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.
Suella Braverman didn’t come to the Commons to answer the Urgent Question that her Conservative colleague Sir Roger Gale had asked about the immigration processing centre at Manston. Instead she sent a junior minister, Robert Jenrick, to respond. That’s not particularly unusual: cabinet ministers often use their juniors as a shield when difficult questions are
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Gavin Williamson is in trouble, again. This time the reveal of some expletive-laden texts he sent to then-chief whip Wendy Morton has raised questions for the government over why Williamson was brought back into frontline politics. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about whether the dual role of government
Rishi Sunak vs Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions today was spicier than many had expected. Both men enjoyed themselves, and though the new Prime Minister has barely had any time to prepare, he was assured and fluent. The session started with the Labour leader marking the appointment of the first Asian British Prime Minister,
Unlike Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak didn’t skirt around the circumstances of the changing of the guard in No 10. His address on arriving in Downing Street as the new Prime Minister was very to the point. He paid tribute to his predecessor’s ‘noble aim’ of wanting to improve growth and create change, but added: ‘But
Liz Truss’s final words as Prime Minister were not just an attempt to set out what she sees as being the ‘legacy’ from her 49 days in power. They were also the outgoing Conservative leader’s last chance to argue that what she had done was in the national interest, rather than the chaotic experiment that
What is Rishi Sunak going to do as prime minister? We are still little the wiser, even after he addressed the nation from CCHQ with an extremely short and vague statement. Without managing to look into the camera filming him, he promised that he would bring the party and the country back together, and paid
Sir Graham Brady has just given a statement outside the St Stephen’s entrance of parliament. The chair of the 1922 Committee said the new prime minister will be in place before the fiscal statement on 31 October, and that the party rules currently mean members will be taking part in the truncated leadership election to
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Forty-four days into her premiership, Liz Truss said she was resigning as Prime Minister. There will now be a week-long race to elect a new leader. Who will be the contenders? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth. Produced by Natasha Feroze.
The number of MPs publicly calling for Liz Truss to resign is rising steadily (you can read the live list here). There are also a number of key meetings taking place over the next few days that could seal the Prime Minister’s fate for her. The 1922 executive is due to meet later. I am
In a sign of how chaotic tonight has been for the Conservative party, I have now been told that the Chief Whip Wendy Morton and her deputy Craig Whittaker have not left the government after all. I have spoken to Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker, who says: ‘I have just seen the deputy and he is
Yet another moment of high drama in the Commons. Wendy Morton has now left the post of chief whip after the government folded on the opposition day fracking vote being treated as a ‘confidence issue’. MPs were warned they would lose the Tory whip if they didn’t vote with the government. One MP who witnessed
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Suella Braverman has resigned as Home Secretary over a row on immigration measures. Grant Shapps has been selected to replace her. Will more follow? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Grant Shapps is the new Home Secretary. This takes the government into strange territory, to put it mildly. Shapps was openly campaigning against Liz Truss as Prime Minister just days ago, boasting happily about the spreadsheet he had set up with hundreds of data points about where Tory MPs stood on her leadership, and saying
Prime Minister’s Questions was not an easy ride for Liz Truss. Nor was it catastrophic. As James predicted earlier, crunch moments rarely end up being as crunchy as expected. The Prime Minister turned up with some well-prepared defensive lines (also something James predicted), including, curiously, ‘I’m a fighter, not a quitter’. It wasn’t clear what
The Tory whips have, in their great wisdom, decided to make today’s opposition day vote on fracking a ‘confidence issue’ in Liz Truss’s government. The Labour motion this afternoon isn’t the usual non-binding partisan one, but a mechanism which would allow the opposition to introduce a bill into the Commons banning the practice. It is
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Another day, another u-turn. Liz Truss met with her Cabinet today and is reportedly considering u-turning on the pensions triple lock. Are ministers heading for more ‘lengthy discussions’ on public spending? Should we brace ourselves for resignations? Also on the podcast, as Hunt looks at which departments to cut, what could this mean for the
Liz Truss was in an apologetic mood again this morning when she sat down with her cabinet ministers. She told them that the government had ‘gone too far and too fast with the mini-Budget’ and that this had been, in the words of her spokesman, ‘exacerbated by global factors with inflation rising around the world’.
Finally, we hear from the Prime Minister. Liz Truss has given an interview to the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason. It comes at the end of a day in which she was accused of ‘hiding under a desk’ and emerged in the Commons only for a silent half an hour of blinking occasionally. She apologised,
Jeremy Hunt’s statement to the Commons underlined that he is now running the government. This wasn’t just evident from what he said, but from what was happening as he said it. The Chancellor spoke with the Prime Minister sitting behind him in silence, barely moving save to blink. Liz Truss had belatedly entered the chamber
After trying to reassure the markets by junking almost everything Liz Truss announced in her mini-Budget, Jeremy Hunt briefed Tory MPs about his premiership – sorry, plans as chancellor. The mood of those emerging from the briefing was probably the best Tory MPs have been in since the government U-turned on the 45p rate at