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.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Lib Dems run out of MPs to promote

Following my earlier story about the Tories deciding they can only rely on Lib Dems who are ministers to form a coalition majority after the election, I have learned that the rebellious backbench problem is worse than it first appears. The party has run out of MPs suitable to work as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. For those who don’t know, PPSs are the ‘bag carriers’ of government, junior ministerial posts that largely involve an MP being forced to be loyal to their party whip at all times while briefing their minister on important matters, working as their minister’s eyes and ears in the rest of the party, and encouraging the rest of the party to be supportive of the minister when he or she is in trouble.

Isabel Hardman

Labour finally starts to articulate its vision for British business

Why isn’t Ed Miliband at the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference? Ed Balls tried to defend his boss this morning as he arrived at the event, saying it was ‘getting a bit trivial’ to ask who was attending which conference. The Shadow Chancellor said: ‘Ed Miliband has spoken at this conference a number of times… They’ve got me and Chuka Umunna and this has been tabled and agreed for months and months and months. We’re setting out Labour’s position. As I said it’s the position of me and Ed and Chuka and the whole of the Labour party. Ed has spoken at the conference many times before.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tories could only rely on Lib Dem ministers in second coalition

Tories in Downing Street have concluded that they cannot rely on the support of any Liberal Democrats who are not ministers after the General Election, Coffee House has learned. Even though most talk of how a Tory-Lib Dem coalition would work focuses on the number of seats each party would win, I understand that the Conservatives are now working on the basis that a coalition majority could only include those Lib Dems who are on the government payroll. Most forecasts currently put the Lib Dems on around 25 seats, and the Conservatives expect that this would lead to 10 of those MPs being appointed ministers.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Labour fights back on HSBC leak

After being told by the Tories that he has ‘questions to answer’ on the BBC story about HSBC, Ed Balls has decided to tell the Tories that they have ‘questions to answer’ on the story too. The Speaker has just granted Shabana Mahmood an urgent question in the Commons demanding that the Chancellor answer Labour’s questions about the story. The Shadow Chancellor said that ‘there are very serious questions for George Osborne and David Cameron to answer today’. His questions are why has there only been one prosecution out of 1,100 individual implicated in allegations about tax evasion and why Stephen Green, former Chairman of HSBC, was appointed a minister after the government was informed of the bank’s activities.

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson woos Tory MPs with a ‘rucksack clanking with booze’

Boris Johnson’s campaign to woo Tory MPs is continuing as the General Election approaches. I hear that he held another one of his suppers for colleagues at his home in the last fortnight, and that the MPs who did attend were seriously impressed. One says: ‘It was a really uplifting experience. I feel very conflicted between him and Theresa [May] as potential leaders.’ Another described the evening as ‘great fun, relaxed. He arrived with a rucksack clanking with booze and we had a takeaway curry and shot the breeze. No heavy canvassing.’ Number 10 is allowing these dinners, which involve a mix of MPs loyal to Cameron and rebels, to take place on the understanding that Boris does everything he can to help the Prime Minister get back into Number 10 on 7 May.

Isabel Hardman

David Gauke: Ed Balls has questions to answer on HSBC leak

The HSBC tax dodge leak is from 2007, and so has nothing to do with the current government, sort of. Ministers have been defending the appointment of Stephen Green as trade minister. Green was boss at HSBC during the period that this leak relates to. But given Labour is trying to increase the political temperature on tax avoidance at the moment, the Tories have also been quite keen this morning to suggest that Ed Balls has questions to answer on this story, to be broadcast on Panorama tonight. Earlier this morning Financial Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke released this statement: ‘It is for HSBC to explain what they did to ensure their clients complied with the tax law.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Nick Clegg complains to Cabinet Secretary about being left out

Nick Clegg has complained to Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, that he was ignored before a government policy was announced, Coffee House has learned. The Deputy Prime Minister was annoyed that he did not get the chance to approve a change to the way Birmingham elects its councillors, from elections by thirds to all-out elections every four years. The change is part of reforms to the struggling local authority announced in a review by Sir Bob Kerslake. But Clegg claims he was never allowed to sign off the policy, which he should have seen because he chairs the government committee that approves most domestic policy - the Home Affairs Cabinet Committee. He complained to Sir Jeremy Heywood, who has told Clegg he is investigating, and to Eric Pickles.

Isabel Hardman

Tristram Hunt says he ‘meant no offence to nuns’

So far in the run-up to this election, we've had Ed Miliband saying he feels 'respect' whenever he sees a white van, and now Tristram Hunt clarifying that he didn't want to offend nuns. Damian covers the Labour Shadow Education Secretary's comments here, and today Hunt did the inevitable and clarified his comments. On BBC QT I was trying to make a generalised point about the use of unqualified teachers in schools. I obviously meant no offence to nuns. — Tristram Hunt (@TristramHuntMP) February 6, 2015 Which other groups can we think of that politicians might have to apologise to following social media outrage? In an election campaign where tiny slips leave MPs suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous twitter, anything is possible.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Political tribalism at its worst

If you want an illustration of just how damaging tribalism can be in politics, look no further than this Westminster Hall debate, held yesterday. Labour's Lisa Nandy had organised it, which was on ‘effects of government policy on UK poverty’, partly, it seems to raise some stories from her constituency about benefit sanctions that had been unfairly applied, and partly, presumably, to take a few party political pot shots at the Tories. That’s fair enough with an election coming up, and it would have been fair enough for the Tories in the debate to defend their record robustly. What doesn’t seem to be fair enough or indeed at all sensible is the response that Tory MP Mark Spencer offered to a specific case that Nandy listed.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Nicky Morgan to approve more than 50 new free schools

Nicky Morgan will announce more than 50 new free schools by the end of this month, Coffee House has learned. I understand that a protracted battle has been taking place in the Education department between the Lib Dems and the Tories, which has not been helped by a desire from some civil servants to slow down the announcement of the new schools. But I hear that Morgan has managed to secure funding from the Treasury for 54 new free schools, although fewer may appear on the approved list. Free schools are announced in three waves each year, and these 54 new free school approvals, if replicated in the second two waves, will mean the highest rate of new schools under the Tories.

Isabel Hardman

Ashcroft poll proof Labour needs to get moving – across the pavement

There are still perfectly reasonable, thoughtful Labour MPs who sincerely think their party has a good chance of winning a majority in May, even though most of their colleagues are reconciled to being the largest party. I’ve found more of them in Parliament in the past few weeks than I have found Tories who think the same about their party. But today’s Ashcroft poll may well mean that the verbs in that first sentence have to change into the past perfect. There were still perfectly reasonable, thoughtful Labour MPs who sincerely thought their party had a good chance of winning a majority in May. Then the Ashcroft poll came out, suggesting that Labour could be left with just one MP in Glasgow, and the scale of the task facing the party was thrown into even sharper relief.

Isabel Hardman

Balls forgetting Bill is far less of a problem than Bill being Balls’ only supporter

To be fair to Ed Balls, everyone forgets names from time to time. ‘His surname has just gone from my mind at this time of night,’ said the Shadow Chancellor, looking sheepish. We’ve all been there, struggling to remember the name or Jenny Thingummer, or Tom Whatsisname. But the wider problem is that Balls couldn’t think of anyone other than this Bill Somebody when asked to name business leaders who supported Labour. It’s easy to forget a name. But not so much an entire list of names who support a party, especially when you’re on your way into a studio to claim that said party is very pro-business. Was Bill the only guy who'd expressed support for Labour?

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Why Labour thinks its battle with Boots is important – and what it needs to do next

Labour seems pretty keen to prolong its row with Boots chief Stefano Pessina. We're on day three now. After Boris Johnson weighed in on this on his LBC show, Chuka Umunna said ‘the Mayor of London is right to set himself apart from the Prime Minister and make it clear he finds it disappointing when firms do not join the overwhelming majority of British businesses in making a fair contribution to the Exchequer’. Party sources point out that when a senior businessman claims a Labour government would be a ‘catastrophe’ for Britain, it would be odd if the party just shrugged its shoulders. That’s why Labour is defending itself so robustly.

Isabel Hardman

Ukip says slaughter policy is not aimed at Jews but ‘aimed at others’… ‘you know what I mean’

Ukip’s foray into animal rights campaigning is going well. After the Jewish Chronicle pointed out that Nigel Farage boasted to them that he had done a great deal of work to protect shechita, the party’s agricultural spokesman Stuart Agnew told the paper: ‘This isn’t aimed at you – it’s aimed elsewhere – it’s aimed at others. ‘You’ve been caught in the crossfire; collateral damage. You know what I mean.’ If you didn’t know what Ukip meant when it announced it would oppose non-stun slaughter of animals, then at least you know now. This isn't so much a dog whistle as a foghorn. Who else could Agnew possibly mean when referring to religious groups affected by the party's new policy? UPDATE, 5.

Isabel Hardman

Hague’s attempt to resolve West Lothian raises even more questions

It doesn’t seem that William Hague has offered a decisive answer to the West Lothian question today. Indeed, judging by the reaction of the SNP and Tory MPs, the proposal that the Conservative Leader of the House has set out is encouraging many more questions. These questions include ‘just how much havoc can the SNP still wreak in Westminster’ - something that Tory MPs are asking but one the SNP will surely be voicing in private too. Or ‘how much more devolution can we wrangle from Westminster?’ - something the SNP is saying quite publicly, with Stewart Hosie saying ‘until income tax - for example - is devolved in full, it is illogical and wrong for anyone to carve Scottish MPs out of important decision-making’.

Isabel Hardman

The mitochondrial debate seems suspiciously short for a topic few MPs are experts on

MPs are currently debating changing the law to allow mitochondrial donations. This is a very complex area that few people understand, and that raises strong emotions on both sides, from those who say this will prevent 150 children a year suffering from life-threatening illnesses to those who predict it will put the UK on course to be the first country that allows ‘designer babies’ and certainly allows ‘three-parent babies’. You might therefore expect that MPs might want to spend a fair bit of time debating the legislation and discussing the ethical implications of it. But the Commons has been given just 90 minutes for this issue.

Isabel Hardman

Is William Hague giving a ‘decisive’ answer to the West Lothian question?

When David Cameron stood outside Downing Street the day after the Scottish independence referendum and said that the 'West Lothian question deserves a decisive answer', he was thinking mostly of the trouble that this answer would cause Labour. But now, as William Hague announces what that answer is, the trouble seems to be more Tory than Labour. The answer itself might not be definitive, either, as it does not offer the full English votes for English laws where Scottish MPs would be banned from voting on English-only matters that some in the Conservative party had been pushing for. Instead, it is an 'effective veto', with a new committee stage for legislation affecting only England and Wales.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Which party has the strongest message?

One interesting nugget from Lord Ashcroft’s latest batch of polling is what his focus groups in two seats - Sutton and Cheam, and Elmet and Rothwell - had to say about the parties’ messages. Here’s a quick summary: Conservative: ‘Finish the job and get back on track’. Labour: ‘Vote Labour to save the NHS’, possibly adding ‘and stop the cuts’ or ‘and tax the rich’. Liberal Democrat: ‘Vote Lib Dem to balance the extremes - to split the difference’. Ukip: ‘Leave the EU and control immigration.’ Greens: ‘Vote Green to save the planet.

Isabel Hardman

Young voters show up why Cameron wants to avoid TV debates

David Cameron and Nick Clegg naturally had the toughest tasks today when they faced young voters for the Sky question-and-answer sessions because they are having to defend policies their government has pursued. Clegg, who is normally very good at Q&As, grew rather wound up when having to defend the tuition fees U-turn and seemed more on the defensive than he needed to. Cameron has just finished his session, where his demeanour that normally makes him appear commanding and Prime Ministerial gave him a slightly wooden quality as he answered questions.

Isabel Hardman

Osborne uses meeting with Greek finance minister to tell people to vote Tory

Even though he wasn’t quite prepared in the sartorial stakes for the visit of Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, George Osborne was ready to use the meeting between the two as another messaging moment. Following their discussions, the Chancellor has released this quote: ‘It’s clear that the standoff between Greece and the Eurozone is fast becoming the biggest risk to the global economy, and it’s a rising threat to our economy at home. In Europe as in Britain now is the time to choose competence over chaos. I urged the Greek finance minister to act responsibly, but it’s also important that the Eurozone has a better plan for jobs and growth. We have that plan in Britain and in these uncertain times, now is not the time to abandon that plan.