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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

How will the Tories sell more welfare cuts?

David Cameron is making noises about further welfare cuts as he tours India, reports the FT's Kiran Stacey. This isn't surprising: the PM has got a gaggle of Cabinet ministers pecking at him and squawking about cutting DWP spending even more in order to protect policing and defence in the 2015/16 spending review, which will be settled in the next few months. But are we going to see the same pattern of decision-making and the same rhetoric on welfare spending as has emerged for previous budgets and autumn statements? This is how it has worked recently: Spending decisions approach. Nick Clegg (or an acolyte) says he's blocked further cuts to the welfare budget. Iain Duncan Smith makes a similar noise. The Treasury (or sometimes even the PM) starts flying kites on welfare cuts.

Isabel Hardman

Maria Hutchings says what she thinks. But is she thinking what Eastleigh voters are thinking?

One of the key strands of the Conservative campaign in Eastleigh is trust: not just because campaigners can remind voters about Chris Huhne, but thanks to a contrast they can draw between Maria Hutchings and Lib Dem candidate Mike Thornton. The party's latest poster underlines this: it accuses the Lib Dems of 'facing both ways on development' and contrasts quotes from Thornton on protecting green spaces and his voting record. The bottom of the poster says: 'Maria Hutchings has consistently campaigned with local residents against these developments.

Isabel Hardman

On tax policy, to govern is to maintain the status quo

To govern is to choose, wise people like to say when talking about policies which annoy voters but which might make good sense. Today we have another example of what happens when governments don't choose. The Public Accounts Committee has published another one of its fierce reports on tax, arguing that tax avoidance companies 'run rings around HMRC'. There's plenty of criticism in it for HMRC, with the committee finding that HMRC doesn't know how much it spends tackling tax avoidance, or whether the work that it does do is effective. But the tax system itself, unsurprisingly, doesn't get a good review either.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s mansion tax debate won’t be a crunch vote (or very interesting)

So Labour is going to force a vote in the House of Commons on the mansion tax. It's the key announcement trailed as part of Ed Miliband's visit to Eastleigh today, and yet it's the sort of thing that only really excites people who look forward to hearings of the Public Accounts Committee rather than the average voter who has a more normal perspective on life. The idea behind these Opposition Day debates is that Labour flushes out any rebels or unhappy Lib Dems, or that its MPs can later tweet 'Lib Dems voted against their own policy in the Commons tonight #evil #nevertrustalibdemagain'. Miliband says that very thing today: 'And what about the Lib Dems? There could be a majority in the House of Commons when it votes on our proposal. But only if the Liberal Democrats vote with Labour.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: MPs could debate controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants

So far, MPs have only been able to raise concerns about the effects of the end of transitional controls for Bulgarian and Romanian migrants in departmental questions in the Commons. But one Tory is calling for a full backbench debate on the issue after recess. I understand that Mark Pritchard wants the government to extend transitional controls beyond 2013. He has applied for a debate, and tells me: 'I am pleased that the government is looking at the pull factors that will draw thousands of Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to the UK. However, time is running out and action rather than words are required. There also needs to be a recognition that there are also push factors and reducing pull factors alone will not be sufficient.

Isabel Hardman

Nadine Dorries says Ipsa is ‘asleep on the bloody job’, but MPs’ pay and expenses will cause even more grief this year

Nadine Dorries has vowed to 'go after' Ipsa today after the watchdog announced her expenses were under investigation. There will clearly be more to come on this, but the claims the Mid-Bedfordshire MP is making about Ipsa being 'asleep on the bloody job' by not noticing that a travel ticket receipt had accidentally been submitted twice won't come as a surprise to other MPs. Remember that Adam Afriyie's confidence about his coup (which I understand from friends that he remains very confident about) stems partly from the help he has given fellow Tories in fighting the current Ipsa system. Louise Mensch raises some of the problems that she identified with the system in her interview with the Standard today.

Isabel Hardman

Exclusive: Tory MPs push government for French-style ‘civil union’ weddings

Two Conservative MPs are pushing for the government to consider separating the civil functions of marriage from the religious as part of the same sex marriage bill, I understand. David Burrowes and Tim Loughton, who both voted against the legislation at second reading, have tabled an amendment to its first clause designed to spark a debate about whether Britain should have a system similar to France or South Africa, where the state controls the legal registration of marriages, but any wedding ceremony is down to religious institutions and venues (Hugo Rifkind extolled the benefits of this system earlier this year in The Spectator, and Matthew Parris similarly outlined the way South Africa managed to do it in his piece in December).

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Sir John Major on how to win an EU renegotiation

John Major knows a thing or two about naughty Tory MPs and Europe. So David Cameron would do well to listen to his Chatham House speech today in which he advised the PM to give up on the 'irreconcilables who are prepared to bring own any government or any Prime Minister in support of their opposition to the European Union'. He made two particularly strong points: 1. The Prime Minister should start preparing for the negotiation now. Major doesn't want the UK to leave the European Union, and neither does Cameron. So the former Tory Prime Minister gave a detailed briefing on how Cameron can avoid this. A referendum would only prevent a gradual drift towards the exit if the renegotiation preceding it is successful, and to ensure success, the PM needs to get planning right away.

Isabel Hardman

No 10 attacks Miliband’s ‘admission of economic incompetence’

Here's an interesting thing: Number 10 has released a statement on Ed Miliband's 10p tax rate pledge. The Downing Street press machine hasn't been in the habit of doing this sort of official reactive spinning, although this may be in part because Miliband's speeches thus far have been pretty light on anything you can actually react to. This is what a No 10 spokesman said: 'This is a stunning admission of economic incompetence from Ed Miliband and Ed Balls – that their decision in Government to scrap the 10p tax rate hurt millions of working families. People will never trust Labour again. The low income working people who lost out the most from Labour’s 10p tax hike now pay no tax at all thanks to this Government’s record increases in the tax free personal allowance.

Isabel Hardman

Miliband steals a march on Tory tax campaign

Ed Miliband has just started his economy speech in Bedford, so as he gets underway, here's a quick thought on his plan to reintroduce the 10p tax band. Doing this steals a march on a brewing Conservative campaign. Robert Halfon has been pushing over the past couple of months for the restoration of the 10p tax band to help those on low incomes. He's badged it the 'Great Gordon Brown Repeal Bill', and David Cameron set some pulses racing yesterday at PMQs when he told Yvonne Fovargue that 'we will not forget the abolition of the 10p tax rate that clobbered every hard-working person in the country'. But on yesterday's Newsnight Jon Cruddas also dropped a hint that Labour could bring back the rate, and Miliband will shortly confirm this in his speech.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The Tory 2015 message: times are tough, but they’d be worse under Labour

Today's PMQs was not, as James says, a tricky one for David Cameron. He had some good jokes and embarrassing gossip to poke Ed Miliband with, even though the Labour leader chose to attack on the thorny issue of living standards. The key to the next election will be whether voters feel their lives have improved under the Coalition far more than it is about the latest ONS release on GDP. And the key challenge for the Coalition is to be clear that though things won't be rosy - as Miliband pointed out, the squeeze on living standards will still be taking place when polling day arrives - they would be worse under Labour.

Isabel Hardman

Eastleigh by-election parties fight over policy they both support

Alarming news reaches this blog from the Eastleigh by-election, where the battle has descended into a catfight about a policy the two main parties support at national level. How unusual for parties to detach themselves from their own policies when a prize seat is in sight: this time round it's the Lib Dems and Tories fighting over a development of new homes in the area on greenfield land. The Lib Dem leaflets promoting Mike Thornton say 'residents are angry with the Conservatives for putting green fields under threat from big builders'. The Tories backing Maria Hutchings point out that Thornton and his Lib Dem colleagues on the council voted in favour of the local plan for Eastleigh, which includes provisions for up to 4,700 new homes on greenfield land.

Isabel Hardman

The government’s work experience scheme isn’t headed for the plug hole

Depending on which paper you read this morning, the government's work experience scheme is either heading for the plug hole or going from strength to strength. The Guardian has an editorial praising Cait Reilly, the geology graduate who fought the workfare scheme she found herself on, The Telegraph says workfare can 'still do the job for Britain', and The Sun carries a bullish piece by Iain Duncan Smith on why the scheme is not 'slave labour'. The problem is that everyone has managed to interpret yesterday's Court of Appeal judgement as favouring their own view of the scheme. Reilly emerged yesterday with her lawyer to claim victory, but the Work and Pensions department seemed relatively unperturbed, too.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems and Labour concerned by Tory Leveson Royal Charter plans

Does the Royal Charter, published by the Conservative party this afternoon, take politicians any further away from meddling with press regulation? The charter is the Tory answer to the statutory underpinning recommended by Lord Leveson, and the party is keen to stress that it 'does not require statute and enables the principles of Leveson to be fulfilled without legislation'. But is this plan any better? Well, the charter, which you can read here, can only be unpicked or changed if the leaders of all three parties confirm they agree with this and if the change gets the support of at least two thirds of MPs. It also needs the support of all those involved in the cross-party talks. So what do they think?

Isabel Hardman

Wanted: Press officer for Afriyie plotters

Adam Afriyie's team have been on the hunt for a press officer, I understand. Even though the backbencher has tried to play down claims that he's taking aim at the Tory leadership, a source in the communications community says that Afriyie's camp have been asking individuals to join them as a press spokesman and strategist. The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that Afriyie recently approached Portland Communications asking for advice, but it appears that his team have also been looking to take on someone to represent them and help with their plotting strategy. In this case, I hear the individual they approached turned their offer down.

Isabel Hardman

Nick Clegg: I spent months making the case for an EU budget cut

Deputy Prime Minister's Questions is rarely an uplifting experience: more like watching some hapless chap stuck in a room full of his ex-girlfriends, all pointing angrily at him, like the wedding reception scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Somehow Peter Bone either manages to get his name on the Order Paper or to tag along at the end of another question to bring up one of the more painful rows in the Coalition relationship, the boundary reforms, or when he's in a really good mood, what the DPM would do if David Cameron were run over by a bus. He did so again today, even though the Tories have already lost the boundaries vote. Zac Goldsmith was moodily grumbling, too, because the promised Recall Bill still wasn't making its way onto the books. Others were less kind.

Isabel Hardman

Secret justice bill unites senior Tory and Lib Dem MPs

Last week ministers managed to rewrite some of the protections in the controversial Justice and Security Bill while it was being scrutinised in committee: this week backbenchers MPs are starting to hit back. I reported in late January that Andrew Tyrie was considering amending the legislation, and that a group of Tory MPs was minded to support him. He has now tabled a series of changes for the report stage of the Bill in the Commons, with the support of Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes. Tyrie's proposals involve creating an elected chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee who is an MP, which is one of the recommendations in his CPS paper on the Bill. These proposals relate to part I of the Bill, which is perhaps the less controversial section of the legislation.

Isabel Hardman

Cross-party consensus on Leveson tested with Royal Charter plan

The Conservatives publish their plans for a Royal Charter to underpin regulation of the press today. Although the cross-party talks have been more successful than most imagined, with no rows or public posturing, today is the day when that consensus is tested. There's also another test on the way for the three parties, which is the return of the Defamation Bill to the Commons towards the end of February or start of March. This Bill was amended last week by peers - including Tories - to include low-cost arbitration for members of a press regulator, overseen by a 'recognition commission' and a statutory requirement for pre-notification.

Isabel Hardman

Planning Minister: Govt must be tough on new migrants to protect housing from more pressure

MPs' concerns about how many Bulgarian and Romanian migrants might come to this country when transitional controls are lifted aren't going away any time soon, by the looks of things. There were six questions on the order paper from Conservative MPs about the matter at Home Office questions yesterday, for starters. But I've also spoken to a minister who is uneasy about the impact that the end of the controls will have on his own sector.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

EU Budget: Cameron shows off his strong negotiating hand

David Cameron could barely contain himself when he addressed MPs on his victory in last week's EU budget talks. 'I didn't quite get a thank you!' he jeered at Ed Miliband once the Labour leader had finished his response. 'But I will give him a thank you for the non-thank you.' He also mocked Ed Balls for saying 'hear, hear' when the PM mentioned the need for spending constraint in the EU as so many of its member states struggled with austerity measures. Obligingly, Balls then cheered 'hear, hear' as often as he could, and continued to do so when his own leader started talking.