Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Corbyn’s no-deal plan is unusually smart politics

On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to become caretaker prime minister of a government of national unity after overthrowing Boris Johnson looks like a messy failure. The Liberal Democrats have said they won’t back him, two of the Tories who he wrote to have backed away too, and the Independent Group for Change (which he

Kicking criminals is easy, but who will speak up for the accused?

Victims Commissioner Vera Baird says the ‘double jeopardy’ rule – which prevents a person being tried for the same offence twice – should not apply in certain cases to those acquitted of less serious crimes against children. This is a big mistake. It would make Britain’s rules on double jeopardy – a legal principle established for thousands

Steerpike

Tory MP: PM Corbyn better than no-deal Brexit

When Jeremy Corbyn put forward his proposal to MPs to help him become prime minister in order to block a no-deal Brexit, the response from the Lib Dems was clear: no. But the Labour leader’s plan has had a warmer reception in an unlikely place – on the Tory backbenches. Guto Bebb told his fellow

Katy Balls

Corbyn’s Brexit offer puts Jo Swinson under pressure

The recurring story of the summer recess is the plot to form a government of national unity in order to thwart any No. 10 plans for a no-deal Brexit. Anti no-deal MPs have discussed voting down Boris Johnson’s government when Parliament returns in September and then using the two week grace period that follows to

Steerpike

Sarah Wollaston’s convenient change of heart

Sarah Wollaston’s decision to take the Liberal Democrat whip is not altogether surprising. What might surprise her constituents, however, is the MP’s announcement that she will continue as their representative without seeking a second vote. After all, Wollaston’s voters at the 2017 general election didn’t have all the facts – they didn’t know what they

Alexander Waugh is the Brexit party’s most illustrious candidate

At the next General Election, the lucky constituents of Bridgwater and West Somerset will find an illustrious name on their ballot papers. The Brexit party have unveiled their latest prospective parliamentary candidates, and the candidate they’ve chosen to contest this seat is Alexander Waugh. Alexander Waugh is a first-rate writer – a shrewd critic, an

Fraser Nelson

Sales of The Spectator: 2019 H1

We can today announce that The Spectator’s sales have hit another record high: 77,889 for the first half of this year, up 9 per cent year-on-year. Print subscriptions are growing at their fastest rate since 1995, but we’re recruiting new subscribers through digital means. We hear a lot about the decline of print, or even ‘subscription

Locking up bankers won’t solve Britain’s crime epidemic

On Monday, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Munster Square in Camden. A Witness reported seeing three men ‘screaming and laughing’ as they chased him with a machete. The poor kid apparently sought refuge in a house, banging on the door and pleading for help, but his pursuers were close behind him. A

Ross Clark

Do unconditional offers really help A-level students?

I know what it is like to receive an unconditional offer for university. In 1984, when I took the Cambridge entrance exam, if you passed, you then only had to meet the matriculation requirements of the university, which were two Es at A-level. For someone predicted straight As (virtually all Oxbridge candidates), that wasn’t asking

How police can take back control of Britain’s streets

Boris Johnson’s pledge to fund an extra 20,000 police officers was a serious sign of intent, a game-changing moment for policing and a huge boost for law and order on Britain’s streets. But how can these new officers quickly reverse the spike in knife and violent crime that has plagued Britain? There are six pressing

Robert Peston

Jeremy Corbyn’s mystifying Brexit stance continues

A Labour party that goes into the looming general election campaigning for a new Brexit referendum, which Jeremy Corbyn says it will do, will delight Boris Johnson and fill EU leaders with despair. Because Johnson will think millions of British people will recoil at the idea of a general election followed by a referendum in quick

Robert Peston

Why Boris Johnson needs an election to deliver Brexit

What more-or-less all Tory MPs seem to have missed is that Philip Hammond, the ex-chancellor who has become the anti-no-deal Sandinista, agrees with Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings on the big thing that matters. Hammond loudly – and Johnson, with his consigliere Cummings sotto voce – all accept that EU leaders and negotiators do not

Full text: Boris Johnson’s ‘People’s PMQs’ debut

Good afternoon. I’m speaking to you live from my desk in Downing Street for the first-ever People’s Question Time, People’s PMQs, and at the moment I’m afraid MPs are all still off on holiday. But I can take questions unpasteurised, unmediated from you via this machine. So I’m going to go straight away to Luther

Ross Clark

Who is Philip Hammond to lecture Boris Johnson on Brexit?

There is a role in British public life known as the Elder Statesman – a former cabinet minister who dispenses wisdom to those currently in office based on their own experiences and observations. There are two qualifications for such a position: firstly, that you leave a decent period between leaving office and setting yourself up

The Spectator, the oldest magazine in the world, to launch US edition

The Spectator, which has published weekly out of London since 1828, will launch a US edition this fall. Spectator USA has had a successful digital-only presence in America since the spring of 2018. It will publish its first monthly US print edition on October 1, only 191 years after the launch of the London edition. ‘Better late than never,’

Dominic Green

Hong Kong protesters are following the wrong script

What do you call a global hub without an airport? Hong Kong. No other city can lay claim to this impossible status, for no global hub can exist without an airport. The closure of Hong Kong’s airport again today indicates how far the crisis in Hong Kong has gone, and how close one of the

Ian Acheson

Boris Johnson is right to talk tough on crime. But can he deliver?

Remember #rorywalks? This was the hashtag created to follow the progress of Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart as he travelled around Britain meeting people in places detached from mainstream politics. One encounter that sticks in my mind happened when he met a couple from east London, who told him that they wouldn’t start a family

Isabel Hardman

Could we be heading for a Coupon election?

He might be the only MP to have accidentally posted a screenshot of emails about ‘GE2019’ on Instagram, but Damian Hinds is far from the only one spending their summer planning to fight in a poll later this year. All the parties are gearing up for a campaign. We’ve even had glimpses of how Boris

Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson’s Kinder Surprise

Boris Johnson appeared shell shocked today when he discovered the lengths to which inmates at HMP Leeds go to to exploit prison security. During a tour of the prison, the PM was shown an X-ray scan of the plastic innards of a Kinder egg lodged inside an inmate who was caught sneaking contraband. Johnson recoiled

Steerpike

The truth about Spreadsheet Phil’s bid to block no deal

Philip Hammond’s former top advisor has confirmed what many in Westminster have known for some time. Writing in the Guardian, ex-special advisor Poppy Trowbridge came out all guns blazing, calling Boris Johnson ‘reckless’ and accusing him of ‘mistaken posturing and trash talk’. In the article, entitled ‘Boris Johnson talks tough but still hasn’t said what he’s

Steerpike

Eight contenders for the top job in a national unity government 

‘Only a government of national unity can deliver us from no deal,’ according to Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. But who should lead it? In these turbulent times, Mr S considers eight challengers who might fancy their chances for the top job as national unity leader: Caroline Lucas Caroline Lucas faced embarrassment yesterday after floating the idea