Podcast

Coffee House Shots

Instant political analysis from the Spectator‘s top team of writers, including Michael Gove, Katy Balls, James Heale, Isabel Hardman, Cindy Yu, Kate Andrews and many others.

Instant political analysis from the Spectator‘s top team of writers, including Michael Gove, Katy Balls, James Heale, Isabel Hardman, Cindy Yu, Kate Andrews and many others.

Coffee House Shots

Sturgeon-Murrell split & Scotland’s Reform challenger

Former Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is separating from her husband Peter Murrell, former chief executive of the SNP. The announcement comes as the police probe into the SNP’s funds and finances remains ongoing, with Sturgeon and ex-SNP treasurer Colin Beattie under investigation while Murrell was charged with embezzlement in April 2024. 

Play 13 mins

Coffee House Shots

Why hasn’t Tulip Siddiq been sacked yet?

It’s rare that a world leader knows the name of a junior minister in the British government – let alone calls for them to be sacked. Yet that is the feat achieved by Tulip Siddiq, No. 4 in Rachel Reeves’s Treasury team. The anti-corruption minister is now facing calls to resign from the leader of

Play 18 mins

Coffee House Shots

What’s the point of public inquiries?

This week, MPs voted against a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The vote followed weeks of pressure on Labour after Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight, after safeguarding minister Jess Phillips rejected a new national inquiry. If we did have a national inquiry, what would it achieve? We’ve had many in

Play 21 mins

Coffee House Shots

Can Musk oust Starmer?

The war between Labour and Elon Musk continues to rage. Today the Financial Times reports that the tech tycoon has had discussions about ousting Keir Starmer before the next election, while the Mirror holds a report that the Home Office has been assessing Elon Musk’s tweets as a part of their efforts to tackle online

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Coffee House Shots

Borrowing costs soar – will Rachel Reeves have to go back on her word?

Long term borrowing costs for the government have reached levels not seen since 1998, and 10 year UK gilts are now at their highest point since the 2008 financial crash. Both surpass the levels seen during the Liz Truss premiership – and this hasn’t gone unnoticed by the former PM. A set of similar circumstances,

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Coffee House Shots

Michael Gove: why does Labour want to ruin state schools?

At PMQs today, the battle lines were drawn ahead of today’s vote on Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which aims to protect children within the education system. Its contents have galvanised opposition parties, who are using the legislation to force a fresh inquiry into grooming gangs. Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott has also been

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Coffee House Shots

Farage vs Musk

How do you solve a problem like Elon? We have spent much of the past week talking on the podcast about Labour vs Musk, and the tech billionaire’s vocal criticism of how the government is dealing with the grooming gang scandal. But Reform UK are having their own issues with the volatile owner of X.

Play 18 mins

Coffee House Shots

Grooming gang row overshadows Starmer’s big NHS speech

In a speech this morning, the Prime Minister unveiled his plans to tackle the NHS backlog and hit back at comments Elon Musk has made regarding grooming gangs, the government’s response to them, and about the Prime Minister’s own role in their prosecution. Whilst the Prime Minister’s speech was plagued by the familiar platitudes about

Play 17 mins

Coffee House Shots

Elon Musk and the outrage about Britain’s grooming gangs

The grooming gangs scandal is back in the news this week after Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips rejected calls for a government inquiry into historic child abuse in Oldham, prompting a conservative backlash. Robert Jenrick, the Shadow Justice Secretary, called it ‘shameful’; Liz Truss, the former Prime Minister, labelled Phillips’s title ‘a perversion of the English

Play 19 mins

Coffee House Shots

Is Labour serious about social care reform?

Happy New Year and – of course – happy new long-term social care plan. Not only has Labour announced a ‘longer-term’ solution to a problem the party itself has acknowledged is urgent by setting up a commission that won’t report until 2028, but it has also taken steps to make that reform even harder to

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Coffee House Shots

Is 2025 Farage’s year?

Happy New Year! And it could prove to be a very happy new year for Nigel Farage and the Reform Party. They provided some of the stand-out political drama of 2024, with Lee Anderson’s defection and Farage’s return, before winning five seats at the general election (as well as a hefty chunk of the popular

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Coffee House Shots

Why 2025 could redefine politics

Santa will have had a tricky time this year fulfilling all the Christmas wish lists in Westminster. Keir Starmer is desperately hoping for a change in the political weather, and Kemi Badenoch would like an in with Donald Trump. Ed Davey dreams that Labour’s electoral troubles will get so bad that proportional representation starts to

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Coffee House Shots

Have we been too quick to judge Kemi Badenoch?

Kemi Badenoch is just over a month into her tenure as leader of the opposition, and already she has been criticised for her performances at PMQs and for failing to offer much in the way of policy proposals. It has been a consistent gripe of many of Badenoch’s detractors that she is a culture warrior

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Coffee House Shots

Year in Review 2024 with Michael Gove, Quentin Letts and Katy Balls

It’s been a historic year in British politics. At the start of 2024, the UK had a different Prime Minister, the Tories had a different leader, and The Spectator had a different editor! Michael Gove, Katy Balls, and Quentin Letts join Cindy Yu to review the biggest political stories of 2024. On the podcast, the panel discuss

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Coffee House Shots

Is Mandelson the right pick for US Ambassador?

Last night we got the news that Peter Mandelson is expected to be named the next UK ambassador to Washington. Despite months of speculation, Labour held firm on making a decision until the results of the US election, and with Trump entering the White House in the new year they have gone with an experienced

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Coffee House Shots

UK interest rates held, plus could Musk fund Reform?

The Bank of England has voted to hold interest rates at 4.75%. The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews joins Katy Balls and Freddy Gray to discuss the decision and what this means for the economy.  Also on the podcast they discuss how a potential donation from Elon Musk to Reform UK has rattled politicians across

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Coffee House Shots

Rising inflation will make Rachel Reeves’s job harder

New figures have shown that, for the year to November, inflation rose by 2.6%. While unsurprising, how much will this impact the Chancellor’s plans going into the new year? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman about the impact on Labour, especially given their October budget. Also on the podcast: do the WASPI

Play 12 mins

Coffee House Shots

Chinese spy named, plus Farage meets Musk

After days of speculation online, the alleged Chinese spy has been named as Yang Tegbo. This latest example of Chinese espionage has opened up a number of debates in Westminster, firstly around Labour’s push to ‘reset’ its relationship with China, as well as the conversation around the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme – a number of

Play 11 mins

Coffee House Shots

Could the local elections be cancelled?

Labour will reveal plans today to re-design local government, with district councils set to be abolished, and more elected mayors introduced across England. The plans could be the biggest reforms of their type since the 1970s, but with the May 2025 local elections set to be Labour’s first big electoral test since the general election,

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Coffee House Shots

Would Brexit voters really accept the return of freedom of movement?

New research this week suggested that a majority of Brexit voters would accept the return of freedom of movement in exchange for access to the EU single market. The poll, conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), found that 54% of Brexit voters – and 68% of all respondents – would accept this.

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Coffee House Shots

Is Rachel Reeves turning into George Osborne?

Labour is supposed to be going for growth, so Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will be disappointed with the news today that the economy unexpectedly shrank in October, and for the second month in a row. Rachel Reeves’s mood seems to have visibly changed in the last month or so, is she having her George

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Coffee House Shots

Labour vs the NIMBYs, plus are sandwiches ‘for wimps’?

Today Downing Street has continued its reset – that is definitely not a reset – by providing more details on Labour’s plan to cut the planning red tape and deliver a housing revolution. Their target is to build one and a half million new homes over the next five years by building on green belt

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Coffee House Shots

Have Labour got a grip of the prisons crisis?

Labour are planning to publish a 10-year plan to get on the front foot when it comes to the prisons crisis. Shifting from the previous government’s preference to run the system hot to a policy of early release and carving out more places, the headline figure is that there will be 14,000 more prison places

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Coffee House Shots

Spending review: a return to austerity?

Preparations are stepping up for the government’s spending review, due in June. The Chancellor has taken a more personable approach to communicating with ministers, writing to them to outline how they plan to implement the Budget – with a crackdown on government waste and prioritising key public services. So, expect money for clean energy, the

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Coffee House Shots

How does the Syrian conflict affect Britain?

Following news that President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria has fallen, Natasha Feroze discusses what comes next with James Heale and Michael Stephens, senior associate fellow at RUSI. What does the Syrian conflict mean for Britain? Do we need to reconsider our counter-terrorism policy? And how will Britain’s historic relationship with Syria shape our path

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Coffee House Shots

Are the SNP exploiting Labour woes?

The SNP presented their budget this week in Holyrood with the news that all pensioners would receive a winter fuel allowance and a pledge to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Questions remain about how they will make this budget work financially, but it is clear that they have one eye on the 2026 Scottish Parliament

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Coffee House Shots

‘If anything we went too late’: exclusive interview with Sunak’s chief of staff

In this special edition of Coffee House Shots Katy Balls speaks to Lord Liam Booth-Smith, Rishi Sunak’s former chief of staff. In his first interview since leaving government: Liam takes us inside Rishi’s No. 10 and the characters that made it tick; sets the record straight on the infamous Sunak–Johnson arm wrestle to decide who would run

Play 46 mins

Coffee House Shots

Is immigration not a priority for Labour?

There is a feeling of deja-vu in Westminster today as Keir Starmer unveiled his plan for change and six ‘milestones’ (not pledges) to turn the country around. They are: raising living standards in every part of the UK; rebuilding Britain with 1.5 million homes and fast-tracking planning decisions on major infrastructure projects; ending hospital backlogs

Play 12 mins

Coffee House Shots

Spectator Awards: Nigel Farage promises a ‘political revolution’

Last night was The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. Politicians of every stripe were in attendance, with Wes Streeting, Robert Jenrick and Stephen Flynn among those present. There were a number of notable speeches – including a fiery opening monologue from the Health Secretary – but none caused as much of a stir as

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Coffee House Shots

Is Starmer planning a foreign policy reset too?

Keir Starmer is preparing to give his big reset speech on Thursday. But the more interesting address is perhaps the one he gave last night at the annual Lord Mayor’s Banquet, where the Prime Minister gave his first major speech on foreign policy. The most interesting passage saw Starmer reject the notion that Britain will

Play 18 mins