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.
Theresa May is continuing her efforts today to persuade Tory MPs to back her Brexit deal. It is clear that she is not going to get Commons approval for that deal on Tuesday, and is too late to drop it beforehand without another vote. What’s unclear is whether the Prime Minister is actually making the
One of the promises of Brexit campaigners, famously, was that parliament will ‘take back control’ of laws that affect Britain. Since the referendum result, it has seemed rather more that the government is taking back control, rather than MPs, with the executive (quite naturally) resisting any opportunity for Parliament to have a say in, well,
One of the promises of Brexit campaigners, famously, was that parliament will ‘take back control’ of laws that affect Britain. Since the referendum result, it has seemed rather more that the government is taking back control, rather than MPs, with the executive (quite naturally) resisting any opportunity for Parliament to have a say in, well,
Could the government have avoided this afternoon’s contempt motion? MPs have voted in favour of holding ministers in contempt of parliament for refusing to publish the Brexit legal advice, and the simple argument is that the only way to avoid this whole debacle would have been to publish the advice. This is, after all, what
Jeremy Corbyn has been clear for a while that Labour will vote against Theresa May’s Brexit deal in the Commons. But it’s worth keeping an eye on the reaction in his party to the development of a second line in the Labour position, which is that the party has a better plan for Brexit. Today
It only took a few lines of Theresa May’s statement to the House of Commons on her Brexit deal before MPs started making dissenting noises all around her. The Prime Minister started by listing the ways in which the deal ‘takes back control’ for the British people, telling MPs that this included control of Britain’s
Theresa May is back in the Commons this afternoon updating MPs on her Brexit deal. She’s in the middle of a frenzy of campaigning that makes her efforts during the referendum itself look quite lacklustre (admittedly not hard, given how little effort the then Home Secretary put into that campaign), with phone-ins, newspaper interviews and
Tory MPs offered a warmer reception to Theresa May’s statement in the Commons this afternoon than they managed during yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Prime Minister herself seemed very confident as she explained today’s political declaration to MPs. That’s about as far as you can go when looking for signs of success in this afternoon’s
We found out this morning that The Spectator’s Evening Blend email briefing has just passed 50,000 subscribers, making it the best-read email in Westminster. When I set it up shortly after arriving at The Spectator, six years ago, we expected it might be read by a few thousand. It turns out to be rather more
It’s 100 years today since women were able to stand for Parliament, and the Women and Equalities Committee marked it with a hearing on the barriers to getting more female MPs. It has only been in the past few years that the total number of women ever elected into Parliament has passed the number of
Is Theresa May about to face a vote of no confidence in her leadership? The Prime Minister is acting as though nothing has changed, to coin a phrase, focusing on selling her Brexit plan to business leaders at the CBI, rather than getting too bogged down with the internal problems with her party. But those
Amber Rudd left the Home Office over the Windrush scandal and has joined the Work and Pensions department just as its flagship benefits reform is under fire from all angles. The new Secretary of State spent most of her first session at the dispatch box this afternoon answering questions on Universal Credit – and she
One of the more surreal moments of Theresa May’s day so far has been the Prime Minister having to break off from the meltdown of her party to join Prince Charles’s birthday celebrations at Buckingham Palace. The Prime Minister can’t have felt particularly like waving a champagne flute around to salute the heir to the
It will be reasonably low down on Theresa May’s agenda this morning, but replacing the ministers who have resigned so far is something she will have to think about soon. The Prime Minister has always tried to maintain a balance of Brexiteers and Remainers in cabinet in order to keep both wings of her party
Philip Hammond held the Budget today to avoid a bunch of Halloween jokes about a zombie economy and so on. To compensate, the Chancellor brought a bunch of random sentences in fancy dress as ‘jokes’. There were inexplicable quips about poaching rabbits, a medley of toilet puns accompanying funding for keeping public conveniences open, and
It’s over a year since the #MeToo scandal of sexual harassment broke. It has shaken up our culture and relationships in so many ways over the past 12 months. It isn’t going away, either, as the allegations about Sir Philip Green this week have shown. But it has now reached a point where it could
The consensus in the Conservative party is that Theresa May’s visit to the 1922 Committee last night hasn’t materially changed anything. Those who want her gone are still plotting her demise. A larger group of her MPs are very frustrated and unhappy. And there are still a good number of loyalists prepared to make supportive
Richmond Park is an eerie place at this time of year. It’s not just that it’s the deer rutting season, when huge stags fight over their harems, charging heavily about the misty grassland and bellowing as they go. It’s also the herds of photographers looming out of that mist, as strange as the prehistoric cries
Given relations with her own party, Theresa May will have been far more worried about the second half of Prime Minister’s Questions than the first. On the basis of the backbench questions that were asked, the session went pretty well. Only one Tory MP raised Brexit at all, and that was Jacob Rees-Mogg, who asked
Will tonight’s 1922 Committee meeting be a firework display of Tory anger? Theresa May has decided to face her MPs after days of feverish speculation that some of them might be about to force a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister. There are plenty who have much to complain about on many different