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

Cabinet celebrates the Budget ‘in the traditional manner’

The Cabinet met this morning to discuss the Budget, with the Chancellor telling ministers that today the Conservatives will ‘set out the next stage in a plan that is working’ and deliver a ‘truly national recovery’, a reiteration of the comments he’s already posted on Twitter. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told journalists that ‘there was

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2015: The challenges for Labour

Ed Miliband will respond to the Budget today (the Shadow Chancellor responds to the Autumn Statement, and has a Budget speech the day after the main event). In the past couple of years the Labour response hasn’t been fantastic, partly because the Tories have got a very well-organised (and at times just rather brutish and

Isabel Hardman

How will the Tories sell today’s Budget?

It’s Budget Day, possibly George Osborne’s last Budget and certainly the last big event in the House of Commons that anyone outside it will notice. The Chancellor will, within the limits set by the Coalition, try to give voters a vision of what life after the cuts will be like, with glimpses of sunlit uplands

Labour and Lib Dems welcome ‘progress’ on TV debates

So both Labour and the Lib Dems have responded to the TV debates with caution and enthusiasm respectively. A Labour spokesman said ‘based on the broadcasters’ proposals we have accepted and plan to attend all three debates on April 2nd, 16th and the 30th. If the Tories have confirmed they are to attend one of

Isabel Hardman

Tory knives dangle over Grant Shapps

Though his Conservative colleagues have largely been very supportive of Grant Shapps during the latest row about his alter ego Michael Green, there is a contingent in the party who aren’t massive fans of the Tory chairman and who have pushed at previous reshuffles to have him removed. As I predicted yesterday, those opponents of Shapps

Isabel Hardman

Muscly hipsters force ONS to change its basket of goods

The Office for National Statistics has updated its basket of goods that it uses to measure inflation, and has added some amusingly middle class items in, including sweet potatoes, liver and melons. Even better is the addition of ‘speciality beer/ale, bottled’ because of the ‘increase in expenditure and shelf space’ devoted to craft beer, and

Andy Burnham: I am mainstream Labour

Has Andy Burnham really reinvented himself to prepare for a future leadership bid? In this week’s Spectator, I interviewed the Shadow Health Secretary about his rather forthright views on the NHS: views that some suspect have conveniently changed in order to appeal to Labour’s base. You can read the interview here, but for Coffee House

Can the Greens win in Bristol West?

If general elections were won on how swanky a campaign office is, the Greens would beat the Lib Dems hands down in Bristol West. Their candidate Darren Hall works out of a smart, airy office overlooking the harbour in one of the most expensive commercial parts of the city. It’s all thanks to Vivienne Westwood,

Isabel Hardman

Is Margaret Hodge the ‘tarantula’ good for politics?

It’s not just on the Health Select Committee that election fever is starting to take hold. The Public Accounts Committee had a party-political row this week too, with accusations that Tory members had blocked plans to question Lord Green over HSBC. There is now a leak inquiry underway about who from the committee told the

Isabel Hardman

Labour edges towards firmer line on SNP coalition

If mainstream politicians are a bit confused and downbeat at the moment, Scottish Labour MPs are the most miserable of the lot, facing a savaging in constituencies they never thought would slip out of their party’s hands. But last night Ed Miliband gave them reason to be a bit less miserable, just for a little