Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman

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.

A cacophony of a leadership debate

Boris Johnson’s warning that the televised Tory leadership hustings would be a ‘cacophony’ was proved correct this evening when the five candidates spent an hour talking over one another. Any private fears the former Foreign Secretary may have had about his own performance were largely unjustified, though, as he stayed reasonable and quiet throughout the

Can anyone stop Boris Johnson becoming prime minister?

Can anyone stop Boris Johnson? It is an inevitability that the former Mayor of London will be in the final two candidates of the Tory leadership contest, and already many members of other campaigns are talking about what he will do as Prime Minister, rather than how their candidate will beat him. Given there has

How Boris’s campaign predicted he would get 114 votes

Boris Johnson’s campaign team has been so well-organised that it predicted exactly the number of votes he would get in today’s secret ballot, I understand. According to WhatsApp messages between his supporters, one member handed Johnson a sealed envelope with ‘114’ written in it before the result, telling him to open it once the official

Isabel Hardman

May confirms she’ll stay on as an MP at dull PMQs session

A fair few MPs felt there was no reason to come to today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, given the real action is in the Conservative leadership contest. There were spaces behind Theresa May as she took questions from Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour leader clearly hadn’t put much effort into preparing for the session, either, offering a

The one part of Theresa May’s legacy her successor must protect

Promising to protect Theresa May’s legacy isn’t really a feature of this Conservative leadership contest. That’s not just because so many of the candidates disagree about the type of Conservatism that they the outgoing Prime Minister espoused, but because she doesn’t really have much of a legacy to protect. But one of the few reforms

Boris Johnson’s opponents have been too easy on him

Boris Johnson is currently the quiet man of the Tory leadership contest, lurking in the shadows rather than courting media attention as he usually does. His campaign team has deliberately held him back from touring the studios to avoid gaffes or rows. They’re even nervous about the limited exposure he has, joking that he is

Isabel Hardman

Michael Gove tries to come out fighting after cocaine row

Michael Gove is one of those people who enjoys finding themselves with their back against the wall, fighting. His leadership launch this afternoon was mired in questions about his past drug use, but the Environment Secretary looked totally unruffled by the rows of the past few days and the questions from journalists after his speech.

Isabel Hardman

Dominic Raab’s brazen Brexit pitch

Dominic Raab’s launch was just downstairs from the event that Matt Hancock held, and rather more serious, too. He was able to underline his parliamentary support, filling the front row of his audience with MPs who cheered loudly at appropriate moments. He was introduced by Maria Miller, who joked that she hoped to persuade him

Isabel Hardman

Can Matt Hancock be trusted on Brexit?

What does Matt Hancock offer the Conservative party? He’s a former Remainer who has stayed loyal in Theresa May’s Cabinet and so has a bit of a tricky pitch to make to a party furious about the outgoing Prime Minister’s failure to deliver Brexit. He also hasn’t got an eye-catching drugs story to get attention,

The in-tray of horrors

‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards — and good luck!’ Liam Byrne will forever be haunted by the note he left on his desk for his successor in 2010. Both coalition parties made much of what was supposed to be a joke about the difficulties of keeping Whitehall spending in

Tory party changes rules to stop candidate chaos

The Tory leadership contest rules are to change in order to whittle down the number of candidates, the party board confirmed this evening. After it became clear that the contest was going to be rather chaotic with more than a dozen candidates, the party agreed to raise the threshold for nominations to make it harder

Isabel Hardman

Change UK splits after disastrous European elections

Just a few months after becoming a political party, Change UK has announced it is splitting. Six of its MPs, including its leader Heidi Allen, have quit, with Anna Soubry now taking the crown. The party confirmed the split with a press release typical of its odd behaviour throughout its existence, focusing on Soubry’s election