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.
Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told the Commons that all remaining domestic Covid restrictions were coming to an end. The most explosive moments of the past few months haven’t been about the continuation of Covid restrictions From this Thursday, the legal
Sadiq Khan forced Cressida Dick out of her job as Metropolitan Police chief. Both made that very clear this evening, with Dick saying ‘the mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue’, while Khan said he was ‘not satisfied with the Commissioner’s response’ to his ultimatum for changing the Met’s culture of misogyny,
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The Prime Minister tried to start today’s PMQs with an announcement to fire up the right of his base, an early end to all Covid restrictions. But the partygate scandal is the gift that keeps on giving when during the Commons session a new photo leaked of Boris Johnson at a Christmas quiz with a
The takeaway moment from today’s PMQs came not in the main exchanges between Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer but later in the session. Labour MP Fabian Hamilton asked about a just-published photo of the Prime Minister with an open bottle of prosecco alongside staff wearing tinsel at a Downing Street Christmas quiz. At the
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A mini reshuffle has happened, but this time nobody has been fired. Is this a sign of Boris Johnson being strategic? Or is it more an advertisement of the little room he has to manoeuvre?Also on the podcast, James and Isabel discuss the NHS backlog. Today the Health Secretary was forced to admit to MPs
The No. 10 operation’s decision to double down on the Starmer/Savile row after the Labour leader was accosted in the street by anti-vaxxers shows us how limited the options are for Boris Johnson as he tries to recover from the turmoil of the past few weeks. The line from his allies and aides is that
Boris Johnson’s new No. 10 hires have given him a chance to catch his breath, very briefly, from the turmoil of the past week. But it’s worth noting that the plot has always thickened as a result of something the Prime Minister himself has done, rather than the mistakes or otherwise of his team. Guto
This week, Michael Gove’s lengthy Levelling Up white paper talked about the ancient city of Jericho. This was largely because of its size and natural irrigation, but perhaps the Biblical story of the city’s walls falling might be more fitting given the state of Downing Street. The response in the Conservative party to not one
Boris Johnson’s day has just got considerably worse after Rishi Sunak distanced himself from the Prime Minister in a Downing Street press conference. The Chancellor pitched himself as the person focusing on the things voters actually worry about — unlike his boss. Sunak’s press briefing was on the cost of living crisis and specifically what
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While Westminster politicians and journalists alike continue to predict exactly how many letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson have been officially filed. Michael Gove’s levelling up white paper has finally arrived. A bizarre document that references many ancient cites and how they ‘levelled up’, but does it propose any tangible solutions on how to
Today’s PMQs suggests that some of the immediate heat has gone the partygate crisis, if only temporarily. Sir Keir Starmer did not make all his questions about parties, instead widening out his attacks to Conservative tax policy. The faces of most of his backbenchers froze as he doubled down, saying that Starmer had apologised for
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While Boris Johnson’s performance in the Common’s yesterday was seen broadly as tone deaf – thanks to comments about Jimmy Savile and drug-taking on the Labour front bench – he was given a chance to redeem himself at a private meeting with his party yesterday evening. ‘One of my favourite questions was when one 2019
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The long anticipated Sue Gray report was finally published today albeit lacking significant chucks of detail. Following the report, Boris Johnson made a statement in the Commons. Though he apologised at the beginning, his tone did not seem particularly apologetic, which clearly riled a number of MPs across party lines. ‘The discomfort among the Tory benches
That Boris Johnson regards the Gray update as an opportunity to come up for air was very clear from his statement on the report in the Commons. The Prime Minister’s opening remarks struck what seemed to be a reasonable balance between apologising, offering some operational changes to No. 10 (to show he was taking the
Sue Gray’s report on the lockdown partying in Downing Street is short. Just 11 pages. Early on, it makes clear that the police are investigating all but four of them, which makes this an ‘update’. Gray avoids making a judgement on whether the gatherings were a breach of the regulations and guidance in place at
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Whilst everyone waits for the Sue Gray report, all eyes turn to the next scandal: Pen Farthing’s animal rescue operation out of Afghanistan. It has been revealed that Boris Johnson’s parliamentary private secretary, Trudy Harrison contacted a jet hire company in an attempt to secure a plane to evacuate the pets. The PM has responded
Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it was a pointless session: everyone is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, so most likely it will be forgotten very quickly and will make no difference to the main event (whenever that comes). Most
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The latest in the scandal of Downing Street parties points to the Prime Minister’s own birthday, where a gathering took place in the Cabinet Office. Whilst this has been played off by a Downing Street spokesperson as being on ‘the edges of a work event’. Cressida Dick announced this morning that events at No.10 during
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As the Prime Minister has a stay of execution after the pork pie plot came to nothing, today allegations are flying that Tory whips have been using unsavoury methods to threaten wavering MPs into line. Christian Wakeford, the newly defected Labour MP to Bury South, says that whips threatened to withdraw funding from a local
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Last night rumours were flying around Westminster that letters of no confidence from Tory MPs were pouring in and Boris might be leaving sooner rather than later. But with the surprising crossing of the aisle by MP for Bury South, Christian Wakeford, it appears that old party tribalism may have stayed some hands. ‘While a
