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.
We have reached the time in spring when everything goes whoosh! and the bare brown and grey days of winter start becoming a distant memory. There are so many spring flowers around, and everyone likes to gab on about tulips and bluebells and blossom, while pointedly ignoring some of our most beautiful wild flowers. Even
12 min listen
We’ve learnt from a speech this morning from GCHQ director Jeremy Fleming that the Russian army is in even more disarray than was previously thought. This has led some to think that not only could the Ukrainians succeed in holding the Russians at bay but even opens up the possibility of them retaking some of
Can Sajid Javid really say, as he did this afternoon in the Commons, that the government is taking action to ensure ‘that no families have to go through the same pain’ experienced by those affected by the biggest maternity scandal in the history of the NHS? The Ockenden inquiry into the maternity services at the
12 min listen
Despite the fines issued yesterday, Keir Starmer’s attacks at Prime Minister’s Questions today failed to land on Boris Johnson. In part, this was down to the Prime Minister’s ‘remarkably pugnacious’ attitude, according to James Forsyth on this episode. What’s more, it seems that Conservative MPs are happy to allow partygate to take a back seat
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions ran pretty much as expected. The session opened with Boris Johnson very pointedly congratulating his Conservative colleague Jamie Wallis, who has just come out as the UK’s first openly trans MP. Johnson said: ‘I stand with you and will give you the support that you need to live freely as yourself.’
Clap for carers now feels like ancient history. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest since 1997, according to a new study out today. The British Social Attitudes Survey finds overall satisfaction with the health service at just 36 per cent, a record-breaking fall of 17 points since 2020. People often relate to
What do you remember about Tim Farron’s time as Lib Dem leader? Was it the position he created for his party on a hard Brexit? Or what he had to say about gay sex? He quit the leadership in June 2017, saying he had concluded that ‘remaining faithful to Christ’ was incompatible with being a
11 min listen
Partygate is back in the news with fines being issued by the Metropolitan Police to twenty individuals. But this is not the end of the matter, this is only the first batch of fines and the full Sue Grey report is still to come. Is this scandal still enough to bring down the Prime Minister
Will the Conservatives have much evidence that they’ve helped the country recover from the pandemic by the next election? Even though all the indications are that the party will go for a later poll in 2024, they still do not have much time to fix the big holes that have gaped wider as a result
11 min listen
The Prime Minister has just returned from a Nato meeting in Brussels. So far, the alliance’s members have been unified in their response to Russia, but with President Zelensky now asking for Nato to send tanks to Ukraine, are we going to see cracks emerge? Katy Balls talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.
Rachel Reeves is, as Labour frontbenchers go, pretty experienced. She’s not been in government, but then neither has her leader because there are now young teenagers who have never experienced a Labour government. Reeves has been on and off her party’s frontbench ever since she was elected in 2010, and that long experience was on show in
Keir Starmer was clearly keen today to make sure people remembered what is normally a rather pointless PMQs session before an economic statement. The Labour leader did so by using slightly questionable language, calling Boris Johnson ‘half-arsed’. MPs will debate whether or not this was parliamentary language (he couldn’t have called the Prime Minister a
16 min listen
Over the weekend, Boris Johnson sparked a wave of criticism after he linked the Ukraine crisis to Brexit. During his speech at the Conservative Party’s Spring Conference, the PM suggested that Ukraine’s decision to ‘choose freedom’ was reminiscent of Brexit. ‘I think it was up there with the Jimmy Saville joke which he made about Keir
‘How many foreign secretaries does it take for someone to come home? Five?’ Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has spoken for the first time in public, giving a press conference alongside her husband Richard and MP Tulip Siddiq this lunchtime. She was grateful for her release from Iran, but also very clear that she wasn’t as thankful to
The Conservative plan to tackle the NHS backlog has, so far, run roughly along the lines of the New Labour approach to the hefty waiting lists in the health service at the turn of the century. More money, more flexibility when using the private sector and greater ‘patient choice’ (which in this context translates as
When Angela Rayner faces Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions, it is obvious that both sides rather enjoy the exchanges. When she’s up against Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, as she was today, it feels like more of a grudge match. The session naturally centred around Ukraine, but as is Rayner’s habit, it was more
Michael Gove has a reputation as a minister for clearing up colleagues’ messes – often the secretary of state he has replaced in a department – in a polite but very conspicuous fashion. Today it was Home Secretary Priti Patel’s turn to see what it was like to get a visit from Gove and his dustpan
14 min listen
Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has caused the prices of oil and gas to skyrocket. One of the Prime Minster’s strategies to combat this appears to be a visit Saudi Arabia this week, where he’ll ask Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to release more oil. But what’s the chance of this working? Katy Balls is joined
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions clash between Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson focused on the domestic implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Labour leader started by calling on Johnson to force Chancellor Rishi Sunak into a U-turn on his policy of a £200 loan to help with energy prices. Starmer’s argument was that
Some MPs were in tears yesterday when President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the House of Commons, and understandably so, given the soaring rhetoric and bravery of a man who knows his days on earth could be numbered. One kind interpretation is that the caseworkers at the Home Office haven’t been trained sufficiently for them to use