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.
13 min listen
As many had expected, President Biden has not agreed to extend the August 31 deadline despite pleas from Nato allies in today’s G7 call. Meanwhile, there are signs that the veneer of the new and reformed Taliban is already beginning to crack in Afghanistan. Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson.
12 min listen
The Prime Minister has requested Washington to extend the August 31 deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul. But will Joe Biden acquiesce, amidst warnings from the Taliban that there will be ‘consequences’ if the US stays longer? Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.
14 min listen
With Dominic Raab in the firing line for his £40,000 Crete holiday, the Coffee House Shots team reflects: can ministers ever go on holiday? And if they do, should they be sticking to the domestic ones, and at what point of a political crisis does one decide to turn back? Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser
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While Dominic Raab continues to weather charges of incompetence and call for resignation, it is the Health Secretary Sajid Javid who might not have any time for a holiday come autumn. Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, is seeing a rush of new Covid cases. Could mean a wave of Covid
Dominic Raab is not budging in his conviction that he did everything he could for Afghanistan while he was on his Cretan holiday. The Foreign Secretary has issued a statement in which he argues that the recommendation from his civil servants to call the Afghan foreign minister was ‘quickly overtaken by events’ and that he
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Pressure on the Foreign Secretary is piling up after the Daily Mail revealed today that Raab had rejected the strong advice of Foreign Office civil servants to call his counterpart in the Afghan government before the weekend, to ensure the safe departure of interpreters from the country. Instead, his junior minister Zac Goldsmith took the
Today’s Commons debate on Afghanistan was unusually and surprisingly good. It had the benefit of speeches from many MPs who had themselves served tours of duty in the country, or were veterans of military action elsewhere. It had the advantage of a former Prime Minister speaking with all the authority of someone who knows just
Dominic Raab’s speech closing the Commons debate on Afghanistan provided a neat summary of the government’s response to the crisis: defensive, sketchy on detail and irritated by valid criticism. The Foreign Secretary’s name had cropped up repeatedly today in the chamber as opposition MPs slammed his decision to stay on holiday as the Taliban surged
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This morning was the first time that we saw the chamber of the House of Commons full since the pandemic began. MPs were called back from recess to discuss the worsening situation in Afghanistan. Emotions and tensions ran high on both sides, some directed at the government, some at the Prime Minister and some at
Tom Tugendhat has just delivered what should be the defining speech of this recall of parliament. The Conservative chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee spoke in pin-drop silence about his own emotional response to the events in Afghanistan, about what he saw as the failure of world leaders, particularly President Biden, and about what must
Boris Johnson has had a very uncomfortable start to today’s Commons debate on Afghanistan. Not only did he have a series of critical interventions from his own backbenchers when he was speaking, he then had to sit through an unusually powerful speech from Sir Keir Starmer. The Leader of the Opposition criticised the PM’s ‘careless
11 min listen
With Parliament being called back from recess tomorrow, including the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab who maybe stayed on the beach a touch too long given the worsening circumstances on the ground in Afghanistan. Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls about just what we may hear tomorrow.
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Defeat in Kabul now means that the Taliban have effectively taken over Afghanistan. Katy Balls talks to Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman to discuss the West’s response to the occupation. ‘we have got a peacekeeping military, not a war fighting military, but still I think we’ve got this muscle memory from the days when Britain
It is very easy to dismiss Wednesday’s recall of Parliament as a pointless exercise in handwringing that sums up the way most MPs approach foreign policy. There will certainly be plenty of frustrating hindsight on offer from politicians who haven’t taken a blind bit of notice of Afghanistan right up until the point where they
15 min listen
The south of Afghanistan is now under Taleban control, after the group took the cities of Kandahar and Lashkar Gah this week. Meanwhile, Britain and America are deploying thousands of troops – as many as were there before the withdrawal began earlier this year – to evacuate expats and the majority of embassy staff. After
14 min listen
With things on the ground in Afghanistan accelerating from bad to worse so fast that the Americans are now even worried about the safety of their embassy. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about what the UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s attitude towards this 20 year conflict has been like in statements
11 min listen
The Taleban are continuing their advance through Afghanistan, and are on the cusp of taking control in the major cities of Herat and Kandahar. The group’s fighters have predictably ignored the Doha Agreement, but has the speed of their success taken politicians by surprise, and how much of an embarrassment is the deteriorating situation for
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Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch could replace Gavin Williamson as education secretary in the next reshuffle, according to reports today. Should he be moved, and how is he making his case for staying? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.
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A record number of students got As or A*s in their A levels this year. After last year’s fiasco, teachers were given the responsibility of grading their own pupils. Has leniency put less well-off kids at a disadvantage, and will the achievements of future students now look worse? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and
12 min listen
With the Chancellor’s leaked letter to the Prime Minister (which apparently he’d never seen) showing some disagreement about COVID policy, is this an omen signalling a fracas to come over future spending plans? Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth
