Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Men and women of the world, unite!

I’ve worked in several warehouses unloading stock and I’ve also worked in supermarkets stacking shelves. I’d have to say the latter is marginally harder. Not that there’s much in it: both are physically hard, mentally untaxing, and probably undervalued – but then, don’t we all feel undervalued at work? Warehouse jobs are more of a

James Forsyth

May’s indecision is not helping Tory Brexit tensions

After PMQs today, Theresa May will rush back to Downing Street to chair a meeting of the Brexit inner Cabinet. This meeting will take place against a backdrop of heightened Tory infighting over Europe. This isn’t being caused by the Cabinet, who have been fairly well behaved in recent days, but the backbenches. May’s problem

Steerpike

Beast of Bolsover’s broken birthday promise

PMQs proved a more lively affair than usual thanks to the Beast of Bolsover. Dennis Skinner attempted to ask a question on NHS funding but John Bercow managed to distract from the message by congratulating the veteran Labour MP on his upcoming birthday. The MP for Bolsover will turn 86 on Sunday – not that he’ll

Theresa May is what a feminist looks like

Far too often in politics, women on the centre-right find themselves labeled as the ‘wrong’ sort of feminist, or even worse, told their political views aren’t compatible with the main principles of feminism. It is a general attitude which not only affects everyday women but has followed the most successful women in politics, all the

Steerpike

Watch: Justin Trudeau mansplains mankind

Justin Trudeau is no stranger to virtue signalling, but he has surpassed himself with his latest gesture. The Canadian PM was taking part in a Q and A at a university when he took a female* audience member to task. Her offence? Succumbing to the patriarchy and referring to ‘mankind’. Trudeau interrupted her to mansplain

James Forsyth

Pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong

On this, the centenary of some women getting the right to vote, there has been a lot of talk of pardoning the suffragettes. Jeremy Corbyn and Ruth Davidson have both said they back the idea, and the Home Secretary Amber Rudd has said she’ll look into it. But pardoning the suffragettes would be wrong. For many of them deliberately

Steerpike

Why Osborne was wrong to trash Auntie May

When David Cameron and George Osborne were in government, the pair heralded a new ‘golden era’ where the UK would be China’s ‘best partner in the West’. However, since Theresa May moved into No 10, questions have been raised about the health of this partnership. Osborne ally Lord O’Neill has criticised May for a focus on New

Ross Clark

The Today programme has become Woman’s Hour

Anniversaries are very interesting, of course, but all the same I think a news programme ought to revolve around, well, the day’s news. That is something which increasingly seems to be missing from the Today Programme, once the BBC’s flagship news programme. Overnight, as I have read elsewhere, stock markets have plummeted around the world.

Kate Andrews

Donald Trump has got a point about the NHS

Donald Trump has found himself in the midst of another international spat, fuelled this time by his attack on the UK’s national religion. In an attempt to verbally jab the opposition in his own country, the President has managed to rile up many thousands, if not millions, of people who have deep reverence for Britain’s National

No, the suffragettes should not be pardoned

Exactly 100 years after (some) women won the right to vote, Ruth Davidson has joined calls for a posthumous pardon for jailed suffragettes – the militants who violently fought for that right. ‘Voting was a value judgement, not an intrinsic right,’ says Davidson. And that historic inequality is why she supports the pardon, no questions

Modern feminists aren’t a patch on the suffragettes

Today’s centenary of the Representation of the People Act is in danger of becoming a rose-tinted celebration of votes for women. But it’s worth us remembering this historic legislation with more clarity, so that the anniversary does not get used as an excuse for curtailing democracy once more. For a start, the Act only extended

Julie Burchill

Feminists should agree to disagree

Today is the centennial of that happy day when British women finally won the vote. Women over the age of 30, that is, who owned property – only ten years later would we be granted the vote on the same terms as men. A century on, and the most common current phrase used about feminism

The GOP is now the Party of Trump

There was a time not so long ago when the political establishment of the Republican Party – the Mitt Romneys, Paul Ryans, and Lindsey Grahams of the world – were strong Donald Trump antagonists.  Trump would utter a racially charged remark about a Mexican-American district court judge being biased against him because he was Mexican,

The world of wealthy tight-fists

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, was worth an estimated £40 billion. Yet the eighth richest man in the world drove an old Volvo, flew economy class, bought his clothes in flea markets and had his wife cut his hair to avoid the cost of a barber. Some other wealthy tight-fists: — The oil entrepreneur

Steerpike

80-year-old pensioner receives anti-Brexit death threat

Here we go. There’s been a lot of talk in recent months of the vicious rhetoric coming from Brexiteers – but what about ardent Remainers? Zac Goldsmith – the MP for Richmond Park – has taken to social media to share a letter that was sent to an 80-year-old constituent. Signed by ‘the real 48

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s criticism of the Treasury doesn’t go far enough

Treasury civil servants have been getting indignant about the suggestion by Jacob Rees-Mogg that their reports have been biased in favour of EU membership. But are they protesting too much? As it happens we have a recent example of what a genuinely independent study by the Treasury looks like. Between 1999 and 2003, HM Treasury

Tom Goodenough

What the papers say: Jeremy Corbyn must rein in the thugs

The protest that greeted Jacob Rees-Mogg’s talk at a Bristol university on Friday night shows that something sinister is happening in British politics, according to today’s newspaper editorials. The Times says that while Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘younger admirers’ might be blind to the idea, the Labour party and Corbyn’s ‘personal brand are tainted with an ugly

Steerpike

Security minister’s Private Pike jibe

After a weekend of Tory in-fighting, blue on blue briefing wars and confusion over the government’s Brexit position, it’s safe to say that tensions are running high in the Conservative party. One minister who is particularly rattled by the contents of the Sunday papers is Ben Wallace, The Mail on Sunday reported that the Security

Gavin Mortimer

The dilemma of dealing with the kids of the Caliphate

They range in age from toddlers to teenagers and all will inevitably have been traumatised by what they have experienced. On the face of it, then, who wouldn’t want to show kindness to the children who, through no fault of their own, have grown up and been born in the Islamic State? But as Commander

Steerpike

Toff takeover at Tories’ ‘black-and-white’ ball

After Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo won I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, the Tories have been divided on how best to utilise their celebrity supporter. A proud Conservative, Toff’s offer to share her million Instagram followers with the party was snubbed by CCHQ over concerns she was ‘too posh to win over Labour supporters’.

Sunday shows round-up: Amber Rudd defends civil service

Amber Rudd: ‘I have complete confidence’ in the civil service The Home Secretary has defended the civil service after recent comments made by members of her party. Brexit minister Steve Baker and backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg – now the chair of the influential European Research Group – have both criticised the institution. Baker apologised to the