Latest from Coffee House

Latest from Coffee House

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

James Heale

Starmer owes Sunak for halving net migration

A year ago today, Rishi Sunak called the general election. Watching the rain-drenched prime minister struggling to deliver his speech, it seemed like the inglorious end to an unremarkable premiership. But 12 months on, the decisions Sunak took in office continue to yield results. This morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed that net

Will Wall Street jitters stop Trump’s budget bill?

Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the ‘retaliatory levies’ he announced on ‘Liberation Day’ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts,

Ross Clark

Is Britain heading for bankruptcy?

We can thank Rachel Reeves for one thing: setting up a real-world experiment to show the Laffer curve in action. April’s figures for the public finances, like yesterday’s figures for inflation, are truly dreadful. April should have been a bumper month for tax receipts, being the month that the rise in Employers’ National Insurance Contributions

Freddy Gray

What we know about the Israeli diplomat shootings in Washington so far

The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was seen pacing around Washington DC’s Jewish Museum in the minutes before last night’s attack. According to Pamela Smith, DC’s chief of police, he then shouted ‘Free Palestine’ before shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers – a couple, named as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who reportedly were

Is Labour tough enough to act on Gauke’s prison review?

Uncork the Gauke! In the coalition years, whenever George Osborne found himself in a tight spot as Chancellor, advisers would send for David Gauke, who was then a Treasury minister. The tall, imposing but unflappable Gauke would tour the radio and TV studios to deliver a measured message of reassurance, calming the political waters and

Steerpike

Kneecap member charged with terror offence

To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a

Can Labour prevent the justice system from collapsing?

David Gauke’s long-awaited Sentencing Review is here. If its recommendations are accepted, we will see thousands of people spared jail and thousands of inmates released as early as a third of the way through their sentence. The government is relying on the review to save the justice system from collapse. As the Lord Chancellor explained

Could the EU sideline Britain in its defence loan scheme?

The Security and Defence Partnership which the government agreed with the European Union this week has had more spin applied to it than a thousand cricket balls. The central argument in its favour, apart from vacuous reiki-like attempts to change the ‘mood’ of relations with the EU, was that it would allow the UK defence

How George Wendt embodied American television

The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role

Kate Andrews

Trump’s skewering of Cyril Ramaphosa was pure theatre

We got another round of extraordinary scenes coming out of Donald Trump’s Oval Office yesterday. During his meeting with ​​Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s President, Trump asked his staffers to press play on video footage showing what appeared to be violent chants against white farmers. ‘We have thousands of stories talking about it, we have documentaries,

King’s College Cambridge is wrong to cut ties with arms firms

Who says that student activism is pointless? Setting up a tent, donning a keffiyeh, and camping out on your university’s front lawn might look like a waste of time, but at Cambridge it’s a strategy that pays off. King’s College – which has been repeatedly targeted by pro-Palestinian protestors – has agreed to cut ties

Steerpike

Watch: Trump confronts South African president

Just what is it with Oval Office encounters? Three months after his spat with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump is at it again. The US President ambushed a visiting Cyril Ramaphosa today, playing footage that appeared to show white South Africans being persecuted. Trump ordered aides to dim the lights and play a video showcasing what he

Will Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield ever be built?

Donald Trump has outlined his plans for a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defence system over the United States. The aim is to establish a shield capable of defending against all types of missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems, cruise missiles and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. The name is a nod to Israel’s ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence system,

Katja Hoyer

Is monarchism a threat to the German state?

Last week a man called Peter Fitzek was apprehended by police. He calls himself King Peter I, and he is the head of the ‘Kingdom of Germany’, the largest of a number of groups that don’t accept the legitimacy of the current German state and want to replace it with their own. Monarchism may not

Starmer has surrendered to the EU

Sir Keir Starmer boldly claimed in the House of Commons this week that his ‘reset’ deal with the EU would ‘release us from the tired arguments of the past’. The truth is that it will do the exact opposite. The country will need to confront yet again tired old arguments which we thought had been

Isabel Hardman

Kemi’s best PMQs yet

Kemi Badenoch was on good, brutal form at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Keir Starmer had tried to spike her guns by using a planted question to tell the chamber at the start that as the economy improved, he wanted to see more pensioners eligible for winter fuel payment. But the Tory leader still managed to

Ross Clark

Starmer’s winter fuel U-turn is a big mistake

One of Keir Starmer’s first mistakes in office was to remove the winter fuel allowance from all pensioners other than those in receipt of pension credit. His latest big error is performing a U-turn and telling us that the government is, after all, looking at loosening the eligibility criteria, so that many more pensioners will

Winter fuel U-turn and a rift at the heart of government

12 min listen

After sustained speculation and a local elections drubbing, Keir Starmer announced today at PMQs that the government will be softening their policy on winter fuel. Whilst it won’t come into effect for some time, they have agreed to ensure that ‘more pensioners are eligible for winter fuel payment.’  This comes hours after a memo was

Banning pointed kitchen knives won’t make us safer

Anarcho-tyranny is a term used to describe societies which obsessively regulate and punish law abiding citizens, while being unwilling or unable to protect them from crime, violence and abuses of their good nature. These societies are terrible places to live.  Many people believe that the UK is either already an anarcho-tyranny or close to becoming

More than anything, Israelis want the hostages home

The war in Gaza, now in its 19th month, has reached a tipping point. On Monday, the UK, France, and Canada issued a stark warning to Israel, threatening ‘concrete actions’ if it doesn’t halt its renewed offensive and lift aid restrictions. The EU followed, with top diplomat Kaja Kallas announcing a review of trade agreements

David Lammy is wrong to halt trade talks with Israel

In recent weeks, Britain has wrapped up trade deals with India and the United States and is on the lookout for new agreements. Keir Starmer has agreed a ‘re-set’ with the European Union that will make it slightly easier to export goods across the continent. It has been a good few weeks for ‘Global Britain’.

Steerpike

Starmer U-turns on winter fuel cuts

To Prime Minister’s Questions, where Sir Keir Starmer has announced that the Labour lot will in fact reverse parts of the controversial winter fuel payment – just weeks after the reds suffered defeat across the country over the policy in the May elections. Addressing the Chamber, Starmer remarked that ‘we want to ensure that as

Patrick O’Flynn helped make Brexit possible

Yesterday, the world dimmed a little. Patrick O’Flynn, a man who was both a titan of the Brexit cause and a cherished friend, died. The news hit like a sledgehammer, and as I sit here, with a cup of tea, trying to make sense of it, memories flood. Paddy wasn’t just a figure in the

Ross Clark

Thank God Angela Rayner isn’t Chancellor

Rachel Reeves may have killed off growth with her raid on employers’ National Insurance contributions, but today comes a reminder that she is nevertheless the relatively mild face of the Starmer government. We can at least be thankful that Angela Rayner is not Chancellor. Labour’s deputy leader has written a memo to Reeves suggesting a

Rod Liddle

Patrick O’Flynn will be greatly missed

I am hugely saddened by the death of Patrick O’Flynn. He was a man who epitomised decency, kindness, gentlemanly conduct and, above all, a sense of duty. Rest in peace, Paddy. You were the best of men I first met him when he stood for parliament for the Social Democratic party (SDP) in Peterborough in

Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves is to blame for the 3.5% inflation spike

There is no positive spin to be put on this morning’s inflation figures, which show the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rising from 2.6 per cent to 3.5 per cent in a single month. If you want to do the trick of stripping out energy and food prices to arrive at so-called ‘core’ inflation (how you

Can Trump get Britain to up defence spending faster?

When Sir Keir Starmer was elected leader of the Labour party five years ago, it must have been a feat of imagination to picture himself as prime minister. It would surely have gone beyond his strangest fever dreams to think he would be dealing more or less weekly with defence policy. That he would be

Steerpike

Third man charged over Starmer fires

Back to the case of the fires linked to Sir Keir Starmer. Now a third man has been charged over arson attacks on properties belonging to the Prime Minister. A 34-year-old Ukrainian national, Petro Pochynok, has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. It comes after two other men were

Remembering Patrick O’Flynn

The unanticipated and deeply sad news of Patrick O’Flynn’s death is a blow to so many – not just to his close family but also to those in the world of politics and journalism and for many throughout the country. Patrick was a fine journalist, a true gentleman and one of the nicest people you would ever meet