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.

Alex Salmond’s reassuring St George’s Day address

St George’s Day is one of those festivals that politicians are particularly earnest about, for fear someone accuse them of being ashamed of England. But today’s most interesting pointed St George’s Day celebration comes from a man more accustomed to suggesting that Englishness is something he is quite separate from. Alex Salmond is hopping across

Isabel Hardman

Why David Cameron has ditched a free vote on hunting

David Cameron has, according to this morning’s Times, U-turned on his Coalition Agreement promise to hold a free vote in the House of Commons on repealing the Hunting Act. This wasn’t a great surprise – what had annoyed rural Tories more was the failure of the two Coalition parties to agree on a very limited

Parliament unusually full of women

It’s quite easy to grow quite used to the way things are, and only realise that they’re a bit odd when there’s a momentary shift. Today Parliament is packed with women, which is a bit of a shock to the system. They’re in New Palace Yard to film scenes from ‘Suffragette’, rather than as part

Isabel Hardman

Osborne banks the recovery – and whacks his critics

A few months ago, colleagues of George Osborne were worried the Chancellor risked ‘banking the recovery’ too early. If they’re still worried about that, then Osborne certainly isn’t. Today he’s delivering a speech attacking economic pessimists who he says can be proven wrong: ‘Our nation’s best days lie ahead’. He will say: ‘The evidence increasingly

David Cameron: Trust me to change EU, not Ukip

David Cameron launched his party’s European and local elections campaign in Manchester today. After weeks of polarised debate between Nick and Nigel, the PM had a task in suggesting that there could be some nuance between In and Out which involves a bit of shake-it-all-about. He repeated his line that both the Lib Dems and

Michael Fabricant sacked: what about other HS2 opponents?

It’s difficult to know what astonished people more about Michael Fabricant’s sacking: that he has lost his job or that he was still in a role that required some semblance of collective responsibility. Shortly after assuming the role of Vice Chair of the Conservative Party, he called for a pact with Ukip. Some of his

Isabel Hardman

PMQs was messy, but it won’t help Labour

PMQs was very messy for David Cameron. It was never going to be fun coming after Maria Miller’s resignation (although it would have been a lot less fun if Miller hadn’t gone). But Cameron made things worse in place by making strange comments that seemed to suggest that he thought Ed Miliband should have called

Isabel Hardman

Maria Miller: Who could replace her?

Who are the ministers who could replace Maria Miller? Some of the muttering over the past few days has been about the Prime Minister’s desire to keep women in the Cabinet, and Miller herself boasted of being the only mother in the Cabinet. [audioboo url=”https://audioboo.fm/boos/2059892-maria-miller-on-her-resignation”]Maria Miller: Resigning is ‘the right thing to do’[/audioboo] There are

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Maria Miller resigns

Listen: Fraser Nelson, James Forysth and Isabel Hardman discuss Miller’s resignation listen to ‘Podcast special: Maria Miller resigns’ on Audioboo In the past few minutes, Maria Miller has resigned. The issue wasn’t going to go away, thanks in no small part to the way that the Culture Secretary and Number 10 had handled the story.

Isabel Hardman

More Tory MPs break cover on Miller

Tory MPs now feel it’s acceptable to pile in on the Maria Miller row and offer their views. Mark Field has just told the World at One that her apology to the Commons was regarded as ‘unacceptably perfunctory’. listen to ‘Mark Field on the ‘toxic issue’ of MPs expenses’ on Audioboo

Isabel Hardman

Curious lack of support for Miller in Cabinet

Senior 1922 Committee members are quite surprised by the suggestion that tomorrow’s end-of-term meeting with the Prime Minister represents the deadline for the Maria Miller problem to be resolved. But while you won’t find a Tory backbencher who thinks the impact on the public of this story is negligible – one tells me that ‘whatever

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson: Maria Miller is being hounded

As backbenchers apparently gang up on Maria Miller, she’s seen Conservative and Lib Dem colleagues trying to defend her – and dampen down Esther McVey’s comments – on the airwaves this morning. Boris Johnson told the Today programme that he felt Miller was being hounded (although he didn’t give a view on whether she should

Isabel Hardman

Even Iain Duncan Smith’s critics can’t reject his welfare reforms

Iain Duncan Smith’s speech today setting out the moral mission behind his welfare reforms (his series of interventions doing this was previewed in the Spectator at the start of this year) has attracted the usual criticism from Labour for having ‘nothing to say about the cost-of-living crisis’ and a programme ‘in complete disarray’. The opposition has