Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and author of Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.
This afternoon’s session of speeches at the Tory conference might best be described as the ‘Why My Department Exists’ section. The ministers who spoke – Culture Secretary Karen Bradley, Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox – all reeled off statistics about sport, the countryside, exports and so on to show that
Philip Hammond’s speech has had a mixed reaction from his MP colleagues, it is fair to say. A number have run up to me and rolled their eyes at how terrible his jokes were, or at his skill in managing to make one of the most important jobs in government sound boring, even telling delegates
This Tory conference is making clear quite how topsy-turvy politics has become over the past few months. David Davis is sweeping around with a ministerial entourage. The Cameroons are largely absent. Nicky Morgan, who started the year as an ultra-loyal Cabinet minister prepared to help the Prime Minister out and soothe any row, has become
We had heard a great deal of Theresa May’s Brexit speech to the Conservative party conference before – to the word, in fact, with the Prime Minister using the same scripted soundbites that she’s deployed as a shield against having to answer questions about Brexit directly. ‘We will not be able to give a running
As Conservative conference begins, we are finally starting to find out a little more about what Brexit means. But only a little. In her interview on Marr this morning, Theresa May confirmed that she would trigger Article 50, which starts the process of taking Britain out of the European Union, before the end of March
What is Theresa May’s greatest weakness as she goes into conference season? The Prime Minister had such a good start to the job that it’s easy to forget that she has the same problems that David Cameron did in terms of parliamentary arithmetic and fractures in her party over Europe. For Cameron, the parliamentary arithmetic
What does Theresa May believe? The new Prime Minister has had the summer to settle into her job and has a chance next week to tell us more about her plans for government. Had she come to power after a general election, or even a proper leadership race, we’d know more about her. Instead, she
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference was rather good. It was clear, it was reasonably neatly-delivered, and it covered all the bases that the Labour leader needed to cover in order to solidify his position following his re-election. Of course, to a certain extent, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d given the worst speech in
Jeremy Corbyn will shortly address the Labour conference with what is officially known as the ‘parliamentary report’. An accurate ‘parliamentary report’ would include an in-depth discussion about relations between the parliamentary party and its leader, who has gone from being one of the most rebellious backbenchers to demanding loyalty from his colleagues. Normally before a
Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech includes the normally unremarkable but currently remarkable assertion that he wants Labour to win the next election. Given the debate that has raged within the Labour party over the past few months about purity vs power, that the re-elected Labour leader is saying this at all is significant. He will say
Whether or not to serve on Labour’s frontbench is a question of the same order of asking whether the deck chairs on the Titanic should face north or south. But Labour MPs do have to work out what’s best to do while their ship is being captained by Jeremy Corbyn – and we’re starting to
Jeremy Corbyn might have wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over with his MPs after the summer’s leadership contest. But the mood on the Labour conference fringe shows that this is going to be extremely difficult in practice, even if the Labour leader does everything that his MPs ask of him (which he
John McDonnell is now speaking at the Labour conference, and will pledge to match the regional funding that communities will lose as a result of Brexit. This has been billed as ‘one of the Labour Party’s biggest policy statements since the Brexit vote’, which is another way of saying ‘one of the Labour Party’s only
Labour conference is now firmly underway in Liverpool, as is the ‘World Transformed’ festival organised by Corbynite grassroots organisation Momentum. Labour MPs and long-time activists are wandering about in a state of bewilderment at the change forged in their party over the past year, perhaps best embodied by the joyful appearance of former Militant bigwig
If Jeremy Corbyn set out in his Marr interview to reassure his critics in the Labour Party that this is the beginning of a new era for the leadership and the wider party, he didn’t do a great job. The Labour leader refused to rule out mandatory reselection of his MPs, saying that most of
The Labour Party is in a sour mood at present, that much we already know. Usually, most of the sourness expressed by MPs is directed at their own party comrades. But this afternoon, at the Labour Women’s Conference, speaker after speaker decided to turn fire on Theresa May. Angela Rayner congratulated her on being the
As expected, Jeremy Corbyn has just beaten Owen Smith in the Labour leadership race with 62pc of the vote, higher last year’s 60pc. So this means he has redoubled his authority – and probably his reach within the structures of the party as moderate members shrug their shoulders and give up. ‘Let’s wipe the slate clean from
Tomorrow just before noon, Jeremy Corbyn is set to be crowned leader of the Labour party for a second time, possibly, according to insiders, with an even bigger mandate than the one he’s spent the past year waving at his own party. And after months of resignations, fighting, and a leadership contest where the challenger
The leaking – accidental or otherwise – of a list of Labour MPs allegedly guilty of abusive behaviour towards Jeremy Corbyn is yet another illustration of quite how divided the party is, and quite how messy things are going to be when Corbyn tries to reassert his authority following what looks certain to be his
Is Theresa May planning an epic battle with some of her own MPs to introduce new grammar schools in England? When Justine Greening gave her statement in the Commons this afternoon, she repeated many of the Prime Minister’s own lines about selection already existing through house prices and so on. But her language was much
