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.
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Keir Starmer went on the attack today at PMQs. The controversy over last years Christmas party resurfaced, with accusations that No.10 breached lockdown rules. He then went on to criticise the government’s new hospitals program. Boris was dealt another blow, this time from his own side. Tory MPs are in uproar about the threats of
Sir Keir Starmer had two lines of attack at Prime Minister’s Questions, both of them strong in their own way. The problem was that it wasn’t entirely clear what held them together and by splitting his six questions between them, he weakened the force of both. Starmer has been building a case for a while
Boris Johnson is relying heavily on the booster programme to protect Britain from any additional threat posed by the Omicron variant. The Prime Minister made that very clear at this afternoon’s Covid press conference in Downing Street, opening by saying that ‘there is one thing we already know for sure: right now, our single best
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Yesterday Keir Starmer’s Labour Party announced a new reshuffle of its shadow cabinet. It just coincidentally happened on the same day Angela Rayner gave a big speech on Tory sleaze, leading some to speculate on friction within the party. ‘What you can’t avoid is that they ultimately decided to do the reshuffle on a day
Keir Starmer has a new front bench. He has conducted his second reshuffle in the space of a year, but this time he’s actually managed to get the changes he was after. A key theme of this reshuffle has been giving Labour a better chance of being heard. Many of the departures today have involved
The Health and Care Bill is having a predictably stormy passage through parliament, popping up in the Lords next week for its second reading. If you’d paid only cursory attention to its closing stages in the Commons then you might be forgiven for thinking the legislation is largely about reform to social care and privatisation
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We are slowly learning more and more about this new Covid variant, but it could be weeks before we know just how contagious and harmful it could be. Wasting no time, over the weekend the government has banned travel from certain countries and tightened domestic Covid measures. ‘It’s fair to say that ministers are anxious
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The migrants that tragically lost their lives in the English Channel has caused Anglo- French relations to further deteriorate. There is a theory however, that it suits Macron’s agenda to be in a perpetual war with the Brits. Could this be the case when migrants are still in the hands of the traffickers? ‘These people-smuggling
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A new Covid variant dubbed ‘Nu’ has been discovered in South Africa and the UK has already put travel restrictions in place. Though early tests have shown that Nu is more transmissible, we don’t know conclusively if it is any more deadly or can evade vaccines. ‘We don’t know yet, whether this variant is more
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With multiple weeks of bad publicity and rumours of some Conservative MPs sending in letters of no confidence, today’s PMQs witnessed much more noise than last week’s. However, is the Prime Minster hitting back at critics, including a more confident Keir Starmer, effectively? ‘Today I thought Keir Starmer looked like he was actually really enjoying
Sir Keir Starmer enjoyed himself again at Prime Minister’s Questions today. He came armed with plenty of very good lines, and of course had more than enough government messes with which to poke Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister, for his part, had more fire in his belly than last week, presumably because he’s managed to get
Labour frontbencher Liz Kendall is expecting a baby through a surrogate, making her the first MP to have a child through surrogacy. Kendall tells me that she and her partner are expecting the baby in January after a lengthy and painful fertility battle. She says: ‘We have been through a lot to get here but
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It has been a challenging week for Boris. Following the Peppa Pig speech, immediately after the Owen Paterson u-turn, the party may be starting to lose patience. This could have implications for the government’s future, shown most recently by the rebellion on the social care bill. Many MPs did a ‘no show’ and the government’s majority fell
MPs have approved the government’s social care cap in the Commons. But the vote doing so was narrow, and there seem to have been a lot of Conservative MPs either abstaining (which would be a rebellion against a three-line whip) or absent. Some will have been unwell, and ‘slipped’, as it is known, for other
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During the last general election campaign, Boris Johnson’s persona as the improvisational, brash, comedian was endearing to many voters and those in his party. But with multiple weeks of own goals and bad press is this attitude beginning to look careless rather than amusing? ‘People are now looking out for the next banana skin’ –
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The announcement of the Integrated Rail Plan has left many, including a number of Conservative MPs, disappointed due to the proposed new routes and notable omissions. This comes at a bad time for Boris Johnson who is already in the dog house over his handling of the Owen Paterson affair. ‘Boris Johnson is not in
Boris Johnson didn’t enjoy his two hours in front of the Liaison Committee this afternoon, and not just because he was asked repeatedly about his handling of the Tory sleaze row. He also struggled with questions about what his government was up to more generally, and appeared at times exasperated with the select committee chairs
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Now entering its second week, the foray around members of parliament holding second jobs shows no sign of dying down. And, unfortunately, it seems whatever Boris Johnson tries to do to get himself out of this situation, he appears to just be digging himself and his party a deeper and deeper hole. ‘Boris Johnson hadn’t
Boris Johnson has just had a particularly bad Prime Minister’s Questions, underlining his poor grip not just on the second jobs row but on other aspects of his own job. Sir Keir Starmer has had a fair bit of bad luck since becoming Labour leader, having to self-isolate five times as a result of positive
Is there anyone left in the Conservative party who is happy with Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister has now managed to wind up pretty much every single Tory MP with his handling of the second jobs row, opening up still more fault lines in the past 24 hours. His letter to the Speaker yesterday saying
