have committed themselves to avoiding this catch-all term ‘wherever possible’, in favour

Steerpike

Javid tells Boris: compulsory jabs are ‘unethical’

He’s only been at the health department for less than six months but has the Saj already gone native in the role? Steerpike hoped that the fetishisation of lockdowns, restrictions and social distancing had disappeared with the ejection of Matt Hancock from government. But last night the panicked package of measures in response to the

Gus Carter

How much trouble is Boris Johnson in?

Just how bad is it for Boris Johnson? In some ways it’s difficult to tell, this is a prime minister who seems almost unable to exist without a crisis.  But last night’s new Covid rules — mixed up with the unending stories about Downing Street parties in the depths of lockdown — seem to have ushered in