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.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Budget 2014: Will Cameron’s disciples spread the message?

Lynton Crosby addressed the Conservative parliamentary party last night about the party's messaging for the European elections. Amusingly, I hear he told those gathered to watch one of his powerpoint presentations that while Jesus only had 12 disciples, David Cameron has 305 to spread his message. Perhaps the next Downing Street wooing event will see the Prime Minister handing out loaves and fishes to his backbenchers. After a rather off-message week, the Conservatives need their MPs to get into line and start talking about that long-term economic plan today as George Osborne unveils his Budget. One of the key words to look out for is 'resilience', which the Chancellor has already dropped into his tweets about the exciting new pound coin.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Will Ebbsfleet lead to a deluge of new garden cities?

One of the announcements in tomorrow's Budget that George Osborne has been very keen to trail is his support for a garden city at Ebbsfleet. It's not a new location, and the project has got many eagle economic eyes fixed on it; I wrote about the ambitions that Labour's Lord Adonis holds for the area back in February. But one crucial difference between the Adonis plan and the Osborne plan is that the Chancellor doesn't see Ebbsfleet as a way of making the case for more garden cities in the future. This New Town or garden city or whatever you fancy calling it is remarkable because it has the support of the two local MPs and the local community, who would rather see brownfield land developed into pleasant, high quality housing than the land staying undeveloped and ugly.

Isabel Hardman

Sir Malcolm Rifkind delivers a stern warning on Ukraine

MPs moved seamlessly today from debating the breeding season of the hare to the situation in Crimea. It's been quiet recently, but this afternoon the House of Commons chamber hosted one of its better speeches from Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who was bristling with a cold, disapproving fury. This crisis, he told MPs, wasn't just a crisis for Ukraine, it was a crisis for every European country. And Europe was failing to recognise this, and failing to respond adequately, he argued. 'For the first time since 1945, a European state has invaded the territory of another European state and has annexed part of its territory.

Isabel Hardman

Number 10 plays down Warsi Eton Mess stunt

Downing Street is trying to play down Sayeeda Warsi's  Eton Mess stunt on The Agenda last night. Asked what his response to her decision to hold up a front page saying 'Number 10 takes Eton Mess off the menu', the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'Look, I think that was in the light-hearted section of the programme. I'm not sure whether he actually caught the programme, as it happens.' He then added that the Prime Minister had 'spoken about the importance' of greater social mobility, and that the Chancellor had made similar comments to that effect yesterday. Both Warsi and Michael Gove were at Cabinet today, but the spokesman said there was no discussion either of the Etonian Problem, or of the need for ministers to stay on message.

Isabel Hardman

Tory leadership rivals may be jumping too early

The Coalition is trying to make today about childcare after announcing plenty of housing initiatives over the weekend. Announcing different policies in a drip-drip in the run-up to the Budget means they get their own limelight - and that's fine if you've got enough left in the larder once the statement itself arrives. George Osborne has learned from the 2012 Budget the art of spinning things out while leaving enough to hand out on the day - particularly giveaways that Sun readers like. But today is also about the frankly weird shenanigans at the top of the Conservative party which continued this morning with Boris Johnson's father pressing his case for the party rules to be changed so that the Mayor could be party leader.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: PM vents fury at Gove for interview on Etonians

Unsurprisingly, Michael Gove's FT interview in which he attacked the 'preposterous' number of Old Etonians around David Cameron - widely interpreted as a sally on behalf of George Osborne - has gone down like a lead balloon with the Prime Minister. I understand that Cameron had a stern word with the Education Secretary over the weekend, with one source telling me that 'he was torn a new one and given a right royal bollocking'. Cameron has made it very clear to Gove that his words were 'bang out of order' and that his aim is to focus on the Cabinet job in hand, not go on freelance missions. Meanwhile, those supporting Boris's leadership ambitions are deeply amused by the amount of energy being expended by the Osborne camp on furthering his prospects on the Tory backbenches.

Isabel Hardman

How tax transparency can help the Tories

George Osborne is as adept as any gamekeeper at setting little traps in every Budget and Autumn Statement for Labour to fall down. He hinted at a few in his Marr interview yesterday and they were largely the sort we've come to expect from the Chancellor on welfare and deficit reduction, but there's also speculation that he could set another trap on tax. Ben Gummer's 10-minute rule bill calling for National Insurance to be renamed the 'Earnings Tax' received a disproportionate amount of attention for what is normally simply a parliamentary device by which a backbencher can garner a little bit of attention for their hobby horse. But the reason it received so much attention was that it was made quite clear that this proposal had sympathy at the highest levels of government.

Isabel Hardman

Ken Clarke: We don’t need treaty change to reform Europe, and my eurosceptic colleagues are eccentric

Tory europhiles don't often come out in the daylight: they normally give the impression they're frightened that their associations will get grumpy, or that their fellow MPs will try to shout them down. But today the pro-EU group European Mainstream launched their new pamphlet, In Our Interest: Britain with Europe, which takes a stance that is quite unusual in the Conservative party: it agrees with the Prime Minister's Europe strategy. The 62 MPs on the group - who include Ken Clarke, Damian Green, Richard Benyon and Caroline Spelman - didn't seem at all shifty or nervous when they gathered in Westminster Hall this afternoon to launch the pamphlet and make a positive case for Britain in Europe.

Isabel Hardman

Why no Tory can lecture another on leadership challenges

The continued speculation about who in the Conservative party is putting the most effort into preparing their leadership hat to throw into the currently non-existent ring is quite amusing. But it also means that those involved will struggle to have such a moral high ground when they need to lecture backbench colleagues for getting overexcited about potty-sounding leadership challenges after the European elections. Boris and George Osborne may be engaged in a strange fight about who is gaining the most currency with backbenchers so that they're in the best possible position post-Cameron, while backbench unrest will be focused on Cameron's own position.

Isabel Hardman

HS2: No blank cheque or empty threats?

Sir David Higgins wants the northern end of HS2 built quicker, as a means of selling the benefits of the 'north-south' line to those who remain sceptical about the new line. You can read his full report on High Speed 2 here, but it's worth considering the position of one of the biggest groups of sceptics too. Labour has repeatedly said that there is no blank cheque for HS2, and Ed Balls frequently deploys the line as a way of showing that he really is very fiscally responsible these days. Balls said yesterday on Marr that Labour would support the high speed rail bill at second reading but that if the costs rose above £50 billion, then he would have to think again.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Viviane Reding’s next trick

Viviane Reding is a bit of a favourite among UK ministers. The European Commissioner for Justice has a knack of making such a good case for reform of Europe with her interviews and policies that Conservatives - and indeed Ukippers - are quite content for her to intervene as often as possible. This week, she's got another cunning plan that eloquently makes the case for reform of Europe - and ministers will be standing up to her again. Reding is expected to publish the second annual EU Justice Scoreboard on Monday:  it's a league table of all the EU member states' justice systems. At first glance, this sounds like a nice idea: compare the independence and efficiency of different justice systems to encourage under performing countries to improve.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Jobs for the girls | 13 March 2014

Martin Vander Weyer tells an interesting tale in his Any Other Business column this week of Business Secretary Vince Cable demanding that companies appoint more women to senior positions: 'The Business Secretary has been busy behind the scenes, too. "We had a letter from Vince telling us we should appoint a female non-exec…" one chief executive told me last week "…and we’ve found a really good one, totally one of the boys, she even likes shooting."' Martin points out that Cable's campaign is 'about equality for its own sake rather than the distinctive qualities of female decision-making, and the otherwise already emancipated objects of his support feel themselves patronised'.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Will there really be a ‘furious backlash’ to Ed Miliband’s EU referendum stance?

The Tories have been hoping that their pledge for a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU would split Labour – it was the rationale behind John Baron's regular pushes for legislation in this parliament for a referendum in the next, which David Cameron eventually satisfied as far as he could with the Wharton Bill. But so far the only dissenting voices on Ed Miliband's pledge today for an 'unlikely' referendum have been the usual suspects on the backbenches such as Graham Stringer and John Mann. That's hardly a 'furious backlash' and more expected and manageable rage – at present, anyway. It will be interesting to see whether there are many more senior figures who break cover or at least brief off the record about the Labour stance on this issue.

Isabel Hardman

Britain’s failure to intervene in Syria is ‘shameful’ says Labour MP John Woodcock

One of the more remarkable exchanges of today's PMQs was the intervention by John Woodcock towards the end of the session. He surprised colleagues by calling the failure to intervene in Syria 'shameful': 'This week marks three years since the bloodshed began in Syria. More than two and a half million people have fled the country and the dead can no longer even be counted. We must all bear responsibility for our shameful failure to intervene. But they are supposed to be the ones - they are supposed to be the ones running the country. So what renewed effort will his government make to end the slaughter before all hope fails?' It's worth noting that Woodcock supported Labour's amendment but did not vote on the government motion on Syria.

Isabel Hardman

Douglas Alexander’s weasel words on Labour’s EU pledge

Unsurprisingly, Douglas Alexander's Today interview about Ed Miliband's pledge to not give the British people a referendum without saying he's not giving you a referendum wasn't the most edifying performance. Alexander admitted that what Miliband is promising is an 'unlikely' referendum, saying: 'He will say that our priority in government would be tackling the cost-of-living crisis and getting the economy back on track, not getting Britain out of Europe. He’ll set out some very practical and I think needed changes to make Europe work better for the United Kingdom. And he’ll also be open that we are not, as a prospective Labour government, proposing a further transfer of powers to Brussels.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Ed Miliband rules out EU referendum

Why is Ed Miliband going to rule out a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU in a speech tomorrow? The Labour leader has written in the FT that he would legislate for a new referendum lock which would force an In/Out referendum if there was another transfer of British power to Brussels, which essentially means he supports the current situation under the Coalition. And he says in the piece that the transfer is unlikely in the next Parliament. Which means no referendum. He writes that Labour's position on Europe... "… is clear and principled: we strongly believe Britain’s future is in the EU. And my priorities for government after the next election are very different from those of the Conservatives.

Isabel Hardman

Revolts over Immigration Bill loom in House of Lords

Awkward rows about who employs 'cheap foreign labour' aside, the immigration issue is going to blow up again in the next couple of weeks when the Immigration Bill reaches report stage in the House of Lords. There are two main problems with the legislation which could lead to some very awkward votes at this stage - and both are being highlighted in the current committee stage. The first relates to fines for private landlords who do not make adequate checks on tenants who then turn out to be illegal immigrants.

Isabel Hardman

The Lib Dems could go from being the ‘nice party’ to the ‘nasty party’

Danny Alexander managed to please Ed Balls at Treasury Questions today by revealing that he wasn't opposed to the Shadow Chancellor's call for the Office for Budget Responsibility to audit the spending pledges made in an opposition party's manifesto. He told the Commons: 'I think this is an idea well worth further consideration, Mr Speaker. What I'd be worried about in taking it forward is the pressure it would place on the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is a new organisation that's only recently taken on responsibility for forecasting the public finances.

Isabel Hardman

Bob Crow, 1961-2014: An old-fashioned trade unionist

Bob Crow's death is a shock - he was only 52 - but it also signals the end of old-school style union operating. Crow was a real old-fashioned union boss. He cared only about the deals for his workers, not the wider party political machinations that other leaders such as Len McCluskey and Paul Kenny like to embroil themselves in. As Ed wrote in March, he focused on the interests of working people without much regard to anything else, including regular rage from commuters. His union was the first to be booted out of the Labour party after a series of rows which culminated in RMT refusing to sever links with the Scottish Socialist Party in 2004. Thus RMT became even more focused on its members and less on party politics.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Jeremy Browne: Some bosses are a bit ‘control freakish’

What makes a good Secretary of State? Today Jeremy Browne was interviewed on the Daily Politics about what it's like to be a junior minister, from his experience of working in both the Foreign Office and Home Office. Towards the end, Jo Coburn asked whether it was true that he'd been given more freedom at the Foreign Office than he had when working for Theresa May at the Home Office. He said: 'Well that would be telling tales, but I think… anybody who's ever been in any workplace will know that some bosses are willing to give you a little bit more freedom and discretion and others are a bit more control freakish.