Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Melanie McDonagh

Why is the BBC preaching to the Commonwealth on gay rights?

There’s a curiously two-faced aspect to the British take on the Commonwealth, wouldn’t you say? On the one hand, there’s justifiable contrition about the treatment of the elderly Windrush generation and a general feeling that the Commonwealth leaders assembled for this week’s summit might be justified in taking Britain to task for its cavalier approach

Brendan O’Neill

Why Theresa May is to blame for the Windrush scandal

To see the cruelty of bureaucracy, the injustice that can spring from reducing public life to mere process and human beings to paperwork, look no further than the Windrush scandal. Scandal is an overused word these days. Everything from a politician’s ill-advised tweet to a celeb’s extramarital affair gets chalked up as scandal. But if

James Forsyth

Theresa May explains herself to parliament

Theresa May came to the House today to explain why the UK joined in the strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities and why she had not consulted the House first. May argued, rightly, that there was no prospect of getting UN authorisation for action because Russia would simply veto anything that affected its client regime

Are we really in the ‘last phase of the Trump Presidency’?

It’s shrinking. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that the Democrats’ edge over the Republicans in the forthcoming midterm election has dwindled among registered voters, from a 12-percent lead to 4-points. Trump’s own approval ratings have edged up slightly to 40 percent, but his disapproval rating remains at a daunting 56 percent. So is it

Steerpike

BBC’s car-crash television

They say the term ‘car crash TV’ is over-used these days. However, Mr S is pretty sure a case of car crash television occurred this afternoon on BBC news. As a BBC correspondent reported from outside the drink-driving trial of Ant McPartlin – of Ant and Dec fame – a vehicle collision occurred. Well, that

Steerpike

Caroline Nokes’ bad day

Oh to be a fly-in-the-wall at the Home Office today. The government department appears to be in a state of meltdown as Amber Rudd and her ministers attempt some damage limitation after it was revealed that a request by Commonwealth leaders to discuss the cases of the Windrush generation experiencing immigration issues with the Prime

Isabel Hardman

Government backtracks in Windrush row

How did the government manage to create such a terrible row over the Windrush generation? The Home Office has told many people who arrived here as children in the late 1940s and 1950s that they are in fact illegal immigrants because they cannot produce documents from 40 years ago about their residence here. That in

Katy Balls

Government wins first Commons vote on Syria

The government has won the first of two expected retrospective votes on Theresa May decision to join French and American allies in targeted military strikes in Syria, she did so without seeking Parliamentary approval. MPs debated Alison McGoverns emergency debate late into the evening – with the SNP calling a vote on the motion that

Steerpike

Revealed: the truth about the latest NHS funding poll

Last week there was an exclusive in the Times – widely followed up – revealing majority support for NHS-linked tax rises. ‘For the first time in more than a decade, a majority of Britons say that they are personally willing to pay more to increase spending, according to the respected British Social Attitudes survey’. It

Spectator competition winners: the spying game

The latest competition asked for a short story inspired by the Salisbury poisonings. Ian McEwan, a writer who is fascinated by spying, was asked recently on the Today programme how he would begin a novel inspired by the current confrontation with Russia. The image that comes to mind, he said, was of a lion hunting

Charles Moore

Vladimir Putin and the new Cold War

In my researches for the final volume of my Thatcher biography, there is plenty, of course, about the Cold War, and its end. A constant bone of contention with the Russians was defection to the West. They were particularly furious about the MI6 exfiltration of the KGB man and British double agent Oleg Gordievsky in

Fire and futility: Why Trump’s missile strike will achieve nothing

The Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, strolls nonchalantly across the marble floor of his palace in Damascus, gently swinging his briefcase: just another day at the office. This short video – titled ‘Morning of Steadfastness’ – was posted on the Syrian presidency’s Twitter feed hours after the US, Britain and France bombed what they said were ‘chemical

Stephen Daisley

Jeremy Corbyn will never give war a chance

The best that can be said for Jeremy Corbyn’s response to air strikes against the Assad regime is that he is at least consistent. Why did he assert that the smart cuff meted out last night risked ‘escalating further… an already devastating conflict’? Because in Corbyn’s worldview, it is the felling of chemical weapons factories, not the

Melanie McDonagh

What is Theresa May’s strategy in Syria?

Happy now? The US-led air strikes against Syrian bases, notably chemical weapons storage facilities, near Damascus and Homs and reportedly elsewhere, has been, according to all the participants, American, Brits and French, a success. Or, as Donald Trump put it, ‘the nations of Britain, France, and the United States of America have marshalled their righteous

Theresa May’s Syria strikes statement, full text

Last night British, French and American armed forces conducted co-ordinated and targeted strikes to degrade the Syrian Regime’s chemical weapons capability and deter their use. For the UK’s part four RAF Tornado GR 4’s launched storm shadow missiles at a military facility some 15 miles west of Homs, where the regime is assessed to keep

James Forsyth

Theresa May reveals her hawkish side

So, what are strikes on Syria meant to achieve? Well, as I write in The Sun today, Boris Johnson was clear at Thursday’s Cabinet what they aren’t trying to do. The Foreign Secretary emphasised that this wasn’t about regime change in Damascus or altering the course of the Syrian civil war. Instead, it was about

What does Russia want?

With Russian poisoners stalking the streets of Salisbury and the real possibility of a hot war with the Kremlin’s troops in Syria, The Spectator’s debate this Wednesday – What does Russia want? – could hardly be more timely. The line-up of guests we’ve assembled promises to be an explosive mixture. Russian Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak,

Gavin Mortimer

Emmanuel Macron is Making France Great Again

Since Emmanuel Macron became president last year, he has unashamedly courted the world’s presidents, prime ministers, sheiks and chancellors. Much like Trump, his message has been clear: France is not only back, but it is great again. Trump and Macron will have the chance to discuss their strategies later this month when the American president

Winnie Mandela and her legacy of unwelcome truths

The death of Winnie Madikizela Mandela has come at a delicate time for South Africa. The country’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has taken over, yet politics remains in a state of flux. Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial, set to take place in June, will see an airing of dirty laundry sure to paint the country’s political

Viktor Orban and Hungary’s muzzled media

There are several ingredients for a successful democracy: the rule of law, opposition parties working without harassment, and a free press able to discuss every issue from every angle. Viktor Orban won a landslide victory in Hungary’s elections last weekend, reflecting public support that is far wider than his critics allow. But was it the

Dominic Green

Bombing Syria would be a grave mistake

‘The whole of the Balkans,’ Otto von Bismarck said, ‘is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.’ He was right, until he was wrong. Times changed, and so did the map. In 1914, with Bismarck gone and no one to restrain the Kaiser, terrorism in the Balkans sparked a world war. How much

The price of art

Monet spinner The National Gallery was criticised for charging £22 for an exhibition of Monet’s work, although the rest of the gallery is free. How much do you have to pay for art? Uffizi, Florence €20.75 (£18) New York Metropolitan $25 (£17.75) Louvre, Paris €15 (£13) Hermitage, St Petersburg $25 (£17.75) Museum del Prado, Madrid

Britain is still broken. Here’s how to fix it

Nearly six years ago, in The Spectator, I explained how and why the gang culture that exploded in the 2011 riots was a ‘taste of the Britain to come.’ I also explained how the left-liberal establishment had allowed the conditions for gang crime to flourish while ignoring the solutions. Sadly, this wasn’t difficult to predict

Katy Balls

Theresa May is losing the PR battle on Syria

After Theresa May’s Cabinet agreed on the ‘need to take action’ in Syria, it seems a matter of when, not if, military strikes against the Assad regime take place. But the strikes won’t be the end of the matter politically. Labour have been quick to stir up trouble, with Jeremy Corbyn describing the government as