Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Is there an off-ramp for India and Pakistan?

‘What happens next?’ is the worried question I keep getting from Indian and Pakistani friends as military exchanges between the two countries continue. The current crisis was eminently predictable – in nature, if not in timing – as terrorist incidents persisted, albeit at lower levels, in Kashmir and given relations between India and Pakistan were

Why Ramzan Kadyrov doesn’t really want to resign

Once again, the ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is making headlines. And once again, he has announced his intention to step down from his position. But is it for real this time? Kadyrov has hinted at resigning on at least five separate occasions. Each time, the official explanation as to why he hasn’t stepped down

Damian Reilly

Why the Tories must bring back Boris

The British people adore Boris Johnson. That is unarguable. It’s why he doesn’t lose elections. It is therefore very funny – the way idiocy so often is – that the Conservative party even in this, its moment of greatest existential crisis, is not right now prostrating itself before the great man to beg for his return. Boris used his farewell speech in Downing

Pope Leo’s papal economics

The Catholic Church now has its first American pope, but Robert Francis Prevost’s papal name of Leo XIV is perhaps far more significant than his national origins. The name gives a heavy hint about how the new pontiff might address our contemporary economic and social ills. The use of Leo points back to the reforming

Lloyd Evans

What happened to Canterbury?

War is raging over Canterbury’s future. Only two Labour councillors are left in the whole of Kent, in the north and south of the city, compared to the 57 Reform councillors who now control the county. Reform entirely replaced the Tories, who were left with just five councillors.  Canterbury’s tale is one of general decline. The

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Coffee House Shots Live with Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg

The post-mortem has begun on a historic set of local elections – but where does each party go from here? Is Reform unstoppable? Is Kemi the one to lead the Conservative rebuild? Do Labour really ‘get it’? Michael Gove, James Heale and Lucy Dunn are joined by special guests Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg to

Why Britain must expand its nuclear arsenal

About once a month, the Royal Air Force scrambles Typhoon fighters for something called a Quick Reaction Alert (QRA). Typically, two Russian nuclear-capable bombers approach Scotland, the RAF aircraft shadow them closely and, at a suitably theatrical moment, the Russians turn away. The episode merits a tiny press release from the Ministry of Defence. Russia

Football’s beer ban makes no sense

Should football fans be allowed to have a pint in the stands during a game? Luke Charters, the Labour MP for York Outer, certainly thinks so, and is calling for trials to see what impact lifting the ban on booze in the stands might have. ‘The days of hooliganism are gone’, he said. ‘Fans of

Mark Galeotti

Victory Day has been a triumph for Vladimir Putin

It was almost like old times, but also a sign of the new. Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day parade passed off without a hitch, rumbling and squeaking with armour, untroubled by Ukrainian drones, and watched over by foreign leaders there in a sign of support. Yet the efforts made to ensure the parade ran smoothly, the

Is support for Scotland’s euthanasia bill dying?

While Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill makes its way through the UK parliament, in Scotland a separate assisted dying bill will be voted on next week. Scottish Liberal Democrat Liam McArthur has put forward legislation that would allow those deemed terminally ill north of the border to take their own lives, with MSPs allowed a

The narcissism of Kanye West

We live in an age of liberation, in which we are told endlessly by some that freedom of speech, taken to its furthest boundaries, is the crowning achievement of democratic culture. And freedom of speech, alongside freedom of thought and conscience, freedom of (or from) religion, freedom of the press, of movement, of assembly and

King Charles did Britain proud this VE Day

The two years since the coronation of King Charles have been largely disappointing ones for the royal family. A great deal of this was due to factors that none of its senior members could have had any control over – Harry; the Duke of York; cancer. But, in these pages, I have also expressed doubts

Steerpike

Starmer could face biggest rebellion yet over benefits cuts

Sir Keir Starmer’s jubilation over sealing the UK-US trade deal with President Donald Trump may be short-lived as problems loom closer to home. It now transpires that the Labour Prime Minister could be facing his biggest rebellion yet – as up to a quarter of the parliamentary Labour party flag their frustrations about proposed cuts

Nick Tyrone

Why this centrist dad is (probably) voting Reform

I am a liberal, centrist dad Remainer. I desperately wish we could rejoin the European Union. I really don’t like Donald Trump. I could go on. But if a general election were held tomorrow, I would seriously consider voting Reform. In fact, Nigel Farage’s party is increasingly likely to get my support. Reform’s success in

Six things to watch out for in Starmer’s US deal

The world of trade is usually reserved for the wonkiest of policy wonks. But after Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ a month ago, this week the UK announced trade deals with India and the US. Against a woeful economic backdrop, this is a serious boon to the Prime Minister. Becoming the first country in the world

Ross Clark

Do high taxes make you less generous?

Here’s a question: do you think that Bill Gates would have started and built up his Microsoft empire had the top rate of US income tax been 99 per cent? I don’t know Gates but I think the answer is obvious. Why would he have put in all those hours and taken all those risks

The Resistance will be woke

After surviving an assassination attempt and winning reelection with a clear lead in the popular vote, Donald Trump was – briefly, and for the first time in his political career – seen by many pundits as incarnating the future rather than the past. In his first months back in the White House, the radicalism and

What has Ofcom got against the Carry On films?

Why must we all be such killjoys? Why so prudish? Why so terrified of history? In the dock this week, accused of crimes against common sense, are the bods at Ofcom, whose ‘guidance’, say broadcasters, means that Carry On films are now under threat. It appears the Carry On films have made the unpardonable error

Why is Macron courting the Freemasons?

Emmanuel Macron turned this week to France’s shadowy Freemasons for support. In a speech delivered to the secretive Grande Loge de France, he asked for their help to defend the Republic’s core values, and urged them to stand up to extremes, by which he means Le Pen’s National Rally. Macron needs to stabilise the political

Bonnie Blue deserves to be cancelled

Dr Gail Dines, a professor of sociology and women’s studies, defines the ‘pornification of society’ as a culture where explicit content isn’t just tolerated, but actively celebrated: the hardcore becomes mainstream, the shocking becomes desensitising, the transgressive becomes ever-more competitive. Leading this race to the bottom is OnlyFans ‘model’ Bonnie Blue. Blue, ever-the-expert in attention-grabbing

Melanie McDonagh

Pope Leo probably isn’t that liberal

Frankly, most people knew little about Robert Prevost before his election as pope, so there’s been a scramble to unpick Leo XIV’s past record to judge where he might take the papacy. ‘The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist,’ he told journalists We know already that

Tory MPs are forgetting Britain

After the next election, Bob Blackman’s role as chair of the 1922 Committee should be much easier. With the Conservative party set to be wiped out across the country, it’s not inconceivable that the Harrow East MP will be the last Tory left in the Commons. It is the only seat in the country where

Why it makes sense to have an American pope

Around 40,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square last night, the mood markedly more expectant than the evening before. While Wednesday had felt like a formality destined to disappoint, Thursday hummed with anticipation – and it delivered. The general consensus in the run-up to the conclave was that an American pope was unlikely. As the

Steerpike

Greens to reject gender ruling in next leadership contest

To the Green party, whose membership will be called on to vote for their next leader this summer. Currently the party operates a curious policy whereby its next leaders or deputies, if job-sharing, must be of different genders – with Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer currently occupying the top job, having been elected in 2021.

Can Pope Leo fix the mess left by Francis?

The numbers, as the saying goes, don’t lie. And heading into the conclave two days ago, anyone who could count had reason to expect a pope at least in the mould of Pope Francis, who appointed the majority of the cardinal electors. Even so, few predicted the first American Bishop of Rome to emerge in

Ian Williams

Xi has no right to be ‘guest of honour’ at Putin’s Victory Day

The presence of Chinese president Xi Jinping as ‘guest of honour’ at Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day military parade in Moscow today, which will include soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is both chilling and fraudulent. Chilling, because it is the most explicit endorsement yet by Xi of Russia’s militarism and its poisonous narratives about

Why do some Irish people hate Israel so much?

It was a quiet lunch shift at the pub in Oxford where I work, the kind of day when the bar feels more like a confessional than a business. A lone customer, a woman with a light accent I took for Dutch, had just finished her meal and approached to pay. Playing the host, I

Melanie McDonagh

Does Leo see himself as an American Pope?

In theory, we’ve got the first American Pope, Robert Prevost. Born and raised in Chicago, university educated in Philadelphia. Parents French/Italian and Spanish – hence his command of four languages. Did Leo XIV so much as mention the US during his first speech from the balcony? He did not. Maybe conscious that being an American cuts