All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Claire Perry, who is now known as Claire Perry O’Neill, is to leave her role as President of the UN Climate Change Conference, Coffee House understands. Over the summer, the former Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth had been nominated to serve as the President of COP 26 – for when the UK
It’s finally Brexit day, but while some are celebrating, others are finding it hard to get into the mood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Britain’s departure from the EU isn’t going down well in Oxford. As well as flying an EU flag over the Town Hall today, the city is also holding a candlelight vigil for the EU
Whatever your feelings about Brexit, this day, 31 January, 2020, will be seen as a point in history. It is the day that the UK left the European Union after nearly half a century and set out, once again, on its own. While we may have been through more than three years of parliamentary wrangling,
No. 10’s relationship with the media has been frosty at times, with ministers reportedly banned from appearing on shows like the Today programme. Boris Johnson has now taken that antipathy a step further. The PM has been caught on Sky News talking to a school children about one of the biggest long-running news stories of
The fate of HS2 will soon be decided and news of the much-hyped Oakervee Review has started to leak. It seems to recommend that the project should go ahead in full (onwards to Manchester and Leeds from Birmingham) but concedes that potential costs are too high. HS2 now cannot be delivered within its £56bn budget,
As Big Ben fails to bong tonight, and Brexiteers toast a famous victory, will those who voted for Remain be ranting or sulking, or simply crying into their beer? If so, they should perhaps stop feeling so sorry for themselves. Of course, if you’re a Europhile, today is hardly a day of celebration – but
Polls come and go and the YouGov survey showing support for Scottish independence at 51 per cent should be read with that in mind. The Nationalists have been ahead before and have fallen behind again. What Downing Street cannot take in its stride is this: five years since the Scottish referendum, and with the SNP
At 11pm tonight, Britain will finally leave the European Union, after 47 years inside the bloc. And, as expected, many European newspapers chose to mark Brexit day on their front pages. Le Figaro: ‘L’adieu a l’Europe Liberation: It’s time La Croix: See you! Le Monde: Europe enters the unknown Die Welt: The British leave. The
‘In business, when I have a tough deal, people would say, “This is tougher than the Israelis and the Palestinians,”’ said President Donald Trump as he unveiled his long-awaited Middle East plan, the so-called Deal of the Century, during a White House ceremony on Tuesday. The comment, ad-libbed, not only demonstrated that the former real-estate
The first chapter of Britain’s Brexit story ends tonight. For some, that’s something to celebrate. For others it means sadness. For most of us, I suspect, emotions are mixed: a bit of relief at the sense of clarity that underpins politics; a bit of optimism that we might all learn from the psychodrama/culture war of
Imagine you are regularly invited to visit universities to speak with students (unpaid) on your specialist subject, but in order to be allowed to enter the campus, you are required to fill out a form to confirm that you are neither a bigot nor likely to cause offence or distress to the students. Unfortunately, I
Earlier this month the philosopher and author Sir Roger Scruton passed away. In a series of tributes to his work and his character, many reflected on the contributions he made to his fields of expertise and society at large. Today in central London, one of his final contributions was revealed. The Building Better, Building Beautiful
Is Boris Johnson the Blairite who may not speak his name? All the PM’s talk of levelling up rather than levelling down? That is pure, plagiarised Blairism. Fixing public services – like chaotic Northern Rail – with a focus on what works, rather than an ideological attachment to private sector or public sector ownership? That
It’s been more than three years since the Brexit referendum, and we’re only a day away from actually leaving the EU, but it appears that some of the UK’s residents are still struggling to come to terms with the country’s exit from the European Union. Today, the pollster YouGov released a survey of Remain voters
Given how hard Washington had been lobbying the UK government against allowing Huawei to have any role in the UK’s 5G network, there was a certain nervousness in Whitehall about the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to London this week. But judging by Pompeo’s appearance with Dominic Raab at Policy Exchange there was
Last night, the veteran ITN news presenter Alastair Stewart announced that he was stepping down, after he was accused of racism when he quoted a Shakespeare passage to a member of the public online. In a statement following his departure, ITN said Stewart had made ‘errors of judgment in his use of social media’. The
The Rubicon has almost been crossed, the die has almost been cast and whatever other choice phrases from European history spring to mind. As we leave the European Union, to the cheers of the 52 per cent and the tears of the 48, what most interests me as a reluctant Remainer is how, or indeed
The Michelin Red Guide is a marketing device to sell tyres by selling pastries. The guide was invented in 1900 by Michelin, the French tyre company, which is now the second-largest tyre company in the world. The guide initially covered restaurants in France, then spread to Belgium, the Alps, Germany, north Africa, Britain and, eventually,
Here is a good test case going on before our eyes. The broadcaster Alastair Stewart has left his job of decades after sending a quotation of Shakespeare to a member of the public. The quotation (because it refers to an ape and the recipient happens to be black) is being interpreted as a sign of
Jeremy Corbyn likes to say that he ‘won the argument’ at the last general election, where he argued – amongst other things – for the re-nationalisation of the railways. It was a popular policy. Today, as if on cue, the government announced that Northern Rail is being taken into public ownership, stripping Arriva Rail North
Members of the European Parliament voted this afternoon to pass Boris Johnson’s Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, ensuring that Britain will leave the EU on 31 January, with a Brexit deal in place. The passing of Boris’s deal also heralded the close of Britain’s participation in the European Parliament, ahead of Brexit day on Friday. And, as
After the departure of Laura Pidcock from the House of Commons, many hoped that Labour had finally gotten over its factionalism and refusal to cooperate with politicians across the aisle. Apparently not though, judging by the behaviour of one of its MPs today. The party’s new MP for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana – who came
What a joy it is to travel on trains in Germany, where services are fast, efficient and always seem to arrive on time. Why can’t we have Deutsche Bahn running our own trains, rather than those imbeciles at Northern Rail, whose slovenly late-running services using rattling old rolling stock from the 1980s were so bad
The Catholic diocese of Westminster announced last week that it is holding ‘a strategic review of the role of sacred music in the mission of Westminster Cathedral’. It didn’t add: ‘because our master of music has walked out in despair, after warning that recent changes to the choir will ruin its sound’. But that is
I might be feeling more confident about the government’s decision to give Huawei a limited role in building Britain’s 5G network, ‘on the advice of intelligence agencies’, were I not reminded of the effectiveness of British spooks by the recent appearances of Alexandre del Valle on French radio. Del Valle is the author of numerous
Jeremy Corbyn has stopped asking questions at PMQs. The lecture-circuit now looms for the Labour leader, so he uses the Wednesday sessions to practise the Grand Orations he will soon be making to drowsy socialists in overheated conference-halls around the world. He’s unlikely to match the fees commanded by the world’s top lecture-stars, Tony Blair
Lindsay Hoyle is a very different Speaker to John Bercow. He talks less, chairs in a kindly manner, and keeps the Commons running to time. Today he announced a new procedure designed to prevent a repeat of the excesses of the Bercow era. In a brief statement after PMQs, he said that from now on
There’s nothing like a period of reflection after a historic election defeat. It offers those involved a chance to look at issues afresh and seek out difficult answers. Alternatively, if you are say Ian Lavery or Andrew Gwynne, it offers a chance to confirm everything you had already thought. The Financial Times reports that the
Tory MPs are not happy with the Huawei decision. Normally loyal MPs are expressing their bafflement at the announcement. As one of them put it to me yesterday: if they’re not safe to be at the core of the network, how are they safe to be in any of it? The crucial determinant of whether
It is apparently fine for China to ban western technology from its telecommunications network but quite unacceptable for us to prioritise our national security. The decision to allow Huawei into the UK’s 5G network is the first of many tough choices in the new technological era. And we’ve flunked it. Why is it a new
My alma mater, The School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas), enjoys a reputation disproportionate to its size. With fewer than 7,000 students, it is dwarfed by other the colleges of the University of London. Nevertheless, I find that any mention of where I studied tends to raise eyebrows: ‘oh I’ve heard a lot of
Leo Varadkar did not pull any punches in his interview with BBC Political Editor Laura Kuennsberg on Monday. Embroiled in a general election campaign, with less than two weeks to go until polling day, the incumbent Taoiseach told Kuennsberg that Britain is underestimating the difficulties that lie ahead as phase two of Brexit gets underway:
With Boris Johnson’s government deciding to allow Huawei into Britain’s ‘non-core’ 5G networks, London is charting a new path for Western nations dealing with Huawei. The UK is not the first European nation to accept Huawei as part of their national 5G systems, but it is perhaps the most significant. London’s success in limiting Huawei’s
