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
Latest research from the University of Oxford shows that their vaccine has ‘minimal protection’ against the South African variant of the coronavirus. Should the government be doing more to protect UK borders? Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.
11 min listen
It’s been weeks since the idea of a quarantine system was floated, yet nothing has been forthcoming on that front. Isabel Hardman asks James Forsyth and Katy Balls – what’s the hold up in government?
Wednesday’s very upbeat Downing Street coronavirus briefing underlined the optimism that Boris Johnson feels about the way the Covid crisis could work out for him. The Prime Minister was celebrating the UK passing the ten million mark for the number of people who have received their first dose of the vaccine, and thanked the NHS
13 min listen
At PMQs today, Keir Starmer denied Boris Johnson’s claims that he wanted the UK to remain in the EU’s vaccine procurement scheme. Could a successful domestic rollout, away from the bloc’s programme, be seen by the public as an upside of Brexit and cause the opposition problems? Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James
Boris Johnson had a pretty easy ride at Prime Minister’s Questions today, despite Keir Starmer raising two policy problems that the government is really struggling to stay on top of. The Labour leader asked his first three questions on the quarantine policy, pushing Johnson for much tougher rules, and then turned to the cladding scandal.
12 min listen
Another day, another dig from across the channel on the UK’s vaccine reliability. Isabel Hardman talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about how this rhetoric could backfire.
Is the government making the most of its landmark Domestic Abuse Bill? The legislation is currently at committee stage in the House of Lords, with peers discussing hundreds of amendments. Some have little chance of success, but others point to serious gaps in the Bill which could undermine its overall clout. One of the most
If last year was the one where people started to notice the beauty of the wildlife right on the doorstep during lockdown, this should be the one where we start to get to know some of the best wild places in our own country, rather than presuming that all that is rare and interesting can
The government was never going to come out well from Monday afternoon’s cladding debate in the House of Commons, given it has taken so long to address the crisis facing tens of thousands of leaseholders trapped in dangerous and unsellable flats or holding bills for tens of thousands of pounds. Secretary of State for Housing,
10 min listen
The EU’s row with AstraZeneca came to a head on Friday, with the bloc publishing its contract with the pharmaceutical giant and introducing vaccine export controls. With the UK’s rollout continuing at pace, where will the vaccine debate go next? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
How can ministers stop one of the worst legacies of the pandemic being a generation of children left behind after a year out of the classroom? This week, when Boris Johnson confirmed 8 March as the earliest schools will return, he also announced money to help pupils catch up and a long-term plan for education.
If there’s one lesson you’d think Boris Johnson might have learned from his handling of the pandemic so far, it would surely be that it is too risky to set a date by which things will start returning to normal. And yet this evening the Prime Minister found himself talking about a date for schools
16 min listen
In his statement to the Commons today, Boris Johnson suggested March 8 as a date for schools to return. This is earlier than some predictions but certainly later than many were expecting when schools were shut earlier this month. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about what this tells us about when
Boris Johnson had a very difficult backdrop to today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, having marked 100,000 deaths in the coronavirus pandemic last night. But, strangely, he didn’t have a particularly difficult session in the Commons. Sir Keir Starmer did, as you might expect, lead on the death toll, asking the Prime Minister repeatedly why he thought
Tree planting is one of those motherhood-and-apple pie policies that it’s quite hard to argue with. We have a climate crisis, and a dreadful decline in biodiversity, and more trees will help with that. They will restore our denuded landscape to something more natural, and they’re good for our mental health. Only a curmudgeon could
Labour had an urgent question about schools reopening in the Commons this afternoon, but once again it wasn’t the Opposition that really increased pressure on the government but Conservative backbenchers. They are getting increasingly agitated by the prospect of classrooms remaining empty for many weeks longer than ministers had originally suggested, and were keen to
Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Simon Stevens held a very sombre press conference in Downing Street this evening to mark the awful milestone of more than 100,000 UK deaths in this pandemic. The Prime Minister offered his ‘deepest condolences to everyone who has lost a loved one’, and promised that ‘when we have come through
10 min listen
In the last 24 hours, the EU has threatened to place export controls on vaccines manufactured in the EU; while a German paper has been corrected by Berlin for misreporting that the German government thought the Oxford-Astrazeneca jab was only eight per cent effective in over-65s. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth
12 min listen
The government’s Covid-O group will be making a decision on the UK’s border restrictions imminently. On the podcast, Isabel Hardman talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about what is being considered and why now.
This evening’s Downing Street coronavirus press briefing showed that ministers are still focused on enforcement of existing restrictions, rather than introducing even tighter curbs. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced £800 fines for people attending house parties, which will double for each repeat offence, up to a maximum of £6,400. Patel said the police would target
