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.
14 min listen
The UK is the first western country in the world to approve a coronavirus vaccine, it was announced today. The first doses of Pfizer’s jab will be distributed from next week, and the news has renewed hopes that restrictions could soon be lifted. But after last night’s vote saw 55 Tory MPs reject the new
Prime Minister’s Questions didn’t feel particularly high wattage today. Sir Keir Starmer seemed to be using his questions to lay the groundwork for a future showdown with Boris Johnson. He used his first three questions to ask whether the government had done the necessary logistical planning to ensure the smooth roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine,
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The government looks set to win today’s Commons vote on the return of the tiers system for England, but tens of Tory backbenchers are unhappy. For them, the Prime Minister’s reassurances have lost credibility, so on today’s podcast, Isabel Hardman discusses with Katy Balls and James Forsyth whether or not Boris’s optimism has backfired.
After hoping that MPs wouldn’t notice that they’d been given a dud impact assessment of the new tiered system, Boris Johnson is now trying to reduce the size of the rebellion against these measures with the enticing prospect of areas moving down tiers within the next two weeks. Johnson is trying to reduce the size
How will coronavirus change our approach to seasonal illnesses? We are heading into the NHS’s most difficult months as winter flu season is upon us, and ministers have been urging people to get a flu jab in order to keep demand in the health service down. Matt Hancock, meanwhile, has been justifying the enormous expense
It isn’t clear how many Tory MPs will rebel against the new tiered system of Covid restrictions this evening, not least because the Covid Recovery Group has said it isn’t whipping its members. Senior CRG members are suggesting there could be 30 to 40 MPs in the ‘no’ lobbies tonight, which could be expectation management,
Sir Keir Starmer is continuing to use his Prime Minister’s Questions to build a narrative about the government’s lack of competence, particularly when it comes to awarding contracts. This has had varying impact in each session, but by returning to the matter on a weekly basis, the Labour leader is developing a theme. Today he
Unsurprisingly, health spending will be a key part of Rishi Sunak’s spending review announcements this afternoon, with the Chancellor expected to pledge £3 billion for the NHS as it recovers from the pandemic. Part of that will be a £500 million boost for mental health, which accompanies a ‘winter care plan’ that was published earlier
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The Prime Minister announced yesterday that the nationwide lockdown would come to an end on December 2. In the updated tier system, pubs and restaurants will be closed at the highest level of restrictions, but gyms and non-essential shops will remain open. Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about whether Conservative MPs
It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Boris Johnson to keep track of the many different revolts within his own party. There are the groups pressuring the government on its response to coronavirus, on its treatment of Northern seats, and on Brexit. Now there’s a new row brewing on a completely different matter: cladding. As Emma Byrne
Why don’t we have a minister for men? That’s the question Tory MP Ben Bradley asked this week, and he’s found himself the centre of a great deal of social media fury for doing so. I say ‘found himself’, but it’s highly unlikely Bradley really thought anything else was going to happen, not least because
Sir Keir Starmer has just announced he will not be restoring the Labour whip to Jeremy Corbyn following his comments about the extent of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party being exaggerated for political purposes. A panel of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee last night reinstated Corbyn as a member, but this morning Starmer said
Jeremy Corbyn has been readmitted into the Labour party just 19 days after he was suspended for saying that anti-Semitism had been ‘dramatically overstated for political reasons’. The party’s ruling National Executive Committee this evening decided that a statement issued earlier today by the former Labour leader was sufficient to merit no further action. Corbyn’s
Boris Johnson wants to use this week to relaunch his leadership after a torrid few days in his top team. Downing Street says tonight that the Prime Minister will ‘will make a series of critical announcements over the next couple of weeks that will be a clear signal of his ongoing ambitions for the United
Boris Johnson needs to use the departure of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain to repair relations with his parliamentary party. That is very clear, and the problems have been brewing for months. What is less clear is how much of a group of naturally loyal MPs, who have the same political instincts as the Prime
Why is the government refusing to allow clinically vulnerable MPs to take part in debates on legislation? This row has been rumbling on for months, with no apparent enthusiasm from ministers to change the current situation. Today, senior MPs have told Coffee House they believe the government’s actions would be in breach of the Equality
What could possibly go wrong with the coronavirus vaccine? Boris Johnson has boasted that the UK is ‘towards the front of the pack’ when it comes to orders of the Pfizer/BioNTech inoculation, and health chiefs say they hope to start rolling it out from December, if it gets approval. The biggest ‘if’ now isn’t so
Wild swimming has become almost tediously fashionable recently, and no heatwave is really complete without a flood of articles on how it feels to take a dip in the outdoors (and even more tedious ones about how ‘in my day, we just called it swimming’ from people fortunate enough not to have grown up with
11 min listen
Isabel Hardman presents the highlights from Sunday’s political shows, with Michael Gove, Sir Keir Starmer, David Miliband and Dame Carolyn Fairbairn.
Boris Johnson may be able to explain his U-turn on imposing a second national lockdown on England in policy terms, arguing as he did last night that he favoured trying to keep as many businesses operating as possible while taking other steps to drive down the rate of infection. But it is far harder to