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.
18 min listen
This week: Isabel Hardman examines our curious obsession with glucose monitoring gadgets (01:03), Paul Wood wonders what exactly went on between Putin and Prigozhin (07:11), and Alexandra Shulman shares the contents of her weekly diary (12:15). Produced and presented by Linden Kemkaran.
Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Steve Barclay want us to see the NHS workforce plan, published today, as being one of the big historic events in the lifetime of the health service, which turns 75 next week. Barclay describes it in the Daily Telegraph as 'the most radical modernisation and reform of the workforce since the NHS was founded in 1948' and 'the first time any government has published a comprehensive workforce plan'. The last time there was any real planning for workforce was back in 2000 when the Blair government launched its NHS plan, and so Barclay can reasonably lay claim to this being a big moment. There are other echoes of that Blair plan in today's announcement too.
Did the privileges committee really need to bother with a report scolding a number of Boris Johnson’s supporters for what it has called a 'co-ordinated campaign of interference' in its work? Today it has published its verdict on seven MPs and one peer, Lord Goldsmith. This special report finds ‘disturbing’ examples of behaviour designed to pressure, intimidate and undermine the committee. None of these examples took place within the Commons, as the Speaker had made a ruling against abuse of the committee. Instead, the report says, there was a 'campaign waged outside parliament' which 'used newspapers and radio and there was extensive use of social media'.
At £300 a go, the Zoe is a reassuringly expensive accessory. It has a recognisable logo and even had a 200,000-strong waiting list at one point. That wouldn’t be so unusual if Zoe was a must-have handbag or jewellery, but it is a continuous glucose monitor that you stick to your arm. Some charities ask non-diabetics to donate their wearables to be reused by people who actually need them Continuous glucose monitors have been available to diabetics for a few years, but now non-diabetics without any particular reason to worry about their pancreas are also getting in on the act. Like the fear of gluten a few years ago, glucose levels have gone from something only those with a diagnosed medical condition ever think about to a widespread obsession.
11 min listen
Daniel Korski, the former David Cameron aide who was standing to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor, has dropped out of the race after a woman claimed he groped her in a meeting in 2013. Korski had won the support of a number of high-profile Tory MPs, and was seen as the likely candidate to face Sadiq Khan in next year's mayoral election. With only two people left in the race, will the Conservatives reopen nominations? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Max Jeffery.
Rishi Sunak used today’s Prime Minister’s Questions largely as an opportunity to attack the Labour party, and specifically Keir Starmer’s policy U-turns. This is fertile territory given there have been so many, even if the Labour leader is now adopting better positions than ones he naively took earlier on in his tenure. It does also show that the Prime Minister doesn’t feel he has a great deal to boast about when it comes to his own government achievements. Starmer invited these attacks by making his first question about Tory frontbench confusion over housebuilding. He said: ‘His party spent thousands of pounds on adverts attacking plans to build 300,000 new homes a year. At the same time, his Housing Minister says it’s Tory party policy to build 300,000 new homes a year.
Matt Hancock’s evidence to the Covid inquiry was some of the most explosive we’ve seen so far. It was largely damaging to anyone who wasn’t Matt Hancock, naturally, but the former health secretary did induce some rather big cringes from all present when his voice cracked as he said ‘I’m not very good at talking about my emotions’. He also apologised to all those who had lost loved ones. Hancock did offer some important insights into the mistakes made at crucial moments in the run-up to the pandemic.
What’s the point of the government’s flagship Rwanda deportation scheme if it isn’t going to save money for the taxpayer? That’s a reasonable question to ask after the Home Office finally published its impact assessment on the plans – as yet unrealised – to deport asylum seekers to the East African country. That document revealed it will cost £169,000 per person, and this would only represent a saving for the UK taxpayer if 37 per cent of small boat arrivals were deterred. Home Secretary Suella Braverman published this assessment (which she is legally required to do) with her own written ministerial assessment, in which she also argued that the costs of accommodating illegal migrants in the UK had ‘risen dramatically since 2020’.
10 min listen
As mortgage rates surge and a new Opinium poll finds Labour’s lead has jumped to 18 points, Rishi Sunak appeared on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to insist that his plan is the right one. But was his slightly cranky reaction to some of the questions a reflection of how the party is really feeling about its future? Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Natasha Feroze.
11 min listen
James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Kate Andrews as the Bank of England announced it has hiked interest rates to 5 per cent. Faced with inflation, a looming mortgage crisis and personal debt, Rishi Sunak said today he is '100 per cent on it'. But can he turn things around? Produced by Natasha Feroze.
Is Labour really going to reform the House of Lords? The party has ended up in a bit of a pickle over abolishing a chamber that it also wants to stuff with its own peers. The party’s spokesman yesterday told journalists that there was still a plan to create a Labour majority in the Lords because it was ‘essential’ for the party to be able to get its business through the Upper Chamber. The party’s leader in the Lords, Angela Smith, also told Times Radio that ‘there are 90 more Conservatives than Labour. The priority for Keir will be ensuring he gets the Labour programme through.’ It isn’t mutually exclusive for a party committed to House of Lords reform to want to start out with more peers in the Lords while that Chamber exists.
Rishi Sunak had a much better Prime Minister’s Questions than he might have expected, given the worrying economic news this morning. The Prime Minister sometimes turns up with too much, over-caffeinated energy. Sometimes he tries to defend his government with attacks on Labour that don’t sound as though he came up with them himself. But today he was confident and repetitive as he argued that the strategy he and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt were pursuing was the right one. Keir Starmer led on inflation, quoting Conservative MP Lucy Allan’s warning that the country was facing a ‘mortgage catastrophe’. He asked if Sunak agreed with Allan.
Jeremy Hunt was bombarded by MPs worried about the ‘mortgage timebomb’ when he took Treasury questions in the Commons today. Everyone on all sides was concerned, and offering their own ideas of what to do and who to blame. One problem for the Chancellor is that ‘everyone’ includes members of his own party, many of whom are pushing him to do something ‘more Conservative’. The main 'more Conservative’ policy that Tory backbenchers were promoting was mortgage interest relief. Jake Berry suggested it, arguing that without this kind of support, all the other money spent by the government would be wasted if people lost their homes.
MPs have just voted 354 to 7 in favour of the Privileges Committee report’s finding that Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate, and that he should be banned from having a former members’ pass. At some points in this evening’s lengthy debate, it appeared that there wasn’t going to be a vote, and even when there was one, there were significant absences as the Commons is on a one-line whip. But in the end, a division was forced in order to flush out how many supporters Johnson still had who thought it was worth going over the top. Johnson, meanwhile, is speaking at a dinner on democracy Most of those who spoke in the chamber were supportive of the Privileges Committee – but not all.
Is partygate all in the past? That’s what Rishi Sunak is hoping. He sent Penny Mordaunt to the Commons this afternoon to back the Privileges Committee report into Boris Johnson, while saying the vote on sanctions for Johnson himself ‘is a matter for individual members’. The chamber had far more opposition MPs in it than Conservatives. Sunak himself has packed his diary so he is unlikely to attend the Commons for the vote. Labour’s aim for the debate is to tie Johnson very firmly to the current administration. Shadow leader of the Commons Thangam Debbonaire gave a furious speech in which she accused Sunak of being too weak to take a position on the report.
Everyone giving evidence to the Covid Inquiry has their own corner to defend. And every ex-prime minister has a part of their premiership that they spend the rest of their life talking about and trying to justify. For David Cameron, it was his public spending cuts. Experts blame them for the health service being in very poor shape when the pandemic arrived. The former prime minister had his session before the inquiry this morning, and unsurprisingly he was keen to argue that these spending cuts weren’t just unavoidable, but essential to ensure the country’s economy was in a robust shape so it could afford to respond to crises including pandemics.
11 min listen
We have finally got the results of the Privileges Committee's report into whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament, and it doesn't make for comfortable reading for the former prime minister. The 30,000-word document finds that he committed multiple contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading the house, deliberately misleading the committee, breaching confidence, impugning the committee and the democratic process of the house and ‘being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’. What will these findings mean for Boris? And what has the reaction been in parliament? Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Heale. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.
The Privileges Committee has published its report on whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate. It is damning. The 30,000-word document finds that he committed multiple contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading the house, deliberately misleading the committee, breaching confidence, impugning the committee and the democratic process of the house and ‘being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’. The committee, consisting of seven MPs including four Tories, had to update its conclusions after Johnson resigned, saying that it would have recommended a 90-day suspension of the former prime minister. But it has now recommended that he should not be granted a former members’ pass.
Nadine Dorries has this evening explained why she isn’t yet resigning as an MP, after she initially quit ‘with immediate effect’ last Friday. The Mid Bedfordshire MP had gone mysteriously quiet after her announcement, prompting Downing Street to suggest that she was letting her soon-to-be-former constituents down. She has now revealed that she is waiting for a subject access request to the House of Lords Appointment Committee, Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Office.
Is Labour U-turning on another big spending pledge? Last week, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back the party's £28 billion green energy spending plan to take account of a tougher economic picture. Today, reports suggest the party is planning a similar retreat on childcare, dropping plans for a universal system in favour of means testing. Reeves has been warning them that the Tories are upping their attacks on Labour's spending plans The reality is a bit more complicated. Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has made a big play about the party's childcare offer to parents, to the extent that she told the Sunday Times that it would be 'like the change that we saw post-1945 with the creation of the NHS'.