Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

Matthew Lynn

Britain should side with Trump over Europe

It may well be the biggest and most significant choice the Starmer administration will have to take. If Donald Trump decides to impose huge tariffs on China, potentially sparking a global trade war, the UK will have to decide whether it backs America, or tries to steer a softer path with the European Union. All

Gareth Roberts

I must stop hating politicians

Hate crimes, hate speech, hate groups… It is quite possible that we have less of these things today than ever before – they originated before our age, as anybody who’s read Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale can vouch – but we have never obsessed about them quite so much. What is hate in its 21st century, British sense? And

Ross Clark

Britain is eating itself to death

It is a fate which has been creeping up on Britain for years, but that doesn’t make it any the harder to bear when it becomes official. According to the OECD, we now have the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe. At 80.9, the average Brit now keels over more than three years earlier than

Steerpike

Scottish Labour leader pushes back on winter fuel payment cut

While farmers gather in Westminster today to protest Labour’s Budget, it appears that north of the border Scottish Labour also have doubts about aspects of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement. Party leader Anas Sarwar has now vowed he will bring back the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners in a pushback against a cut brought about

Mark Galeotti

Could Trump save Ukraine?

One thousand days into Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, three facts seem to be evident. First, Russia is losing. It is using its soldiers like human ammunition, burning through its economic reserves and mortgaging its future to Beijing. Second, Ukraine is losing faster than Russia. Ukraine’s forces are beleaguered along a too-long front and

Gavin Mortimer

Banning Marine Le Pen from politics would be a grave mistake

Paris prosecutors last week recommended that Marine Le Pen be jailed and banned from public office for five years. The court also wants similar sentences for 24 members of the party who, along with Le Pen, are accused of misusing public funds. The prosecutor accuses Le Pen of using money intended for EU parliamentary aides

The cruelty of horse racing is becoming impossible to ignore

After three horses died at Cheltenham on Sunday, the reaction was depressingly predictable. The cameras cut away and the horse racing industry pretended to be shocked and upset that more horses had died on its watch. Abuffalosoldier and Bangers And Cash – two of the horses who died at Cheltenham – appear to have suffered heart

Ian Williams

Keir Starmer’s desperate cosying up to Beijing

Keir Starmer has met President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, telling the Chinese leader that he wants to build ‘consistent, durable, respectful’ relations. China’s official Xinhua news agency said there was ‘vast space for cooperation’. It was the first meeting between a British prime minister and Xi since 2018, and

How effective will Ukraine’s ATACMS be?

Last night, US President Joe Biden authorised Ukraine to use American ATACMS – or Army Tactical Missile Systems – against targets in the Russian region of Kursk. This decision came approximately six months after ATACMS were first deployed in Ukraine. Before now, they have been limited to targets in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory. The decision from Biden appears

Ross Clark

Is deadly weather being ‘supercharged’?

So that’s it then: the Guardian has declared that we are all being scorched, drowned and blown over by climate change. The website Carbon Brief, it says, has found ‘stark evidence of how global heating is already supercharging deadly weather beyond anything ever experienced by humanity’. Never mind that humans were around to witness multiple

Steerpike

SNP in new civil war over double jobs

Ding ding ding! All is not well in the SNP as the Nats are back to fighting among themselves over the issue of double jobs. Last week Westminster leader Stephen Flynn announced that he will stand in the 2026 Holyrood election – and, if successful, he will also continue on in his existing MP role.

Michael Simmons

How many farmers will be hit by Labour’s inheritance tax raid?

Tens of thousands of farmers will descend on Westminster in their tractors tomorrow to protest at inheritance tax changes that could see them pay death duties when they hand down their farms. The government doesn’t understand the fuss. It says they are just targeting wealthy land buyers trying to dodge tax. Meanwhile the farmers argue

Steerpike

British Sikhs blast Starmer’s ‘incompetence’

Another day, another Downing Street drama. This time No. 10 is in trouble with the British Sikh community after it transpired its social media accounts failed to acknowledge the religious festival of Gurpurb last week. Now over 300 Sikh groups have addressed a scathing letter to the Prime Minister, blasting Sir Keir Starmer’s blunder as

What really caused Vladimir Shklyarov to fall to his death?

At approximately 1 a.m. on Saturday, 16 November, Vladimir Shklyarov fell to his death from the fifth floor of his apartment block at Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment on St Petersburg’s Vasilyevsky Island. He was 39. That much is true. How and why he fell will be the subject of ongoing conjecture, perhaps for years to come.

Will the BBC learn from Donald Trump’s victory?

The grandly titled CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, described Donald Trump’s re-election as ‘a dramatic night that changed everything’. She made that claim in an internal email to staff, lauding the Corporation’s ‘unmissable’ US election results coverage.  Her email though raises an interesting question: if Trump’s victory has changed everything, will

James Heale

Badenoch brings the newbies into her team

It is just over a fortnight since the Tory leadership result and Kemi Badenoch is now putting the final touches to her first front bench team. With only 121 Tory MPs to choose from, she has worked to avoid a Truss-style scenario by promoting both loyalists and colleagues who backed other candidates. Thus, Mel Stride,

Lisa Haseldine

Ukraine will make the most of its new firepower

Overnight, the news of Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian soil has been sinking in. Reports suggest that Kyiv is planning to use US-made ATACMS missiles for the first time in the coming days. We won’t know for sure until after the attack has taken place though – speaking at

Katy Balls

Is it wise for Starmer to meet Xi?

Keir Starmer will today become the first prime minister in six years to meet with Xi Jinping. The Labour leader is due to meet with the Chinese president at the G20 summit in Brazil as Starmer’s government attempts a wider reset of UK/China relations. This is being pitched by Downing Street as a move to

What will Putin do about Biden’s parting gift to Ukraine?

At the very moment most people seem to have forgotten of his existence, President Biden has slowly but purposefully shuffled across Vladimir Putin’s latest red line in Ukraine. After months of President Zelensky’s tireless pleas, the United States has finally given Kyiv a green light to use American missiles (ATACMS) for strikes deep inside Russia.

James Heale

Get ready for farmageddon

Is Westminster ready for farmageddon? Tomorrow will see the greatest political demonstration for a rural cause since the passage of the Hunting Act in 2004. Thousands are expected to descend on Whitehall to protest Rachel Reeves’ changes to inheritance tax for farms. Those worth more than £1 million will face an effective inheritance tax (IHT)

Sam Leith

Elon Musk and the age of the troll

There has been a cheering new development in the struggle against scam phone callers. AI can now be used to automate the satisfying but tricky business of ‘scambaiting’. I give you Daisy, the ‘AI granny’ – whose only purpose in life is to keep phone fraudsters on the line for hours that they would otherwise

James Heale

Biden allows Kyiv to strike inside Russia with US missiles

Joe Biden has 64 days left in the White House – and clearly he intends to make the most of them. The President last night allowed Ukraine to use American missiles to strike deep inside of Russia. For months, Kyiv has been asking for permission to use ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) – capable of

The sad death of the Eurofighter Typhoon

Britain’s fighter jets are running missions into Syria, dropping bombs on the Houthis in Yemen, patrolling over Estonia, Lithuania and Romania, close to Ukraine, and guarding our shores from interloping Russian bombers. And yet, the Typhoon final-assembly production line at Warton in Preston has effectively come to a halt. There are no new orders from

Can Kent’s hop industry survive?

There is something quintessentially English about hop fields. Rows of ten foot wooden stakes rise from the grass, perhaps three feet apart, holding up a network of wires. In the summer, hops grow up these wires like vines, forming a fragrant, uneven wall of green shades: darker leaves with soft lime-green cones. The industry has