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.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Cameron: UN resolution shows world uniting against Islamic State

The UN Security Council this evening unanimously approved a resolution calling on all countries that can do so to fight Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. David Cameron welcomed it as a sign that ‘the world has united against Isil’. It will likely form a key part of his case for British involvement in military action against Islamic State in Syria, and in his statement, the Prime Minister said: ‘Today’s vote shows beyond doubt the breadth of international support for doing more in Syria and for decisive action to eradicate ISIL. Britain will continue to support our allies who are fighting ISIL in Syria.

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May has some unusual allies in her fight with George Osborne

Cutting the police was always going to be difficult without a terror attack just before the spending review, but naturally the events in Paris have made it much more difficult for the Treasury to stand up to the Home office in a fight that was going to happen anyway. The leaked letter from one of the most senior police officers to Theresa May warning that cutting police numbers would ‘reduce very significantly’ the UK’s ability to respond to a terror attack is very helpful indeed to the Home Secretary. So helpful that she is unlikely to be the one calling for a leak inquiry.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Why David Cameron is paying special attention to new Tory MPs

David Cameron has had another one of his friendly meetings with new Tory MPs today. These are regular slots where new backbenchers get the chance to raise matters that they're interested in and the Prime Minister tells them how well they are doing. Unsurprisingly, Syria came up today. It's interesting that Cameron is being quite as active as he is with new MPs. It's not just meetings in Number 10: it's also letters to each new MP after their maiden speech, each with a little detail about what he particularly liked about what they said. This sort of behaviour from the Prime Minister is striking because he was so poor at party relations in the first few years of the last Parliament.

Isabel Hardman

Could Michael Gove help Jeremy Hunt solve the junior doctor row?

That 98 per cent of junior doctors have voted in favour of strike action over their new contract shows the extent of the stand-off between the medical profession and Jeremy Hunt. It is not possible that all the members of the BMA who turned out to vote (76 per cent) are raving left-wingers. Most of them weren’t particularly politicised before this dispute. The question that a number of Tory MPs and ministers are asking is whether a generation of people who, given their education and income bracket, fall quite naturally into the group normally pretty likely to vote Tory are now never going to do so because of the bad blood between the medics and the government on this matter.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

What’s worse: people who add French flags to their Facebook profiles, or those who sneer at them?

Robert Frost famously defined poetry as the moment when emotion finds thought, and the thought finds words. But in the era of social media, who needs words? As several million Brits have been discovering this week, there is a way of showing your emotional sympathy with the French. Simply put a Tricolore filter on your Facebook page. A simple, free and wordless way of advertising your feelings to the world. At first glance, this trend falls into the grand tradition of fatuous social media trends like #refugeeswelcome, #nomakeupselfie and Ice Bucket Challenges, where people make sure that they are the centre of attention (and looking suspiciously good while they’re at it) while water is being emptied over their heads.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: Britain needs to take action against Islamic State in Syria

Senior politicians have so far been rather cautious in their response to the Paris attacks. But today David Cameron gave a much more robust and intentional statement on the British reaction to what happened on Friday night. He used his slot in the Commons to re-state the case for British involvement in military action against Islamic State in Syria, and said that he would be setting out in detail his strategy and reasons for getting involved in the coming days. It is clear that the Prime Minister wants to push for a vote on this soon, and given he will not bring a vote to the Commons unless he believes he can win, he’s going to pour considerable effort into convincing MPs to back him.

Isabel Hardman

Labour in a spot of bother in Oldham West by-election

A number of Labourites are very worried about the impact that Jeremy Corbyn’s shoot-to-kill comments will have on the party’s chances in the Oldham West and Royton by-election. They think it is the latest in a line of incidents that will suggest to voters in that seat that the Labour leader isn’t really thinking about things that they worry about, and is more focused on the things that London types worry about. I understand that those involved in the campaign are worried the party is already in trouble, anyway.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn questions shoot to kill policy and the legal basis for attack on ‘Jihadi John’

Jeremy Corbyn has given an interesting round of interviews to the broadcast media this afternoon, in which he has questioned the legality of the drone strike which is believed to have killed Mohammed Emwazi, or ‘Jihadi John’, and said he would be ‘unhappy’ with a shoot-to-kill policy on Britain’s streets. Speaking to ITV, the Labour leader said ‘I'm awaiting an explanation of where the legal basis was for that incident’.

Isabel Hardman

Burnham attacks May over police cuts at Home Office questions

It was inevitable that Theresa May would face demands to rethink police cuts at Home Office questions this afternoon. And Labour did indeed make this its main line of attack in the Commons, with Andy Burnham urging the Home Secretary to reconsider reductions in police numbers that might be being considered in the Comprehensive Spending Review. Burnham has pursued this issue with some gusto since taking the Shadow Home Secretary brief, as it is the one matter where he can be reasonably tub thumping and Burnhamish. Today he was sombre, but it was clear that May was aware that the Paris attacks have made an extremely difficult set of cuts even more difficult for ministers to defend. Her answer was careful, arguing that it wasn't just about numbers but training too.

Isabel Hardman

Cameron sees ‘hopeful signs’ of political agreement on Isis

After the attacks in Paris, what has changed? Islamic State is still a threat that world leaders don't seem to know how to deal with, and for Britain, the House of Commons still hasn't approved British involvement in air strikes against the terror group in Syria. But today David Cameron hopes that things have changed enough in the last few weeks that a political solution on Syria may be closer. The Prime Minister is trying to broker a deal with President Putin in which Russia agrees to work with those fighting Isis in Syria in return for a promise that Russian interests in the country will be protected. The Prime Minister told the Today programme: 'There have been some hopeful signs - and I hope to have a positive discussion with Vladimir Putin this morning.' https://soundcloud.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Politicians give cautious reactions to the Paris attacks

Unlike political Twitter, which was full of armchair experts extolling their own surprisingly untapped talent while the Paris attacks were still taking place on Friday night, senior politicians have today been rather cautious in their responses to the massacre. Theresa May repeatedly told the Marr Show that there were ‘lessons to be learned’ from the attacks, but that it was ‘too early to tell’ what the fate of the Schengen agreement would be. She also said that there needed to be political consensus on British action against Isis in Syria.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Paris massacre: what we know this morning

France is waking in shock after a night of nightmare, reads the headline on Le Monde’s website this morning. One of the paper’s own reporters, Daniel Psenny, was shot in the arm as he tried to help people escaping the Bataclan. The video he has posted of people running away from gunfire, some of them pleading for help as he shouts ‘what has happened?’ is horrifying. Images de la fusillade au Bataclan by lemondefr This morning we believe at least 128 people are dead and 180 injured, with 99 in a critical condition. Eight of the attackers are dead, of which seven are believed to have been suicide bombers.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

‘An attack on all of humanity’: politicians condemn Paris massacre

At least 40 people are reported dead in tonight’s attacks in Paris, with French forces trying to release hostages who are still being held. President Hollande has declared a national state of emergency and closed the country’s borders, saying ‘terrorist attacks of an unprecedented scale’ were taking place and that ‘it is a horror’. Politicians from around the world have condemned the attacks. President Obama gave a statement this evening, describing the shootings and explosion as ‘an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share’.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Tracey Crouch interview: I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a minister

Usually when the Prime Minister offers a backbencher their first ministerial post, they trip over their shoelaces in the rush to accept. Not so Tracey Crouch. Even though she had been waiting for five years to be promoted - having previously been considered too rebellious - and even though she had always wanted to be Sports Minister, she hesitated when the call finally came after the General Election to offer her just that. Instead of accepting at once, she told the Prime Minister she wasn’t sure. The reason she gave David Cameron was one many women shy away from when discussing their careers. ‘I said I wasn’t sure because I wanted to start a family and I said it so very honestly.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Russia suspends all flights to Egypt. What will it do next?

Just yesterday, Vladimir Putin criticised David Cameron’s decision  suspended all flights to Egypt. This afternoon, he has done the same - which suggests that the Kremlin now agrees with Britain that there is a strong chance that the Airbus 321 was downed by an Isil bomb. And if Putin does believe that, then we expect some kind of retaliation. Yesterday, the Russians were telling Brits to wait for the outcome of the investigation before suspending flights to Egypt. This afternoon, Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB security service, said: ‘Until we know the real reasons for what happened, I consider it expedient to stop Russian flights to Egypt. Above all, this concerns tourist routes.

Isabel Hardman

Corbyn backs suspended policy chief in Labour party row

Labour is having the sort of day that Ukip used to offer up on a reasonably regular basis. Jeremy Corbyn’s head of policy Andrew Fisher has been suspended and faces an investigation by the party for urging voters in his constituency to back the Class War candidate over the Labour one. But Jeremy Corbyn has backed his head of policy, saying he hopes the matter can be resolved quickly. Corbyn said this afternoon: ‘I have full confidence in Andrew Fisher and his work. I respect the integrity of the General Secretary’s office and trust that this matter will be settled as quickly as possible.

Isabel Hardman

Tory MPs expect changes to school funding

A running sore in the Tory party is the way in which school funding is allocated. Under the current arrangements, a school in a rural area receives less money per pupil than one in a town or city, and this causes a great deal of resentment. It means that schools in the best-funded areas get £6,297 per head, but those at the bottom of the list receive just £4,208 per pupil. Conservative MPs have held repeated meetings with ministers about this arrangement, but got nowhere before the election because the areas they were worried about were more likely to be safer territory for the Tories. They had a particularly grumpy meeting with Nicky Morgan before the election in which this was made clear to them, and which many left in a bit of a huff.

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s dilemma over Oldham by-election message

The Oldham West and Royton by-election is Jeremy Corbyn’s first test as Labour leader, though the party has not selected a Corbynite candidate to fight the seat. Jim McMahon won 232 votes in last night’s selection, beating Mohammed Azam, who got 141 votes and former MP and ardent Corbynite Chris Williamson, who got just 17 votes. McMahon is a moderate, so it will be interesting how much of Corbyn’s message he ends up selling on the doorstep. He said during his selection campaign that ‘on issues like austerity, I’m very close to Jeremy indeed’, so it’s not as though he’s wholeheartedly against the new leader. What will also be interesting is the strategy that the party decides to adopt on immigration policy.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Who defines what is so traumatic that someone shouldn’t speak to students?

That students are becoming rather hardline about speakers they disagree with visiting their campuses is now well described. Brendan O'Neill first explained the 'Stepford Student' phenomenon in the Spectator, and in today's Times David Aaronovitch described his own encounter with a student leader who believes speakers who may upset students should be banned from campuses. What was particularly interesting about Aaronovitch's Newsnight discussion last week was that Toke Dahler, his opponent, seemed quite concerned that students shouldn't suffer 'trauma' as a result of a speaker being on their premises. Aside from all the arguments about the importance of a clash of ideas, especially when some of those ideas are foolish and not persuasive, the concept of 'trauma' is interesting.