Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Nick Cohen

Don’t blame social media for the state of our politics

The conventional wisdom that we live in echo chambers always seemed too convenient an explanation of political polarisation to be true. Believers could convince themselves that their causes lost, not because they were faulty or fantastical or outright wicked, but because their opponents had brainwashed a majority of the electorate to reject them. For all

Stephen Daisley

Identity politics and the rise of American anti-comedy

Amy Schumer won’t be appearing in any Super Bowl ads this year. Not because she’s just announced she’s pregnant (mazel tov!) but because she wants to show solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players standing up — or, more accurately, kneeling down — to racism. Though, as the New York Post points out, it’s

Sam Leith

Books Podcast: how genes can predict your life

In this week’s Books Podcast I’m talking to the behavioural geneticist Robert Plomin about his new book Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, in which he argues that it’s not only height and weight and skin colour that are heritable, but intelligence, TV-watching habits and likelihood of getting divorced. I asked him about

Why Leavers should support a border in the Irish Sea | 23 October 2018

Would it really be so terrible if there were checks at the Irish Sea instead of at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland? Such checks could be carried out without threatening the constitutional status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK. Some say that there should be no differences between Northern Ireland and

Steerpike

Will Bercow get his Betty Boothroyd moment?

This week the House of Commons commission will meet to discuss its response to the Cox report on bullying and harassment at Westminster. The report concludes that a number of officials, including one John Bercow, could need to stand down in order for real change to come about. Only there is very little chance of that happening

Best Buys: One-year fixed rate bonds | 23 October 2018

Savers who are looking for a fixed return on their cash but who don’t want to invest over the longer term will be pleased by latest research conducted by moneyfacts.co.uk, which shows a vast improvement to rates offered on one-year fixed bonds in the last two years. Here are some of the best bonds on

The real problem with the Saudis’ ‘Davos in the Desert’

At this rate, there’s going to be a very empty hospitality tent, and a heck of a lot of canapés left over in Saudi Arabia. One by one, the bigwigs of the business and financial worlds have been pulling out of the Saudi investment conference, dubbed ‘Davos in the Desert’, which opened today. The reason? They

Robert Peston

Will the Tory moderates turn on Theresa May?

There is an operation in progress by Tory Brexiters to persuade fellow backbenchers to write to Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 backbench committee, calling for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May as leader of their party. This is what one of them told me: ‘I’m campaigning myself. We need 60-70 letters, not

Lloyd Evans

What I learned at the People’s Vote march | 22 October 2018

Two beliefs obsess the Remain cause. First, that voters were lied to during the referendum campaign. (Questionable). Second, that the negotiations are being botched. (Indisputable). But while Remainers believe that their opponents are fibbers, they can’t see that they too are being misled. At the People’s Vote rally last Saturday, I found general acceptance of

Dominic Green

Life ‘n’ Arts Podcast: History and Ism’s with David Pryce-Jones

In this week’s Spectator USA Life ’n’ Arts podcast, I’m casting the pod with David Pryce-Jones. Novelist, correspondent, historian, editor at National Review and, most recently, author of the autobiography and family history Fault Lines, Pryce-Jones has the longest association with the Spectator of any Life ’n’ Arts podcaster yet. In 1963, Pryce-Jones began his

James Forsyth

What has changed with Tory leadership plotting

Ever since Chequers there has been almost constant speculation about an attempt to remove Theresa May but with nothing actually happening. So it is tempting to ignore it all, to conclude that those agitating against Mrs May are all hat and no cattle. But this weekend, something does appear to have changed. Whether it leads

Charles Moore

Isn’t every crime a hate-crime?

Can you think of a serious crime which does not involve hate or, at the very least, contempt? You must hate people to murder them, rape them, rob them, beat them up, post excrement through their letterbox or even defraud them. This intense hostility is a good reason for punishing such actions. The concept of

What Donald Trump gets wrong about climate change

Donald Trump now says of climate change: ‘I don’t think it’s a hoax, I think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made.’ The climate activist Eric Holthaus said: ‘The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism.’ Both are wrong. The truth is that climate change is happening,

Steerpike

Hugh Grant marches for the people… from France

The EU flags, glitter berets and bad taste posters are out in full force today as the People’s Vote march hits London. Among the big names expected to attend are Alastair Campbell (still trying to work out what makes this march different to the anti-Iraq one in terms of effectiveness) while Philip Lee – the

Steerpike

People’s Vote campaigner’s sick suicide jibe

Oh dear. Today hundreds of thousands of ‘People’s Vote’ campaigners are set to take to the streets as they campaign for a second referendum – or to use their words: a vote on the final deal. Only it’s not got off to the best start. A Twitter account by the name of Chesterfield EU has

James Forsyth

Why Theresa May needs an escape clause

Theresa May has one route to a Brexit deal that can avoid irrevocably splitting her party and bringing down her government, I say in The Sun this morning. She needs to persuade the European Union to replace the Northern Ireland backstop with a UK-wide one and to accept an escape clause to show that this

Ross Clark

Is William Hague to blame for the Tories’ troubles?

If Britain crashes out of the EU with no deal and the Conservatives plunge to a defeat against Labour in a subsequent general election, Theresa May, not without reason, will take the blame. But the blame will not be all hers. William Hague will deserve a fair slice of it as well.   It has become

Is Julian Assange the world’s worst tenant?

Before taking up residence at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, Assange lived at Ellingham Hall in Norfolk. This was at the invitation of his then-supporter Vaughan Smith, who lived with his family at that house. According to Andrew O’Hagan’s memoir of this time, ‘Ghosting’, Assange was a nightmare house guest. O’Hagan was ghost-writing Assange’s memoirs

Cindy Yu

Chinese vaccine giant gets a taste of its own medicine

A few months ago I wrote about the damning revelations surrounding one of China’s most trusted vaccines providers. Changsheng Biotech had been profiteering from the creation and distribution of useless vaccines for children. First, they mixed old vaccines with new ones when selling jabs meant to immunise against diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus (all three diseases