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.
Tory whips are doing a ring around of their MPs to find out what they think of the row over Suella Braverman’s Times piece. The Home Secretary accused police of ‘playing favourites’ when it comes to dealing with protests. As I blogged earlier, several have made their views on Braverman’s intervention very well known to
Tory MPs are in an even more fractious mood than usual following Suella Braverman’s article in the Times. No. 10 has now clarified that while Rishi Sunak has full confidence in Braverman, the article was not cleared by Downing Street. As Katy Balls explains here, the Home Secretary does seem to be pushing the limits of
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Rishi Sunak met with Met Commissioner Mark Rowley today to discuss the Palestine protests planned for the Remembrance weekend. Sunak has called the marches ‘disrespectful’, and said he would hold Rowley ‘accountable’ for not banning them. Will the Commissioner change his mind? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and Danny Shaw, former home affairs correspondent
What does Rishi Sunak mean when he says Saturday’s pro-Palestine march in London is ‘disrespectful’? The Prime Minister was responding to the announcements from Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley that his force would not be banning the demonstration in London. Sunak said: This is a decision that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has made, and
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It was the King’s speech today. King Charles announced that the government would introduce new laws to, among other things, force criminals to attend their sentencing hearings, scrap most jail sentences of less than a year, and sell all new houses as freehold properties. Is it enough for the Tories to turn around their deficit
Rishi Sunak wants voters to see the Conservatives as taking difficult, ambitious choices, including on net zero and transport. He told MPs: ‘This King’s Speech is about what this government is about, taking long-term decisions to build a brighter future for our country. It builds on foundations that are far stronger than they were just
‘My ministers’ focus is on increasing economic growth and safeguarding the health and security of the British people for generations to come.’ The King read these opening words, written for him, which set out the government’s final legislative agenda before a general election. Of course, that agenda is being interpreted as a ‘starting gun’ for
Landscape architects use the term ‘hostile design’ to describe elements that stop anti-social behaviour. They could be armrests along a lengthy bench aren’t for the comfort of the people who choose to sit there, but to break up the space and make it impossible for someone to lie down and sleep rough. Little studs running
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The Home Secretary sparked fury over the weekend for her comments on homelessness, suggesting that rough sleepers using tents is a ‘lifestyle choice’. Senior cabinet members including the Rishi Sunak didn’t jump to her defence from the comments. What was behind her decision to take such a firm line? Also on the podcast, Katy Balls
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How should we think of the 26 million people in the UK living with a long-term health condition? Under the current system, only a handful of long-term conditions are prioritised. This leads to a huge strain on NHS resources and capacity later down the road, as long-term health conditions comprise 50 per cent of all
What was the point of Rishi Sunak’s landmark AI summit at Bletchley Park? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference at the end of it in which he tried to underline his achievements. These included bringing together more than 100 of the leading AI nations and leading companies handling the technology and reaching
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The Bank of England has once again taken the decision to hold interest rates at their 15-year high. There is growing market consensus that this second pause is a sign that interest rates have peaked, or nearly reached their peak. Will the Bank be able to tread the thin line between tackling inflation but also
Matt Hancock argued that he – rather than medical professionals – should be the one to decide who lived or died in the event of a shortage of medical supplies and the NHS being overwhelmed during Covid. This revelation comes from evidence given by Simon Stevens, who until 2021 was chief executive of NHS England,
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Today the Covid inquiry heard from Helen McNamara, former deputy cabinet secretary (who infamously supplied a karaoke machine for one of the government’s lockdown parties). Her evidence suggested that the government’s pandemic response had a women problem – from not properly understanding lockdown’s impact on domestic abuse to not considering that PPE is designed for
In the past few minutes, Labour has suspended Andy McDonald from the party whip after comments he made that were ‘deeply offensive, particularly at a time of rising anti-Semitism which has left Jewish people fearful for their safety’. Those comments, which the Labour backbencher made at the weekend, included the phrase ‘between the river and
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The Covid inquiry enters its most dramatic week, questioning Martin Reynolds (a.k.a. ‘Party Marty’), as well as former No. 10 advisors Lee Cain and Dominic Cummings. But it seems that the inquiry has gone down more the route of interpersonal drama rather than lessons learnt for government decisionmaking. So what’s the point of it? Katy
Was anything in Martin Reynolds’s evidence to the Covid inquiry surprising today? We already knew that Boris Johnson had a sketchy hold of the details when Covid emerged in early 2020, something that the PM’s former private secretary gave us more on when he admitted that there was a period of ten days where the
Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from Labour frontbenchers to change tack and back calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. There are now more than a dozen such MPs who have defied the party line to call for one, along with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greater
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Today, Keir Starmer held a long meeting with some Muslim Labour MPs over their concern on his stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict, first ignited by comments he made on LBC which seemed to justify Israel’s electricity and water blockade of Gaza. The Labour leader has made huge progress to move his party on from the
It was revealing that Keir Starmer decided not to ask Rishi Sunak about Israel at Prime Minister’s Questions today. The Labour leader headed straight from the session into a crunch meeting with Muslim MPs and peers who are angry at the way he has handled the conflict (more from Katy here), and so he clearly