Coffee House Shots

After spending his Saturday afternoon watching Everton win at home, Andy Burnham showed up in Kyiv this morning to hand a gift to President Zelenskyy in the form of missile blueprints. To dissect the PM's trip to the eastern Europe, James Heale is joined by Mark Galeotti to discuss the impact of the Storm Shadow plans, both for Kyiv, and for Moscow. Produced by Henry Lloyd Become a Spectator subsc...

One month on from Andy Burnham entering Downing Street and a lot has changed at the top of government. Starmer's old guard have been reshuffled or replaced, and Burnham's government have announced dozens of new projects, but the big challenges that he faces are largely the same. Noa Hoffman is joined by Baroness Thangam Debbonaire, the former shadow culture secretary, to review Andy's report card....

There’s more gloomy economic news for Andy Burnham as unemployment disappoints, inflation rises and the public finances take another hit. With welfare spending and debt interest climbing, how much room does the government really have to deliver on its promises? Meanwhile, Burnham has pledged to be the ‘cost of living’ Prime Minister – but one Treasury insider tells Michael Simmons that there is ‘n...

It continues – thankfully – to be an interesting summer: there’s devolution news, Reform taking lumps out of each other and Sue Gray has broken her silence. But first, Andy Burnham is shifting the machinery of government north, promising to put growth at the heart of his new Manchester operation. Will moving power out of Whitehall actually make a difference? Elsewhere, tensions inside Reform spill...

There was never an expectation that Zack Polanski's alliance between the progressive left, the ecological environmentalists, and the conservative muslim factions of the Green Party would last forever, but today it seems that the war of dissolution may have finally begun. Noa Hoffman is joined by Andrew Gilligan to discuss what has been going down inside the Greens under Polanski, and how a boiling...

After saying that Zia Yusuf needed to 'become a team player' in an interview on Coffee House yesterday, Reform UK responded, and decided that they would rather Tim Montgomerie were not in their squad at all. After the story broke this morning that Montgomerie had his membership of the party suspended, Noa Hoffman is joined by Tim Shipman and James Heale to react to the latest developments on the r...

Reform UK's Zia Yusuf spent last week putting a few noses out of joint, not least by calling the former Conservative defence secretary, Sir Ben Wallace, a traitor, a tweet Nigel Farage took the unusual step of criticising in public and which Yusuf declined to take down. Tim Shipman and James Heale are joined by Tim Montgomerie, founder of Conservative Home and now a Reform UK member, to ask whethe...

Almost one year on from his election as leader of the Green Party, has Zack Polanski broadened its appeal? Communications strategist and Green Party insider Russell Warfield joins Noa Hoffman to discuss his new book The Green Socialist: Zack Polanski & the Battle for Britain’s Future. In it, Warfield makes the argument that Polanski marks more of a continuum for the modern British Green Party – a...

Shock horror: Nigel Farage has won the by-election in Calcton. Although you may be shocked by the scale of the victory.  The Reform leader received 22,239 votes – 1,000 more than his total at the 2024 general election. His main rival, Count Binface – the ‘uniparty candidate’ as Farage says – secured a respectable 9,455 votes, a 26.7 per cent share. Turnout stood at 44.37 per cent, the constit...

Politicians are increasingly turning on the journalists who scrutinise them. After investigations into Nigel Farage’s finances, Reform figures have accused reporters of waging a political ‘war’ – while Arron Banks has hired private investigators to look into Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund. Is hostility towards the media becoming a feature of modern politics? And is the relationship between polit...

Andy Burnham's summer bonanza continues as he announces plans to empower local councils and hopefully improve Britain's High Streets. The government wants to make it easier for councils to refuse certain types of businesses – but is the plethora of vape shops, betting shops and barbers a cause of Britain's High Street decline, or just a symptom? If there are no businesses to replace those, will th...

Nigel Farage is heading back to the polls in Clacton after resigning to trigger a by-election over questions surrounding his £5 million gift. With the main parties refusing to stand, Farage looks set for a comfortable victory – but will his popularity in Clacton translate to the rest of the country? And have voters simply stopped caring about the controversy? Meanwhile, Andy Burnham is facing the...

Nigel Farage is trying to seize the summer agenda with a new crackdown on crime and immigration. Reform wants to send foreign national prisoners to countries such as El Salvador, deploy the Navy in the Channel and leave the ECHR – but how much of the plan could actually work? Meanwhile, hopes of a reconciliation between Reform and Rupert Lowe’s Restore appear to be fading. Farage has ruled out a d...

Jonathan Ashworth is a former Labour MP and shadow cabinet minister. On today's podcast James Heale and Jonathan discuss Andy's first few weeks as Prime Minister, how he's changed since the Blair-Brown era, whether Burnham's promises in devolution stack up and they discuss whether Morgan McSweeney is right to change his mind on the Conservatives, rather than Reform being the greatest threat to Lab...

Andy Burnham has made it clear that social care is at the top of his agenda, as are pensions. Michael Simmons is joined by James Heale and Spectator contributor James Kirkup to discuss so called 'death tax', cross party efforts on tackling social care, and whether the government can get round the thorny issue of who will pay for this. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast with...

Kemi Badenoch found herself in warmer water this week after backing a former neo-Nazi to stand as a local council candidate, before he subsequently pulled out – he has now been appointed as an anti-extremism advisor to the Conservative Party's Culture and Integration Commission. Natasha Feroze is joined by The Spectator's William Atkinson, and the former Editor of Conservative Home, Paul Goodman,...

The Treasury has plans to kick start the economy with a £9bn borrowing bonanza – something Michael Simmons wrote about in The Spectator in June. Could this reveal something about Burnaham and Healey's plans for the upcoming budget? Also Ed 'Miliwatt' heads to Washington. How will he get on with his American counterparts? James Heale speaks to Michael Simmons and Isabel Hardman. Become a Spectator...

The government has revised its early prisoner release scheme – now 1000 fewer prisoners with convictions related to rape or child sexual abuse will be let out early. Controversially, PC Harper's killers will be released this year under the new plan, despite calls for manslaughter cases to remain in custody. Natasha Feroze speaks to James Heale and the journalist Danny Shaw about the details of the...

After some weeks on the periphery of British politics, Nigel Farage and Reform UK are back in the spotlight with the debut of 'Operation Fortess' – their plan to deploy the Navy to stop the small boat crossings in the channel. Is it just a headline-grabbing gimmick or will it actually work – and is it even a new idea? To answer the important questions, James Heale is joined by Christian Calgie, Se...

Is Andy Burnham the country's first catholic Prime Minister, and how might it influence his leadership? Despite his faith drawing him to Labour, he doesn’t attend mass and rarely emphasises his religion publicly. To unpack his faith and where it might take him, Lara Brown, The Spectator's commissioning editor, is joined by the chief political commentator at The Times, Patrick Maguire, and The Spec...

After appearing to have been fired on by the French coastguard, and having objects thrown at him by an alleged people smuggler, the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, sat down with Noa Hoffman to talk about his recent trip across the channel. In today's episode, Noa asks Chris why the French gendarmes refused to intervene while migrants set off from their beaches, and what he would do differently...

Continuing his tour across the country, Andy Burnham has been in Barrow-in-Furness backing Starmer's investment plan into nuclear submarines. This ties together with a commitment to reindustrialise Britain and promise more apprenticeships for NEETs. But despite policy pledges on employment, the economy and social care this week – small boats have been a story dominating the headlines. Natasha Fero...

It's Wednesday, which means there's another announcement from Downing Street. Yes, another one. Today, Andy Burnham is talking social care, and this time, he wants to build a 'cross-party consensus' to fix the broken system. Unfortunately neither Kemi Badenoch nor Sir Ed Davey were able to attend in person, but in a far more successful assemblage, James Heale, Tim Shipman, and Isabel Hardman have...

It's a day dedicated to the NEETs (again) with the Prime Minister announcing his plans to prevent swathes of future NEETs coming to the fore. With proposals to widen the participation and provenance of his Manchester Baccalaureate, and giving more powers to Mayors over education, Andy Burnham is seeking to break with Blair, as he pushes vocational skills over academia. Natasha Feroze is joined by...

A week on from the start of Andy Burnham's premiership, and Westminster is bracing for another innings of announcements from the government. Among them, after meeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy today, the PM will be announcing fresh decisions on defence spending on Thursday. The government are also plotting out their plans for changes to adult social care this week, while Whitehall is still suffering fro...