Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Infected blood scandal delays leave dying patients ‘in limbo’

Infected blood victims have been ignored, inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff told survivors and their families at London’s Westminster Chapel this afternoon. A new 200-page report into the scandal was published today, delivering a damning verdict on the actions – or lack thereof – of politicians in the rollout of the compensation scheme announced last

Grok’s praise for Hitler wasn’t a ‘glitch’

We are deep into the AI boom – an age in which large language models have moved from novelty to necessity at a pace that has outstripped our capacity to reflect or adapt. There is breathless enthusiasm, endless hype and a sense that caution is for the timid and delay for the doomed. But sometimes, something

PMQs is truly cursed

In the Fifth Circle of Dante’s Inferno, the damned are cursed to bob on the surface of the Styx, scrapping and fighting with each other for eternity, constantly stuck just at the point when the waters threaten to submerge them forever. Artists have attempted to recreate this – from Botticelli to Doré – but none

Isabel Hardman

Badenoch got what she wanted at PMQs

If he were measuring his success at Prime Minister’s Questions purely by avoiding making any senior colleagues cry, Keir Starmer had a reasonably good session today. Rachel Reeves was beaming on the front bench, and next to her Yvette Cooper was joining in with the smiling too. It was the same level of smiling sincerity

Steerpike

Nearly half of Brits think Starmer should step down

When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. The Prime Minister faced the biggest rebellion of his premiership last week after 49 Labour rebels voted against his welfare bill – despite the government making significant concessions that effectively put off any reforms until the end of next year – and now the public has

Miqdaad Versi and the troubling war on ‘Islamophobia’

Readers of progressive newspapers have occasionally been invited to admire a man called Miqdaad Versi. He was the subject of a respectful 2018 profile in the Guardian for his ‘personal mission to confront…the Islamophobia of the British press’ one complaint at a time. Versi’s ‘spreadsheet of shame’ showed ‘how flagrantly British papers get their news

Steerpike

Watch: Is Starmer set to extend the stealth tax?

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a rather illuminating session. Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch will be rather pleased at the news headlines her line of questioning has generated, after she repeatedly quizzed Sir Keir Starmer on his government’s tax pledges. While he gave an uncharacteristically direct response to her first query – stating that ‘yes’,

Jonathan Miller truly understood France

The last time I talked with The Spectator columnist Jonathan Miller was perhaps ten days ago, just before his unexpected death this week. He had a pre-digital habit, very 1980s, of ringing you up to chat, moan, laugh, explain, badmouth and joke for over an hour at a time. When he rang it always took

Will Trump’s pharma tariffs destroy the Irish economy?

Japan will take it in its stride, even if its automakers might be hit. China will absorb the extra costs, and the UK has already managed to secure its own trade deal. President Trump’s tariffs have largely been shrugged off by the US’s major trading partners. We may, however, soon see one exception. His imposition

We need to cut the number of jury trials

In December 1999, the Labour government of the day appointed an eminent judge to conduct a review into the workings of the criminal courts in England and Wales. But when Sir Robin Auld’s report landed on ministers’ desks two years later, they faced fierce resistance to his proposals from, among others, parts of the legal profession.

Michael Simmons

Wes Streeting is right to take on the doctors

The public won’t forgive and nor will I, said Health Secretary Wes Streeting of plans by junior doctors to strike over his refusal to cave to demands for 29 per cent pay rises. Speaking to the Times he said: ‘There are no grounds for strike action now. Resident doctors have just received the highest pay award across the

Steerpike

Gregg Wallace takes aim at ‘clickbait’ BBC

Gregg Wallace’s 20-year career with the BBC is finished – and so is any admiration he had for the broadcaster, apparently. When the corporation probed the former MasterChef presenter after more than 50 women came forward with allegations about the TV star – and reported that a further 11 had accused him of inappropriate sexual

Gavin Mortimer

Macron won’t fix the migrant crisis

The French have so far been underwhelmed by Emmanuel Macron’s state visit to Britain. The late Queen was universally admired on the other side of the Channel. Less so Charles, who in the eyes of the French lacks Elizabeth’s grandeur and wisdom. There are also more pressing issues, such as the spreading wildfire that has

Would scrapping jury trials save Britain’s broken courts?

The Sentencing Review, published in May, may not have had much to say about sentence length. But now we have the Courts Review, which does. Brian Leveson’s report, published today, is hefty, at 380 pages, with 42 recommendations, many of them sensible. But it is his proposal to reduce sentences for crimes which particularly affect

King Charles’s bromance with Macron is true soft power

As the once-promising bromance between King Charles and Keir Starmer appears to be fading, the monarch has found another leader on the world stage with whom he has a greater amount in common. As the state visit of the French President Emmanuel Macron gets underway with much earnest discussion about what this particular cross-Channel ‘special

Most people hate their jobs. Get over it

Most people hate their jobs. This is a sad, unfortunate fact of life. But it happens to be an eternal truth. Throughout the course of human history the overwhelmingly bulk of mankind has toiled to live, rather than having the good fortune to follow their dreams. Even when this is the case, when people elect

Emmanuel Macron would love to be King

When Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito visited Windsor Castle in the early years of the 21st century, the Queen Mother gave orders that, over where he would give his speech, should be positioned the sword with which the Japanese forces had formally surrendered to Lord Mountbatten in 1945. Only an intervention from her daughter prevented this

Remembering Jonathan Miller

The long-time Spectator contributor Jonathan Miller has died. James Tidmarsh remembers him here: Jonathan Miller liked to say that Emmanuel Macron was the gift that never stops giving. ‘The Spectator can’t get enough of him,’ he told me. ‘Macron serves up fresh spin, scandals and missteps, an endless supply of stories for any journalist willing to

Will anyone be held to account for the Post Office scandal?

More than 13 people may have taken their own lives as a result of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. These are the first findings from the public inquiry into what has been called the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history. Sir Wyn Williams, chairman of the inquiry, said that a further 59 victims

Labour owes it to special needs children to reform SEND

They say that history repeats itself, but the Labour party won’t be expecting it to happen quite so quickly. Last week, a ‘Starmtrooper’ rebellion forced the government to make a series of last-minute concessions and compromises on its welfare bill for fear of a humiliating defeat in the House of Commons.  Now, Labour is facing

Why aren’t the stock markets spooked by Trump’s new tariffs?

As President Trump unveiled his latest round of tariffs last night, investors barely paid any attention. The stock markets barely moved. The currency markets remained sleepy. And most of the traders in the global financial markets went back to planning their summer holidays. Compared to ‘Liberation Day’ back in April, it was a damp squib.

Steerpike

Reform MP to sit as an independent

Oh dear. It appears that after the Sunday Times story last weekend, there is no way back for James McMurdock. The paper went hard on allegations about the Essex MP’s financial dealings, reporting that he had borrowed £70,000 under the government’s Bounce Back loans scheme in 2020 through two companies. A sub-optimal look for a

Can Starmer convince the French to finally sign a migrant deal?

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hits town today. It’s Macron’s first state visit to the UK and the first by any EU head of state since Brexit. Today, it’s the King’s turn to take the lead in all the pomp and flummery. Tomorrow, Keir Starmer will take the leading role. Everyone is watching and waiting,

James Heale

Wales is looking ripe for a Reform surge

There are two pieces of news out this morning which offer a fillip to Reform’s hopes of topping the Cardiff Bay elections next spring. The first is the long-awaited defection of former Welsh Secretary David Jones. The second is the publication of a new More in Common poll which shows Reform is set to win

Mark Galeotti

Why Putin’s elites keep dying

Although I suspect few readers’ hearts will bleed for them, it’s been a bad week for Russian elites. There has been a spate of real or apparent suicides and the arrest of a gold magnate as he prepared to leave the country. On Friday, Andrei Badalov, vice president of Transneft, Russia’s largest state-controlled pipeline transport

Norman Tebbit was a proper politician

Norman Tebbit, who has died at the age of 94, was one of the dominant political figures of my youth. An effective industry secretary under Margaret Thatcher, he was also the party chairman during the 1987 election landslide. Depicted as an uncompromising skinhead by Spitting Image, he was the knuckleduster in Thatcher’s velvet glove, someone

Michael Simmons

Britain is heading for economic catastrophe

Britain is in trouble. That’s the judgement of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in their ‘fiscal risks and sustainability’ document released this morning. The language is polite, matter of fact and bureaucratic. But read between the lines, look at the numbers and it paints a damning picture of the risks we face as a country.

There’ll never be another Norman Tebbit

The death of Norman Tebbit at the great age of 94 marks a real ending of an era. They simply don’t make politicians like Lord Tebbit any more: caustic, high principled, Tebbit was a fighter rather than a quitter. The modern day Conservative party would be a very different outfit if it had a man

James Heale

Norman Tebbit: Thatcherite icon

Norman Tebbit, the longtime keeper of the Thatcherite flame, has died at the age of 94. His career in public life spanned more than 50 years, from his election to the Epping constituency in 1970 to his retirement from the House of Lords in 2022. A Monday Club member and ardent right winger, he might