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.
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Bridget Phillipson has unveiled Labour’s long-awaited overhaul of the special educational needs and disabilities system – a £4 billion reform designed to rein in spiralling costs and bring order to what MPs across the House describe as a broken model. Ministers insist this is reform, not retrenchment – but with councils under intense financial pressure
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Today’s unemployment figures aren’t just a reminder of the mess the government has made of the jobs market with its national insurance hikes. They also underline the futility of the government more generally. It has moved into survival mode and cannot pursue the welfare reforms that are clearly necessary. As Ben Miller sets out here,
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PMQs today and – as predicted – Keir Starmer came out worst in a pretty unpleasant session. Kemi Badenoch pinned the Prime Minister on the continued Mandelson fallout and now the scandal over Matthew Doyle, the former No. 10 comms chief who – just four weeks after his ennoblement – Labour have already been forced
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What is the point of Keir Starmer’s government now? Morgan McSweeney’s departure may have been an attempt by the Prime Minister to buy some extra time, like a patient bargaining for expensive life-extending drugs, but it doesn’t change the diagnosis: this is a government that no longer works. Ministers who had previously been very loyal
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Is there a building in Britain more important than the Palace of Westminster? Depending on who you listen to today, parliament is so important that MPs and peers really must agree to an expensive restoration that would see the Palace being emptied and rebuilt either in stages or all at once – or is it
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Another impressive PMQs from Kemi Badenoch – but she had plenty of ammunition to deploy after the Peter Mandelson scandal took a bleaker turn this week. The Prime Minister clearly wanted to make a strong statement in his first answer to Kemi Badenoch, saying that ‘Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party’. He
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Prime Minister’s Questions today highlighted Keir Starmer’s weakness, and not just when it comes to Peter Mandelson. The Prime Minister made clear in his first answer to Kemi Badenoch that ‘Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party’. He added: ‘He lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before
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Once again, Keir Starmer’s government has ended up talking about scandal, rather than policy: something the Prime Minister once levelled as an accusation at the Tories. Health ministers had hoped to spend today talking about improving cancer treatment, but instead we are settling into an entire week dominated by Peter Mandelson. The Met have now
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It is our solemn duty to inform listeners that David Lammy won deputy PMQs at a canter today. To be frank, it was a low-rent affair. Andrew Griffith was the Tory sent out to question David Lammy while Keir Starmer is in China, and the shadow business secretary didn’t do a particularly good job. Perhaps
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Today’s Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions was a particularly low-rent affair. Andrew Griffith was the Tory sent out to question David Lammy while Keir Starmer is in China. The shadow business secretary didn’t do a particularly good job: perhaps he had assumed that Lammy would have another disastrous session like he did when a prisoner was
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It’s psychodrama all round on Coffee House Shots today. Between Andy Burnham – who over the weekend was denied the opportunity to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election – and Suella Braverman – who has just announced that she’s defecting to Reform (shock horror) – it seems like the main parties are competing to
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Keir Starmer has blocked Andy Burnham from running for parliament, with the party’s National Executive Committee voting 8-1 against his candidacy for Gorton and Denton. The Prime Minister himself voted against Burnham, while his deputy Lucy Powell was the only member of the committee to vote in favour. There is an obvious argument for blocking
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Keir Starmer scored a rare win at PMQs, talking tough on Trump in light of the President’s escalating rhetoric on Greenland and the Chagos Islands. Kemi Badenoch pressed the Prime Minister on foreign affairs and Britain’s relationship with the US president, and Starmer departed from his usual caution to strike a notably firmer tone. What
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Keir Starmer tried to use Prime Minister’s Questions today to deliver what he hoped was a tough new line on Donald Trump. It wasn’t quite a Love, Actually moment – mercifully; more of an ‘Er, actually’, but still. In his first answer to Kemi Badenoch, Starmer told the chamber that: I want to be clear
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It is the first Prime Minister’s Questions of the new year – and Keir Starmer returns to the Commons already under pressure. With major international crises unfolding, Kemi Badenoch used PMQs to question whether the Prime Minister is present, engaged or in control. In response, Starmer just seemed narky. As the exchange descended into rows
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‘He has got no choice but to be here for Prime Minister’s Questions! That’s why he’s here. If he could skip this, he would!’ That accusation from Kemi Badenoch would apply to any week, but it was striking that at this first session of the New Year, Keir Starmer looked like he wanted to skip
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Before Keir Starmer managed to escape Westminster for the relative safety of a European summit discussing war, the Prime Minister had to hold a cabinet meeting. The PM told colleagues they needed to hold their nerve, arguing that: ‘I do not underestimate the scale of the task. But I have no doubt about this team.
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Today was the final PMQs of the year – and it was certainly not a classic. It is customary for the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition to make some attempt at Christmas cheer by telling jokes at the despatch box, but this year’s zingers were awful. Despite a promising start from Keir
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Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer conformed to time-honoured tradition today at Prime Minister’s Questions by producing lots of jokes that would be rejected by a cracker company in their exchanges. The Tory leader’s lines included that the government was full of turkeys, Starmer didn’t have the baubles to stand up to striking doctors, and all
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Do you have an issue you care about? You should probably be calling for a public inquiry into it, then. Public inquiries have become so popular in British politics that there are currently 25 running at the moment, and barely a week goes by without an MP calling for a new one at Prime Minister’s
