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.
Rishi Sunak and Michelle Donelan will this afternoon bow to the inevitable and accept rebel changes to the Online Safety Bill. They are doing so after it became obvious that the government was going to lose a vote on the legislation, due to have its remaining stages in the Commons later today. The Online Safety
MPs and peers are going to spend the next few weeks in an almighty fight about strikes and protests. Today the Commons debates the second reading of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. Business Secretary Grant Shapps and Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner are going head-to-head on legislation requiring unions in key sectors to provide
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It’s looking like a busy week in Westminster. So busy in fact that prime minister Rishi Sunak will not be attending the annual Davos meeting, organised by the World Economic Forum. His opposite number Kier Starmer will be making the trip however, is this a shrewd move from Labour? Also on the podcast, amended plans
Rishi Sunak has a rebel problem: we already know that. He’s got factions of Tory MPs prepared to vote against the government on a range of issues, and the Prime Minister knows that on each issue, there are different rebels, rather than just one easy-to-identify awkward squad. Even when he is, as Katy explains in
For a politician who has set much store by being pretty boring, Keir Starmer seems to be enjoying his current provocative spell. His desire to shake up the ‘nonsense’ bureaucracy in the NHS makes the Sunday Telegraph splash and was a key feature of his interview this morning with Laura Kuenssberg. He argued that ‘the
The Princess of Wales is in hot water for some remarks she made while visiting the Open Door charity in Birkenhead, which helps teenagers with their mental health problems through arts and dance. She is reported to have said: ‘Talking therapies don’t work for some people, they’re not for everybody. It’s so important to have
Matilda played with her mother’s stethoscopes when she was a child. As a teenager, she pored over anatomy books. She devoted her early twenties to medical school and has been cramming for postgraduate exams well into her thirties. Last summer, she jacked it all in. Being a doctor ‘was turning me into a bad person,’
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Rishi Sunak has finally answered questions over his healthcare arrangements with a statement in Prime Minister’s Questions, stating that he is currently registered with an NHS GP but has used private healthcare in the past. Is this change in tack an admission that he should have answered the question sooner? Katy Balls talks to Isabel
He was going to change his line at some point. Finally, at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak dropped his refusal to discuss his family’s healthcare arrangements and admitted he has gone private. He used the first question of the session, from Labour’s Cat Smith, to ‘answer the lady directly’ and say: ‘I am registered
It’s the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the year and strikes will undoubtedly dominate. Both sides feel they have a political advantage. Rishi Sunak sees his anti-strike laws requiring minimum service levels as a way of uniting his party and claiming that Labour don’t care about the basic safety of the public. Keir Starmer sees
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Business Secretary, Grant Shapps has introduced a bill proposing a minimum level of public sector work during strike action for six key industries. Labour’s Angela Rayner told the Commons these plans are ‘insulting and utterly stupid’. As a policy that Tories largely agree on, could this bill bring the party together? Also on the podcast,
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In an interview on Sunday, Rishi Sunak refused to tell Laura Kuenssberg whether he has a private GP. Could this question come back to haunt him amid accusations he is ‘out of touch’? As Parliament returns from recess, ministers are holding talks with unions to avoid further public sector strikes. However, with strike action still
Both the Westminster and Scottish governments are trying to show they have a grip on the crises in their respective National Health Services today. Neither currently find themselves politically in a strong place on the winter crisis. English Health Secretary Steve Barclay is giving a statement to the House of Commons when it returns this
Rishi Sunak is still refusing to say that the NHS is ‘in crisis’. He’s held meetings on ‘NHS recovery’ this weekend, and will have been told in no uncertain terms by healthcare leaders that this is a crisis, probably the worst one the health service has faced in its history. He told Laura Kuenssberg in
When I was a student, my housemates and I would buy our groceries from a shop that offered only days of the week as the best before. We had a lettuce that went off on ‘Tuesday’, bread that would go stale on a ‘Thursday’, and so on. It was useful for the shop, and useful
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Keir Starmer said this morning that communities would ‘take back control’ under a Labour government. In a speech delivered just down the road from where Rishi Sunak spoke yesterday, the Labour leader promised to expand devolution. Is his vision radical enough? Max Jeffery speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Heale.
Keir Starmer’s new year speech was better than Rishi Sunak’s. It’s easier to give a speech about fixing problems when you’re in opposition and someone else has caused them. But it was just more interesting than what the Prime Minister had to say yesterday. There was the politically audacious decision to pick up Vote Leave’s
The battle of the New Year launch speeches enters its second day, with Labour leader Keir Starmer giving his own address in East London. Rishi Sunak said yesterday he had five ‘immediate priorities’ for fixing Britain. The Labour leader is offering a similar repair job this morning, while also trying to reassure voters this won’t
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Rishi Sunak made five pledges to fix Britain in a speech in London today. Inflation will halve, the economy will grow, debt will fall, NHS waiting lists will be cut, and the government will pass laws to tackle the small boats crisis. Is the PM promising too much, or not enough? Max Jeffery speaks to
Rishi Sunak’s new year speech was more about what he wants to fix rather than how he plans to fix it. That is generally what start-of-the-year speeches intend to do, painting in broad strokes rather than going into endless policy detail. The Prime Minister came to office with a promise to fix the turmoil left