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.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Whatever it takes to save the euro

In case you were in any doubt about how committed eurozone leaders are to the survival of the single currency, Angela Merkel has put out another statement on doing 'everything possible to protect the eurozone', this time with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. The pair had a phone conversation on Sunday and their remarks follow the joint statement released by Merkel and François Hollande on Friday, and Mario Draghi's announcement last Thursday that the European Central Bank would do 'whatever it takes' to protect the euro. The markets are looking forward to something decisive later today as US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner arrives in Europe to meet German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and then Draghi later on.

Sunday

Isabel Hardman

RBS next in line for Libor heat

The Guardian has published an interview on its site with Stephen Hester in which the RBS chief executive predicts his bank is facing a huge fine for its part in the Libor fixing scandal. He says: 'RBS is one of the banks tied up in Libor. We'll have our day in that particular spotlight as well.' Hester can to a certain extent afford to be upfront about what is coming down the line for his bank. Even though it was clear from the start that there were other banks wading around in this swamp, Barclays took the majority of the flak as the first one to be fined. There might be another round of emails about bottles of Bollinger to feast upon, but the revelations will not be as shocking the second time around.

Isabel Hardman

Osborne needs to give the Lib Dems sleepless nights on supply-side reform

Ed Balls is doing very well out of the GDP figures that were released on Wednesday. The Shadow Chancellor is right to say that George Osborne is not yet doing the right thing with the economy. But that doesn't mean Balls' solution is the right one. Cuts should have been only one side of the deal, but as Iain Martin points out in today's Sunday Telegraph, the other side which should have kickstarted growth - supply-side reform - is not forthcoming because Osborne and Cameron are afraid of offending the Lib Dems. Similarly, James says in his column today that too often attempts to strike a balance between the supply-side reform that the Tories want and the demand-management favoured by Vince Cable means nothing is achieved at all.

Isabel Hardman

Empty seats give the wrong message about who the Olympics are for

Remember that great scandal that rocked the Olympics, G4S? That pre-Games row has been completely eclipsed, at least for now, by the rows and rows of empty seats at supposedly sell-out Olympic venues. It turns out that those seats, often situated below the masses of people who shelled out a pretty penny for their own seats, belong to sponsors, who have either failed to fill them, or who have given the tickets to people who just haven't turned up. Locog has launched an investigation, which it needs to conclude and find a solution to the problem as soon as possible. Those forlorn rows of seats are giving out the wrong message about who the Games are for.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Osborne seizes on S&P ratings relief

You'd think that after the bad economic news of the past week, George Osborne might have reverted to submarine mode as soon as he possibly could, moving quietly under the cover of the Olympics. But this afternoon he has stuck a periscope up with this message: the world has confidence that Britain is dealing with its economic plan. It's a bold statement to make after Wednesday's GDP figures, and Labour has already mocked him for doing so, but Osborne is responding to the announcement overnight by Standard & Poor's that the UK will continue to enjoy an AAA credit rating.

Isabel Hardman

Cameron’s Olympic opportunity as Syria massacre fears grow

There was an uncomfortable moment last night at the Olympic opening ceremony when the Syrian team entered the stadium. The athletes - who are there as competitors, not apologists for the Assad regime - did not receive the same raucous cheer as many of the other nations. The BBC commentators at least, who had been peppering the procession with helpful comments such as 'ah, X country: very rich in precious gems, and of course, overcoming appalling human rights abuses to be with us today - marvellous', barely mentioned the Syrian Arab Republic as its ten athletes  paraded around with their coaches. Away from the excitement of the Games, politicians are warning of an impending massacre in the city of Aleppo. David Cameron and William Hague yesterday both condemned the ongoing violence.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Unqualified teachers haven’t ‘irreparably damaged’ the private sector: why do state schools deserve anything different?

The furore surrounding the news - which James broke on Coffee House this afternoon - that academies will now be able to employ teachers who are not qualified was so brilliantly predictable that we could have written the unions' press releases for them. Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers slammed it as a 'clear dereliction of duty' and a 'cost-cutting measure that will cause irreparable damage to children's education'. Blower and her union colleagues are not clear why education will be so badly damaged by this, though. Top schools in the private sector regularly employ staff who have gone through no formal training at all. But parents have to pay for this privilege: it is not available to them in the state system.

Isabel Hardman

All will and no way for the eurozone crisis

Mario Draghi's announcement yesterday that the ECB would 'do whatever it takes' to preserve the euro certainly cheered markets up - but only for a while. Interest rates for Spanish 10-year bonds dropped below the danger threshold of 7 per cent and the euro gained two cents against the dollar. But the more eagle-eyed spotted that this only returned the state of play to where it was on Friday. Draghi's words were designed as a hint to traders that the ECB was open to emergency support for Spanish and Italian bond markets. But Reuters is now reporting that Spanish economy minister Luis de Guindos suggested in a meeting with German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble last Tuesday that Spain might need a full bailout worth €300 billion.

Isabel Hardman

Olympic Boris

Boris Johnson is one of the few politicians in the world able to clamber up on a concert stage in Hyde Park, take the mic, and whip a crowd up into a frenzy as he did last night. If you haven't seen the Mayor of London sending Londoners wild with excitement while mocking Mitt Romney, it's well worth watching below: It's impossible to imagine any of the members of the Cabinet managing to carry any of this speech off with any dignity at all, let alone the panache that Boris possesses. A Ken Livingstone Olympic rally might have struck a rather different tone had London voted in a Labour mayor in May. When Boris solemnly stalked down a road in Clapham a year ago, waving a broom aloft, he managed to turn around the mood of a crowd which had just seconds before, been booing him.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

The Romneyshambles road show

David Cameron broke with Downing Street tradition today by meeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But Romney might now be wishing that, like François Hollande, he'd been snubbed by the Prime Minister until the elections were over. He started his day with forgetting Ed Miliband's name, calling him 'Mr Leader' instead when the two met. That wasn't too bad: it's not as if British people, or indeed the media, can remember what the Labour leader is called half the time, anyway.

Isabel Hardman

Warsi cleared of expenses allegations

The Lords Commissioner for Standards has cleared Baroness Warsi of allegations that she wrongly claimed expenses for staying rent-free with a friend. Now that this has been cleared up, and Sir Alex Allan has already exonerated her from any allegations of impropriety for allowing a business partner to accompany her, Warsi has a clean slate to present when it comes to September's reshuffle. The Prime Minister said that the Conservative Party co-chair would lead a 'big summer of campaigning for the Conservative Party' in the run-up to the police commissioner elections, but that still leaves the door open to a new task in the autumn. Paul Waugh reported yesterday on his blog that Warsi could take over as International Development Secretary, which he describes as 'in many ways her dream job'.

Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems block further welfare cuts

One popular prediction swirling around Westminster this morning is that part of the Government's response to the GDP disaster will be to cut more money from the welfare budget. After all, George Osborne told MPs in his Budget statement that there would need to be a further package of £10 billion cuts in welfare spending over the period of the next spending review, and the IMF has made similar noises, too. But I understand that this is not going to happen because the Liberal Democrats will not let it go through. Sources are emphatic that those at the top - Nick Clegg, Danny Alexander et al - have blocked the £10 billion of cuts for this parliament. 'It's just not going to happen,' says one senior party figure.

Isabel Hardman

The post-GDP sleeve-rolling begins

David Cameron is using the Olympics today to strike a more upbeat tone after yesterday's GDP gloom. The Prime Minister is speaking at 10am at a global investment conference to pitch for business from 180 chief executives from around the world. Cameron will tell the conference that he is 'determined that Britain will be on of the great success stories' in rebuilding its economy, and will say: 'There will be no more passionate supporter of Team GB than me. But I've got a job to do this summer. And a big part of that job is to get behind British business… and do everything I can to help secure the trade and investment that will help get the world back to sustained, global growth.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

The work experience Chancellor

Lord Oakeshott has just sparked some outrage by arguing on the World at One that George Osborne, who he described as a 'Chancellor on work experience' should be replaced by Vince Cable. He said: 'I do think that George Osborne, he's got no business experience, he's never worked outside politics, and you know, he's doing surprisingly well for a Chancellor on work experience, but really in a torrid time like this I think we do need the absolute best people available.' A now-backbench Lib Dem peer announcing he would like to see a Lib Dem leading the Treasury team isn't exactly the most surprising revelation. But what was interesting was the way Danny Alexander, who appeared a few minutes later on the programme, handled Oakeshott's suggestion.

Isabel Hardman

The blue vs yellow fight to make green policy

Ed Davey has managed to win his first major battle as Energy Secretary - against the might of the Treasury, no less. James blogged earlier in the week that the battle between Lib Dem and Tory on cutting subsidies for onshore wind generation would be a test of how well the coalition is actually working, and this morning's report in the Financial Times that George Osborne and Davey have managed to find a compromise is an illustration of that partnership in action. The newspaper reports that the dispute became so heated that Nick Clegg and David Cameron intervened to hammer down a final agreement.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Back to tax basics

David Gauke was only elected in 2005, but it's impossible that he can't remember the Back to Basics campaign, and how well that moral campaign worked out for the Conservative Party. Its 1993 launch precipitated revelations of all kinds of non-traditional behaviour in the party, from affairs to cash for questions. Had the Exchequer Secretary who bears the outstanding achievement of being named Tax Personality of the Year thought about the damningly long list of revelations that the Major government had to endure, he might have thought twice before declaring that it was 'morally wrong' to pay your plumber or cleaner cash-in-hand.

Isabel Hardman

1,200 extra troops to calm Olympic concerns

Ministers held their daily Cobra meeting this morning to check the progress of the Olympic preparations, with just three days before the opening ceremony. Following the meeting, Jeremy Hunt released a statement - about 15 minutes after the Crown Prosecution Service announced the latest charges in its phone hacking investigation - which started by describing how London 2012 'remains very much on track'. The statement continued to describe the arrival of the athletes, praise for the organisation of the Games from International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge, and the rising numbers of staff provided by beleaguered security firm G4S.

Isabel Hardman

Phone hacking: today’s charges

The Crown Prosecution Service this morning charged eight suspects in relation to phone hacking. These suspects, including Rebekah Brooks Andy Coulson face a total of 19 charges, which I've set out below. Rebekah Brooks, Andrew Coulson, Stuart Kuttner, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup are all charged with conspiring to intercept the voicemail messages of well-known people and/or those associated with them without lawful authority from 3 October 2000 to 9 August 2006. Private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who is the eighth person charged today, does not face this first charge for legal reasons, but four charges relating to Milly Dowler, Andrew Gilchrist, Delia Smith and Charles Clarke have been made against him today.

Isabel Hardman

Bandaging up the eurozone’s wounds

The approach of eurozone leaders to the crisis in their region has so far been a piecemeal, sticking plaster approach. But this morning, calls are growing for big and effective bandages to bind up the wounds before it is too late. Late last night, ratings agency Moody's warned that the size of those bandages was so big that containing the shock of a Greek exit from the euro would come 'at a very high cost', and that 'greater collective support' for Spain and Italy would place a heavy burden on those eurozone members with higher credit ratings. Hence the downgrades from the agency for Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, while Finland retained its Aaa stable rating. Moody's gave these two reasons for the rating changes: 1.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Why Miliband doesn’t need to agree with Nick

Ed Miliband's comments in the Independent today were clearly based on the assumption that Nick Clegg will not be around if and when it comes to negotiating a possible Lib-Lab coalition in 2015. Vince Cable has already thrown his fedora into the ring to be the next Liberal Democrat leader, and Miliband backed the calls for a change of chief in his interview today. 'I would find it difficult to work with him,' he said, when asked about Clegg. Clegg cannot go from being Deputy Prime Minister in one government to Deputy Prime Minister in the next: it would look ridiculous. A coalition with Labour would also not suit Clegg's own political leanings, which makes Cable's not-so-covert bid all the more plausible.