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

People trust the Tories with their money – that’s why they can promise unfunded tax cuts

From our UK edition

Does it matter that the Tories can't spell out how they'd fund the tax cuts they announced at their party conference this week? Labour has launched a clock which monitors how long it's been since David Cameron promised these cuts without any detail on how they'd pay for them. But last night on BBC This Week, Tom Watson summed up why the Tories feel they can make this attack: 'I don't think we can be more austere than the Tories now: I thought those freezes were cruel last week and will have very bad social consequences and the Labour party doesn't believe in that, and so we've got to make a different play.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Grayling unveils Tory plan for human rights reform

From our UK edition

One of the biggest pledges of the Conservative party conference wasn't actually made at the Tory conference. It's being set out today by Chris Grayling and is the Tory plan to strip European judges of their powers over British laws. The Conservatives will scrap the Human Rights Act and introduce a British Bill of Rights which will leave the European Court of Human Rights as an advisory body to the UK. It will continue to use the same basic text of the European convention on human rights, as Grayling says 'it's never that document and those principles that is the problem', but alongside it will be a number of caveats designed to restrict the way human rights laws can be used, for example on prisoner voting.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Ukip’s attempt to sabotage the end of the Tory conference has backfired

From our UK edition

When press officers from Ukip enticed journalists along to a press conference at the end of the summer by promising that it would definitely be worth their while, they showed they weren't exaggerating. That press conference was where Douglas Carswell defected. So today when Ukip told hacks that it would definitely be worth their while travelling from the final day of the Tory conference to a Gloucestershire country home for a 5pm press conference, everyone assumed there would be another defection. 5pm came, and up popped Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, a Tory donor who defected to Ukip earlier this week.

Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: David Cameron’s bid for the moral high ground

From our UK edition

When he saw colleagues in the tearoom on Friday as the Commons debated air strikes against Isis in Iraq, David Cameron told them that he'd actually been rather nervous about Ed Miliband's Labour conference speech. The Labour leader has delivered two fantastic ones that set the agenda for the past two autumns, the Prime Minister acknowledged to the MPs he was talking to. But this year, he was pretty relieved as the speech Miliband ended up delivering was a mess.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Tories will keep NHS ring fence, Cameron to announce

From our UK edition

The Tories will protect the NHS budget, David Cameron will announce in his speech to his party conference today. Extracts of the Prime Minister's speech, which he will deliver in Birmingham later today, include a promise to 'protect the NHS budget and continue to invest more'. Cameron will repeat George Osborne's argument that 'you can only have a strong NHS if you have a strong economy', and will also mention his own personal commitment to the health service, saying: 'From the country that unravelled DNA, we are now mapping it for each individual. Cracking this code could mean curing rare genetic diseases and saving lives. Our NHS is leading the world on this incredible technology. 'I understand very personally the difference it could make.

Isabel Hardman

Without Michael Gove the Tories have no moral mission on education

From our UK edition

Why is Nicky Morgan the Education Secretary? She's long been billed as a rising star in the government and has put in some very passionate and impressive performances on the conference fringe this year. But her speech to the Conservative conference hall this afternoon didn't really answer that question. It was workmanlike, and its main mission seemed to be to tick boxes such as 'must be nice to teachers', rather than give us any sense of Morgan's personal mission. Of course there was a difficult contrast between the minister apparently given the departmental responsibility because she's not Michael Gove and Michael Gove himself, who appeared emotional as delegates applauded him at length in the hall.

Isabel Hardman

Tory nerves over Osborne welfare gamble

From our UK edition

Will George Osborne get away with his conference gamble that hits working families? The Chancellor's speech would have received a far worse reception on the front pages of today's newspapers had it not been for the announcement on GPs offering a seven-day service. But it remains a topic of debate in the party. Today at a lunchtime fringe, the Chancellor tried to defend his two-year freeze on working-age benefits by arguing that he had taken uncomfortable decisions for a Conservative, such as raising corporation tax. He also was careful not to appear to be gleeful about cutting welfare, an impression he has given in the past.

Isabel Hardman

Leaked lines to take for Tory MPs show party nerves about Ukip

From our UK edition

Tory conference has been much more upbeat than last week's gloomy offer from Labour. But just in case the party had turned up in a bad mood after the defection of Mark Reckless, MPs were given a series of lines to take which involved them telling any broadcaster unfortunate to ask that the gathering in Birmingham was demonstrating 'energy' and 'positivity'. Those lines to take, leaked to Coffee House, show the party preparing for a week of awkward questions about Ukip taking their voters and overshadowing their conference. One of the questions is 'have Mark Reckless and Ukip overshadowed your conference?' The answer is: 'I disagree.

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May was a tough act for Boris Johnson to follow

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson and Theresa May both fancy a pop at the Tory leadership and both gave speeches today that showed they were keen. That much is so well-known that it is a little tiring to analyse either speech simply in those terms (though it's worth noting that Boris supporters have been very keen indeed to tell us that this was a 'grown-up, loyal speech that shows he has a track record of delivery. Boris has a vision that is optimistic'). Both did a good job of rallying the troops in the conference hall, although in quiet different ways. May was sober but passionate about the threat posed to Britain by Isis, warning that the terror group could acquire nuclear weapons. She quoted the Koran on stage to demonstrate that Isis was twisting the sacred texts it claims to be fighting for.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Chris Kelly distressed by Ukip rumours and has denied them to closest family

From our UK edition

Like all MPs suspected as potential Ukip defectors, Chris Kelly is being hounded by colleagues, whips and journalists all desperate to find out what he's up to. He and his family are distressed by the pressure that the MP is under and suspect that Ukip are putting his name about to create a smoke screen around the next defector. Kelly has told his long-term girlfriend that he is not defecting. His girlfriend's mother is Nadine Dorries, who says Kelly is so loyal to the government that she's quite 'disappointed' he doesn't take more principled stands against it. But she is confident he will not defect. Neither, in case you're wondering, will Dorries.

Isabel Hardman

Turncoats, ‘dickheads’ – what the Tories think of Ukip

From our UK edition

The Tories are bracing themselves for another defection to Ukip which may or may not come today or in the next few days. MPs and whips have been chasing after Adam Holloway and Chris Kelly as the figures who seem the most at risk, and have been extracting the sort of point blank denials that Mark Reckless claims to have never been asked for. Daniel Hannan has been denying again that he is leaving his party, while another rumour is doing the rounds that the next defection could be from a London Conservative working with Boris, rather than the Commons or the European Parliament. MPs are angry and determined to put as much pressure on Reckless as possible, not least because many of his colleagues feel betrayed.

Isabel Hardman

Conservative conference: Liz Truss and Sajid Javid hit Labour

From our UK edition

Two of the brightest rising stars in the Conservative party, Sajid Javid and Liz Truss, addressed the Tory conference. After an angry day yesterday where Grant Shapps and the PM furiously attacked Ukip and their backbench colleagues piled in to savage Mark Reckless, the pair needed to use their slow to re-focus party minds on fighting Labour in the general election. They are both well-equipped for such a task: Javid started his speech with a passage on his values as a British Tory, then moved onto attacking the snobbery he encountered from the Labour Party when he was appointed Culture Secretary, and Ken Livingstone's comments that he saw Javid as a Pakistani and a banker. Javid responded: 'well, Ken, I'm British.

Isabel Hardman

George Osborne’s task: to make his party enthusiastic about government

From our UK edition

There's a funny mood at this Tory conference. It has more energy than the Labour conference, but partly that energy is anger at Mark Reckless' defection, rather than enthusiasm. MPs and advisers are jittery that another defection will come at another terribly inconvenient moment. A third MP leaving the party will suggest real momentum. So George Osborne's task when he speaks a little later this morning is to turn the energy that's buzzing about the hall into enthusiasm for government. The Labour conference, for all its desire to get the Tories out of office, lacked that sincere excitement about the idea of the party being in charge. The Tories need to show that they're not running out of ideas or exhausted by government, but are keen for a majority government.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

Don’t trust this woman: Tory whips warn MPs off Brooks Newmark trap

From our UK edition

If you're a Tory MP who hasn't been paying much attention to the news and is wearing paisley pyjamas tonight, the Conservative whips are looking out for you. They've sent a message out to their party warning them off the 'woman' who managed to entrap Brooks Newmark into revealing his bedwear and long-term economic plan. The message, passed to Coffee House by an amused Tory, reads: 'Please take care with a "Sophie Witams". You follow her on Twitter. "She" is the person who ensnared Brooks Newmark. Please check you haven't been approached. You should certainly having no contact and take care.' It's nice to know whips are so concerned about protecting their party's honourable members.

Isabel Hardman

William Hague’s warming warm-up speech

From our UK edition

William Hague has just warmed up the Conservative party conference with a lovely, personal speech about his time as Leader of the House. It was tribal, claiming that he had never seen a frontbench that was worse or weaker than the current Labour one, and that with no John Prescott around, there was no-one to make it entertaining either. He listed his own achievements in the party, and praised George Osborne for 'completely' turning around the British economy, an interesting line not just because the Chancellor has missed his own targets, but because until recently ministers were still giving out lines to the effect that there is a great deal left to be done.

Isabel Hardman

Tories accuse Reckless of lying

From our UK edition

The Conservatives have decided that the best way to respond to Mark Reckless's defection to Ukip is to accuse him of lying. On first glance, this may seem like a slightly crude strategy: of course the man was going to lie until the point of his defection, rather than say 'yes, I am thinking of going over, but don't mention it to anyone if you can'. But the reason this works is that it rather undermines Reckless's claim to be a man of principle, or at least, the Tories clearly hope it will. He registered and paid for this Tory party conference, and told his whip three days before the vote on air strikes on Isis in Iraq that he would support the government's motion. He was one of the first to reply to his whip, and the message he sent is below: 'Thanks for your message.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Mark Reckless: The away day row that made me lose my faith in David Cameron

From our UK edition

What made Mark Reckless decide to defect? Coffee House earlier revealed the timeline that led to the Tory MP standing on the conference stage in Doncaster today, but after his announcement, he sat down with a small group of journalists and explained why he'd decided that Ukip was the right party for him. It started with a row in Oxfordshire. Before explaining, Reckless first refused a glass of wine, and when it was pointed out that sipping water was a little unusual for a Ukipper, he told the group that 'I'm not a big drinker', adding sheepishly 'I had an unfortunate incident some time ago as some of you will recall'. Other Ukippers in the room were merrily consuming wine to toast their latest defection as he spoke.

Isabel Hardman

How Mark Reckless’ defection happened – exclusive details

From our UK edition

Mark Reckless has been talking about moving to Ukip for months, those who know him say. It was only in the last two weeks that he decided he was definitely defecting, and only in the past few days that more people working for the party knew what was happening. Still, they managed to keep it under wraps to the extent that some journalists had gone home early, dismissing the reports of defections as overexcited chatter. The hall was gobsmacked when he appeared.

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Mark Reckless becomes second Tory MP to defect to Ukip

From our UK edition

Mark Reckless has just left the Conservative Party and joined Ukip. He is announcing his defection on the stage at the party's conference to huge cheers. listen to ‘Podcast special: Mark Reckless defects to Ukip’ on audioBoom Reckless says it is the leadership of the Tory party that is holding the country back — Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) September 27, 2014 This is horrendous for the Tories — Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) September 27, 2014 More to follow...

Isabel Hardman

Tory plan to force through EVEL advances

From our UK edition

As reported earlier this week, a group of Conservative MPs are keen to get English votes for English laws sorted as soon as possible. Bill Cash has sent William Hague a change to the standing orders of the House of Commons which would enforce this principle immediately. He has also written to party colleagues asking for their support on this, and says he has heard sympathetic noises from the party leadership on the idea too (although it depends who you talk to as to how sympathetic the noises sound). Cash told Coffee House that it was imperative that the government avoided bringing in EVEL through legislation as it would almost certainly end up with a Supreme Court challenge.