Is Biden tougher on China than Trump?
31 min listen
With historian Michael Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Latest from Coffee House
All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Thursday
Will the EU go through with its threat of blocking vaccines?
12 min listen
The European Medicines Agency has announced that the Oxford-Astrazeneca jab is safe after all. In light of this, will the European Commission go through with its threat of banning vaccines from leaving the bloc? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Boris Johnson attempts to calm vaccine concerns
The message from Boris Johnson’s press conference this evening was one of reassurance. Following the decision by several EU member states to suspend use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine over concerns about a potential link with blood clots, the Prime Minister said that the vaccine is safe and that ‘the benefits of the vaccine in preventing
George Galloway is toxic to the Unionist cause
My mob originates, we have come to assume, from somewhere in Ireland, though exactly where we don’t know. Humza Yousaf, justice secretary in the Scottish government, was born in Glasgow to immigrant parents — one from Pakistan, the other from Kenya. We were contemporaries at university (Glasgow), I became a journalist around the time he
Is India to blame for the UK’s vaccine delay?
The UK vaccination programme has been such a success to date that until yesterday evening it seemed a formality that the government would achieve its target of offering all adults at least a first dose of a Covid vaccine by July. Indeed, on Monday it looked as if this date might be brought forwards when
What’s wrong with saying ‘Rule, Britannia’?
In the age of Zoom lectures and distance learning, it is almost comforting to know that students’ unions are still up to their mad censorious antics. The new normal cannot dent their zealotry, as a recent story from the University of Aberdeen attests. The Telegraph reports today that Elizabeth Heverin, a 19-year-old history and politics
Could the Green party revive Germany’s fortunes?
The BMWs and Mercs will be banned from the autobahns. People will only have electricity when there is enough of a breeze to keep the windmills turning. And the factories will be on a three-day week, while the airports will be converted into organic farms. Most businesses, and of course conservatives of any sort, will
Watch: BBC presenters mock minister’s Union Jack
The BBC is attempting today to break out of its London-centric mindset. The new Director General Tim Davie told BBC staff in a call this morning that the corporation will move 400 jobs out of the capital, and promised to make programmes that are more relevant to people who live outside the M25. Mr S
Could Richard Tice win Hartlepool for the Tories?
The Hartlepool by-election is a big moment in British politics. If Labour retains the seat, it will take a lot of heat off Keir Starmer, whose rocky patch as leader continues. If the Tories win, it would likely be politically fatal for the Labour leader. He would either continue on, wounded almost certainly beyond repair,
Is making misogyny a hate crime really a victory for women?
Misogyny will now be recorded as a hate crime by police. But is this really the victory for women’s rights that campaigners are claiming it to be? It’s absolutely right, of course, that the law is bolstered so that incidents against women are taken seriously by the police. But the wording of the policy is
Who pays the price for Boris governing without scrutiny?
Bailiff-enforced evictions have been banned during the pandemic. But landlords eager to give tenants the boot are finding ways around this rule. Since the start of lockdown, there has been an extraordinary increase in the number of tenants facing applications from landlords to control the terms under which people live in their homes. Sometimes the
Whatever happened to young Keir Starmer?
This week’s Spectator looks at the role Sir Keir Starmer has played in granting the government extraordinary emergency powers to deal with the rise of Covid. The Labour leader appears happy to maintain such restrictions on the right to protest and even tried to bolster his credentials on law and order by backing under fire
Wilders loses ground as Rutte wins again in the Dutch election
Despite a childcare benefits scandal that led to the resignation of the government en masse, much-criticised delays in its vaccination programme and national riots over a coronavirus curfew, the status quo will remain largely intact after a general election in the Netherlands. With nearly nine in ten votes counted, it looks almost certain that ‘caretaker’
Public Health England’s obesity obsession
Few government agencies have had a worse pandemic than Public Health England (PHE) whose mission is ‘to protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities.’ Criticisms levelled at PHE over the past 12 months include failing to expand diagnostic testing and contact tracing, discouraging the use of face masks, failing to share infection
Is this the end of the gig economy?
Before too long, news that Uber will offer 70,000 drivers holiday pay and the national living wage will be viewed less as an unmitigated triumph than a Pyrrhic victory. In the UK you can be an ’employee’ with an ever-growing raft of employment rights, a ‘worker’ with rather fewer rights, or ‘self-employed’. These statuses have
Boris Johnson undersold his security review
It was the political equivalent of Halley’s comet. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson underestimated his own achievement. He claimed that the review of defence, security and foreign policy was the most wide-ranging study of those topics since the end of the Cold War. That was being too modest. It is the most important contribution since the
Why is it so difficult to prosecute female terrorists?
For decades, terrorist organisations have targeted women for recruitment. Deployed as suicide bombers for Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Tamil Tigers, and Hamas – to name but a few – women have also died serving in frontline roles. Yet we are now faced with a new group of female terrorists that are proving difficult to
Wednesday
The EU’s jab snatching ruse is legally absurd
For some months now, increasingly disturbing statements on the law or legal threats have emanated from the EU. Some of these focus on AstraZeneca and if you were a drug company who had committed so early on and so successfully to helping develop and distribute a vaccine for the current pandemic (at cost price), you
Is Biden turning on Brussels?
The Joe Biden administration, headed up by a proud son of Ireland, has spent St Patrick’s Day briefing reporters in Washington that it will not be taking a side in the latest Irish border dispute. The new President spoke with the Irish Taoiseach on Wednesday in celebration of the two countries’ history — just as the
Is Matt Hancock trying to spin a vaccine supply crisis?
Matt Hancock was tremendously smiley when he led Wednesday’s coronavirus press briefing. In between beaming, he managed to tell us about the ‘fantastic news’ that the vaccination programme has now reached more than 25 million people having had their first dose. He was very keen to sing the praises of this programme — and indeed
Starmer’s prosecution campaign is misguided
On Monday evening Sir Keir Starmer tweeted an explanation for why Labour would not be supporting the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill. Coming from a former director of public prosecutions this was dire stuff. First, and perhaps least importantly, the word ‘statues’ does not appear in the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill. Sir Keir
Was the civil service compromised by the Salmond affair?
The fallout from David Davis’s intervention in the Alex Salmond affair is all about the messages. The texts which the veteran Tory says he was given by a ‘whistleblower’ contain disturbing conversations between senior SNP and Scottish Government staffers. They raise questions about party involvement in a government investigation, the alleged ‘interference’ of Nicola Sturgeon’s
How Brexit has boosted Global Britain
The government’s integrated review of foreign and security policy, published yesterday, has landed surprisingly well considering that much of the Whitehall blob has been so dismissive of Boris Johnson’s concept of Global Britain. A few longstanding critics have been snippy about the new document. But no one can disagree that the review offers a genuine
What’s behind the EU’s vaccine flip flop?
14 min listen
Ursula von der Leyen today said that the EU could block vaccine shipments to the UK if it doesn’t export AstraZeneca jabs to the bloc. The Commission’s head is under pressure to fix a rollout programme that continues to flounder – just 12 per cent of EU citizens have received a dose compared to 39
Boris needn’t outflank Biden on China
‘We must prepare together for a long-term strategic competition with China… We cannot and must not return to the reflexive opposition and rigid blocs of the Cold War. Competition must not lock out cooperation on issues that affect us all.’ These words were not spoken by Boris Johnson as he presented the integrated review to
PMQs was an unseemly scrap
It’s bizarre to see political enemies laying claim to the purest of motives when they’re fighting like dogs to extract political advantage from the week’s hottest issue. At PMQs were treated to the unseemly spectacle of party leaders using the appalling death of Sarah Everard for personal gain. Sir Keir Starmer called it, ‘a tragedy
Watch: Nicola Sturgeon’s hostile Covid briefing
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon appeared to be in a poor mood today, after David Davis used parliamentary privilege in the Commons last night to make a series of allegations against the Scottish government over its handling of the Salmond investigation. After the ITV journalist Peter Smith asked Sturgeon about the new allegations at the Scottish
Starmer ends up on the back foot at PMQs
Prime Minister’s Questions is usually a session where the PM defends his handling of one issue or another, under attack from the leader of the Opposition. But today’s session involved an attempt by Sir Keir Starmer to defend his approach to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Labour knows it has an exposed flank
Brussels embraces vaccine nationalism
Just what on earth is happening in Brussels? The latest saga in the European Commission’s botched vaccine roll out is president Ursula von der Leyen’s threat today to block vaccine shipments to the UK from Europe. Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, the under-fire Eurocrat singled out Britain and suggested she could block imports of Pfizer
Labour frontbencher in fake news row (again)
Oh dear. At the beginning of Covid, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan won plaudits across parliament for returning to do shifts on the NHS frontline. But in recent months the former deputy leader contender has earned herself the wanted reputation of being one of Parliament’s worst offenders for disseminating ‘fake news’ – no mean feat considering some of
Dominic Cummings’s return will worry No. 10
Dominic Cummings has been giving evidence this morning to the Commons science committee. Ahead of his appearance, there was much speculation about what problems the session would bring up for his former boss, Boris Johnson. Since leaving government, there has been concern across government over what Johnson’s former righthand man might do or say – his
David Davis’s bombshell leak spells trouble for Nicola Sturgeon
The first thing to be said about David Davis’s dramatic intervention in the Salmond-Sturgeon affair is that it is a masterful piece of concern-trolling. The second thing to be said is that this does not matter. Davis, speaking armoured by parliamentary privilege, revealed information passed to him by a ‘whistleblower’ that has hitherto been kept
Dominic Cummings returns to parliament – the best bits
Dominic Cummings today returned to face a select committee for the first time since his fiery clash with Andrew Tyrie five years ago. Cummings — who was found in contempt of parliament for refusing to appear in 2018 — is up this morning before the Science and Technology panel of MPs. It is the first time the
Germany’s vaccine debacle goes from bad to worse
Germany’s decision to stop using the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine has been condemned internationally. It has also gone down badly with Germans. Once again, the country’s health minister Jens Spahn is under fire. A year into the pandemic, Germans are fed up with what they see as a government which is too cautious to use its only