Isabel Hardman

You’d think a government wouldn’t launch its flagship bill that takes Britain out of European Union legislation without first being clear what taking Britain out of the EU would actually look like. Apparently not: the once Great Repeal Bill – now just plain old European Union (Withdrawal) Bill for less triumphant times – was published

Every political leader and government goes through a phase when their spin doctors feel they need a relaunch. For some, the relaunch comes after a number of good years. For Theresa May, her relaunch came on the anniversary of her becoming Prime Minister – and after a rather tumultuous year. As relaunches go, this wasn’t

Time was when Theresa May ran such a tight ship as Prime Minister that even so much as talking off the record to journalists was seen as a bit of a risk for a Cabinet minister to take. But post-election, the Prime Minister has so little authority that a number of things that previously seemed

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s surprisingly good election defeat, his MPs who previously plotted to get rid of him have been queuing up to pledge their allegiance to the Labour leader. They have been doing this partly because they did make some rather dire predictions about the impossibility of holding their own seats, or indeed of Labour

This first week back in Parliament has proved quite how fragile the government’s power is. It may be able to govern in a technical sense – announcing bills, occupying Downing Street, and so on – but it cannot guarantee that it will get what it wants in the Commons. Having to accept the Stella Creasy

The lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, is both a beautiful and silly–looking plant. It is the strangest of our native orchids, with a fat yellow pouch and burgundy twisting petals. It doesn’t quite look as though it belongs in the gentle English countryside and, for a while, it didn’t belong at all. Why did I

What a very different atmosphere the House of Commons Chamber will have today for its first PMQs since the election. In the week before Parliament dissolved, Tory MPs were in a most obsequious mood, reciting the ‘strong and stable’ slogan that Theresa May started her campaign with, and even telling the Prime Minister that ‘I

It’s hardly a surprise that the Tories aren’t pushing ahead with plans for new grammar schools, and hardly a surprise that Education Secretary Justine Greening confirmed this quietly in a written answer to a parliamentary question. They neither want to cause an upset with a policy not universally supported by Tory MPs when they now

Theresa May’s body language on leaving the European Council summit last night shows quite how much of a toll the past few weeks have taken on the Prime Minister. She looks exhausted. Now, you don’t have to feel sorry for May: she did, after all, decide to call the snap election that has proved to be

Today’s exchanges between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons following the Queen’s Speech showed how much difference confidence makes to a leader’s performance. While Corbyn will never be a scintillating orator – speaking for far too long and ending with a sentence that seemed to be aimed more at entering the Guinness Book

Tomorrow Theresa May will present a Queen’s Speech that doesn’t have the formal support of a majority of the House of Commons. Her negotiations with the DUP still haven’t concluded, with party sources this afternoon warning the Conservatives that they won’t be ‘taken for granted’ and criticising the way May and her team have conducted

Normally in the run-up to a Queen’s Speech, Westminster watchers wonder how radical the Prime Minister feels like being – and how much political capital they have available to spend. But of course this year’s Speech is rather different, because the Prime Minister has no political capital and the negotiations with the DUP haven’t concluded.

What can Theresa May put in the Queen’s Speech next week? The Prime Minister was always a cautious sort who wouldn’t put anything before Parliament that didn’t have a sure chance of passing – and that was when she had a majority. Now, she firstly needs to propose a set of bills that the DUP

Was Tim Farron’s resignation as Liberal Democrat leader inevitable? He seems to suggest so, saying in his striking resignation statement that it felt ‘impossible’ to be a political leader and live as a committed Christian.  He spent much of the election campaign stuck in a strange political special of the Moral Maze, endlessly cross-examined about