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.

Will the next Tory leader tackle sleaze?

All the candidates in this Tory leadership contest will have to pay tribute to the importance of standards in public life, given what did for Boris Johnson. For some of them, this will probably be as meaningful as posting a #bekind meme on social media. But if there isn’t a wider reckoning over standards and

Boris’s resignation speech will trouble Tory MPs

Boris Johnson has just given a bitter resignation speech that makes clear he is not going anywhere until a new leader is in place. He has set up a betrayal narrative, pointedly thanking the British public – but not his own party – for his time in office and saying it would be ‘eccentric’ to

Isabel Hardman

Boris resigns. What next?

15 min listen

After fighting words briefed out to the papers overnight, this morning, the Prime Minister has finally decided to resign. A statement is expected today. On the episode, Katy Balls discusses with Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson whether he should have gone sooner (and the implications for the post-politics speaking circuit) and the leadership race that

Boris refuses to resign – what next?

8 min listen

Despite mass resignations and calls from newly appointed ministers to resign, Boris has dug his heels in and refused to leave. What will be his next moves? And are the rumours of a snap general election really on the cards? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth.

Isabel Hardman

Who will tell Boris it’s over?

In the past couple of minutes, five ministers have resigned as a co-ordinated group and Michael Gove is reported to have told Boris Johnson in private that it’s time to go. Kemi Badenoch, Lee Rowley, Alex Burghart, Neil O’Brien and Julia Lopez have quit in a joint letter in which they call for Boris Johnson to

Isabel Hardman

The most brutal line in Sajid Javid’s resignation speech

Sajid Javid’s resignation in the Commons just now was coldly brutal. He’s had some practice, which he acknowledged, given this is the second time he has resigned in protest from Boris Johnson’s government. The first personal statement he gave was critical, but this one was terminal. He said ‘treading the tightrope between loyalty and integrity

Isabel Hardman

PMQs will only encourage further rebellion

At one point in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, the Speaker called MPs to order and told them: ‘We’ve got to get through Prime Minister’s Questions.’ This was an instruction to backbenchers who were shouting at one another across the chamber. But it sounded like an ambitious goal for Boris Johnson. He barely got through the

Isabel Hardman

The most damning accusation against Boris Johnson

In the blizzard of letters by Tory MPs who want Boris Johnson to go, one stands out. Chris Skidmore has called for the rules of the 1922 Committee to be changed so that another vote of no confidence. His argument is particularly forceful: ‘This is an extremely grave situation, that is tantamount to an effective cover-up

Isabel Hardman

The ministerial resignations keep on coming

More ministerial resignations are underway and the day has barely begun in Westminster. Will Quince, who had the humiliating job of answering questions about what Johnson knew and when on the Monday broadcast round, has quit. He’s an education minister and writes in his letter that the Prime Minister last night apologised to him for

Boris appoints Steve Barclay as Health Secretary

Steve Barclay is the new Health Secretary. This is a fascinating move for both political and policy reasons. The first is that it is an admission by the Prime Minister that his current Downing Street operation is not working: Barclay was the chief of staff brought in to ‘get a grip’, and there has manifestly

Isabel Hardman

Sunak and Javid resign. Now what?

11 min listen

Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid have resigned from government. In letters to the Prime Minister this evening, Sunak said the government ‘cannot continue like this’, while Javid told the PM that ‘the situation will not change under your leadership.’ Will more ministers now resign? And is this the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership? Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman

Boris remains ‘bullish’ as his cabinet implodes

Shortly after he received the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson addressed around 70 Tory MPs who are still sort-of loyal to him. I’m told by one loyal colleague – who sounded rather bewildered by the whole thing – that Johnson was ‘remarkably bullish’, claiming he is going to appoint a new

Isabel Hardman

Boris’s desperate tearoom tour

This afternoon, a text message went out to certain Tory MPs telling them that the Prime Minister was going to be in the tearoom from 4 p.m. with the plea ‘please come to support’. This tells us so many things about the mood in the Conservative party at the moment.  The first is that Johnson

Isabel Hardman

Boris ‘forgot’ about Pincher allegations, claims minister

The government’s line yesterday on what Boris Johnson knew about Chris Pincher’s behaviour kept changing. Today, it’s quite hard to find anything that could reasonably be described as a ‘line’. More of a messy scribble. After Simon McDonald’s explosive intervention this morning, the ‘line’ had to change from Boris Johnson not being informed of any specific

Starmer’s cautious five-point plan to ‘make Brexit work’

Keir Starmer is delivering his latest instalment of Things Labour Would Just Do Better. In a speech to the Centre for European Reform this evening, the Labour leader is complaining that the government ‘have missed Brexit opportunities time and time again’. He will also set out his party’s ‘five point plan to make Brexit work’.

Isabel Hardman

What did Boris know about Chris Pincher?

12 min listen

Boris Johnson knew of media reports about Chris Pincher’s conduct when he invited him to join the government, it emerged today. How serious a crisis is this for the government? And as the Prime Minister today returned from three international summits, was he able to put his domestic problems behind him in the Commons? Katy

Isabel Hardman

Ministers are getting more reluctant to defend Boris

It’s long been the case that No. 10 has struggled to find ministers willing to go on the morning broadcast rounds to defend the latest government meltdown. Most of them leave their phones on ‘do not disturb’ or outright refuse to go out and defend the indefensible. That there are so many indefensible incidents that