Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman

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.

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May’s honeymoon isn’t over yet

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

Theresa May’s ‘hard Brexit’ hint

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

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May: Brexit will begin in March 2017

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?

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

In search of Mayism

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 could have given this speech 20 years ago

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

Isabel Hardman

There will be nothing normal about Jeremy Corbyn’s conference speech

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

Isabel Hardman

Labour must hold the Tories to account on Brexit

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

How long will the brittle peace at Labour’s conference survive?

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

What will Labour MPs do once Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected?

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

Greening takes dovish tone on government’s schools plan

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

Owen Smith: UK could join euro and Schengen

Why on earth did Owen Smith say that he might consider re-joining not just the European Union but also the euro and Schengen? Some of the Labour leadership contender’s colleagues have been asking the ‘why on earth’ question a fair bit this summer, not least when he made the interesting decision to out-Corbyn Corbyn on