Isabel Hardman

How and where did Nicola Sturgeon make her big decisions during the pandemic? Not on WhatsApp, and never badly, according to the evidence she has given to the UK Covid Inquiry so far this morning. The questions to the former first minister have largely focused on how she recorded discussions between ministers, and why she

What sort of trouble is the Rwanda deportation legislation going to get into in the Lords? It passed its second reading last night, as expected, and peers also defeated an attempt by the Liberal Democrats to block the legislation entirely. But the debate gave us some idea of the problems the Safety of Rwanda Bill

Tory ministers are now well rehearsed in the latest slogan that Rishi Sunak wants to take into the election. Today’s Education Questions in the Commons underlined what it is: ‘Our plan is working, Labour would take us back to square one.’ Education Secretary Gillian Keegan took care to ram that into every answer she gave,

The government has just lost one of its bargaining chips in the long-running junior doctors’ strikes: hospital consultants have narrowly voted against the pay deal that they were offered. The BMA had put to its members the offer of an additional 4.95 per cent, on top of the 6 per cent raise already given to

Rishi Sunak sidestepped another Tory rebellion this afternoon with the announcement of an extra £500 million in funding for councils in England. A group of more than 40 Conservative MPs had joined colleagues from other parties to warn of a crisis in local authority funding that was threatening even deeper cuts to services and council

What happens if the latest round of strikes against the Houthis don’t deter them? That was the big question as Rishi Sunak made his statement to the Commons on yesterday’s attacks. The Prime Minister stuck to his two key lines from last week, that the strikes were targeted, and that the Houthis’ attacks are no

Rishi Sunak has been caught on camera apparently walking away from a woman who has just started telling him about his daughter’s ordeal waiting for NHS treatment. As she starts to complain, he is looking anxiously over his shoulder at his aide, and then says he needs to get to the next appointment. She then

As expected, the Commons has backed the Safety of Rwanda Bill at third reading by 320 votes to 276. Just 11 Tory MPs voted against, with the full list below. This afternoon, the noise from the rebels became rather more muffled, with the ‘five families’ of right-wing backbenchers announcing that the majority would be supporting

It’s always a mistake for Downing Street to pretend it knows backbenchers’ minds better than they do It turns out that Tory backbenchers aren’t all mouth and no trousers, as Downing Street thought. After briefing that the right of the party was all talk, Rishi Sunak’s team watched this evening as around 60 rebels repeatedly

Rishi Sunak has updated MPs on the strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, just as a missile reportedly from the rebel group hit a US-owned cargo ship. The Prime Minister told the Commons that he had come to tell members at the first opportunity and that the action taken by the US and UK on

How has the NHS missed most of its key targets for the past seven years? Some parts of the UK-wide health services (Northern Ireland and Wales) have never met the four-hour time target for A&E, for instance, while others only managed it during lockdown (Scotland) when visits plummeted. Analysis of the NHS’s own figures by