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

How is Boris keeping the Tories so unified?

From our UK edition

12 min listen

In the first session of PMQ's completely Covid restriction free, Keir Starmer proved that the Prime Minster wouldn't commit to definitely getting rid of the NHS waiting list within three years or the risk of people having to sell their homes to pay for care. But Boris Johnson seemed pretty bullet proof with not a whiff of tory rebellion even though some of his new policies go against his members more conservative principles. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about today's session.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

The red herring at the heart of Boris’s tax hike

From our UK edition

One of the most dubious and meaningless parts of today's health and social care plan is the pledge that the new tax will be a 'legally hypothecated levy' – ring-fenced so that the money raised can only go to health and social care services.  It's dubious in the same way that the Tory manifesto pledge not to raise taxes turned out not to be worth the paper it was printed on. And it's meaningless because a government that wants to unlink the tax could just pass a law doing that – and no legal ring-fence can stop it. It's also worth remembering that the ring-fence around health and social care is a red herring. What is really necessary is a barrier between the two.

Isabel Hardman

Javid’s cash boost can’t fix a battered NHS

From our UK edition

The new £5.4 billion cash boost for NHS England is the easy bit of a very tricky situation for the health service and the politicians trying to work out how to deal with it. As Health Secretary Sajid Javid made clear on Monday, while the money will help deal with the backlog in treatment caused by the pandemic, it won’t do so immediately. He said that waiting lists would go up before they started to go down because people are still coming forward for treatment. Javid has been pitch-rolling for a dreadful winter ever since he took on the job, warning almost immediately that waiting lists could reach 13 million. Currently there are over five million people needing operations and other NHS services.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

On Afghanistan, Boris Johnson has escaped again

From our UK edition

Boris Johnson took a strangely upbeat tone when he updated MPs on Afghanistan this afternoon. He argued that British planning for the US withdrawal had been months in the making and that the evacuation effort had exceeded expectations with twice the number of people getting out than had been expected.  He even made some big promises, saying repeatedly that every MP who had contacted the Foreign Office about Afghans who still need assistance would receive a response 'by close of play today', and adding that councils taking in refugees would get the funding they needed. Johnson was even rather combative with Defence Select Committee chair Tobias Ellwood, scolding him for not appearing to acknowledge that the British military activity in the country had ended in 2014.

Isabel Hardman

Are the Conservatives still a low tax party?

From our UK edition

11 min listen

With the vaccine secretary Nadhim Zahawi declaring on the radio that the Conservatives were a 'party of fair taxation', could the government be looking at rebellion from its right with its new plans for tackling the social care crisis? Katy Balls in conversation with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

What if vaccines can’t end the pandemic?

From our UK edition

14 min listen

New data from Israel shows that the Delta variant is getting through the protection offered by double jabs, even though the vaccines do lessen symptoms.  But the study, of more than 800,000 cases, suggests those who have recovered from Covid have stronger protection than those who have not: jabbed or unjabbed. Will this make it harder to justify "no jab, no job" policies, if those at risk of losing their jobs say they can prove they were diagnosed positive and now have antibodies? Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

What does the Kabul attack mean for Biden?

From our UK edition

11 min listen

After the attack on Kabul's airport by Isis-K, President Biden addressed the world last night and mourned for the 13 US marines who were killed. But with this grim event already being politicised by the Republicans, what will the lasting damage to the president legacy be?Isobel Hardman in conversation with Kate Andrews and Fraser Nelson.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

The last days of the Kabul airlift

From our UK edition

13 min listen

Chaos surrounds the Hamid Karzai airport today as two explosions and a potential knife attack has left at least 13 dead. The attacks are suspected to be suicide bombers from ISIS-K, as the American and British military had feared. What does this mean for the evacuation in its last days? Cindy Yu talks to Isabel Hardman and Lucy Fisher, deputy political editor of the Telegraph.

Isabel Hardman

Universal credit could prove toxic for Sunak

From our UK edition

Conservative MPs are still worried about the removal of the £20-a-week uplift to Universal Credit this coming October. Two of them — Peter Aldous and John Stevenson — have written to Boris Johnson to urge him not to press ahead with the cut, which will restore the benefit back to its pre-pandemic levels. The pair argue that the extra £20, while expensive, is 'one of our best legacies from the pandemic'. Perhaps some of the MPs like Aldous and Stevenson who were in parliament then remember how difficult it was to defend a policy that didn't make much sense They're not the first within the party to try to stop this cut going ahead. Indeed, a group of former Tory welfare secretaries have tried.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

What will happen to those left in Kabul?

From our UK edition

The Afghan evacuation is feared to be entering its final hours, and with it a new desperation is building among people trying to get out of the country and those helping them. On the ground, troops are warning that Kabul airport could be overrun by people who are ineligible to leave but desperate to do so nonetheless. Embassy workers are trying to process visas, ministers are being bombarded with requests to look at cases where vulnerable Afghans have been overlooked or cannot make it to the airport safely.

Isabel Hardman

Why Raab’s holiday answers only raised more questions

From our UK edition

12 min listen

In his first broadcast round since coming back from Crete, Raab's handling of the questions surrounding his holiday have only managed to fuel the conversation further, with choice quotes such as 'the sea was closed that day'. Cindy Yu talks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls about what went wrong with the Foreign Secretary's handling of the issue.

Isabel Hardman

Raab at sea with his latest defence

From our UK edition

Is Dominic Raab's summer holiday really still an issue as the evacuation of Afghanistan enters its final few hours? According to the Foreign Secretary, it still is. Despite everyone else in Westminster seeming to move on from the fury that accompanied Raab's decision to stay in Crete as the Taliban swept back to power, the minister still has things to say on the matter and is therefore keeping the story alive. This morning, he was on a broadcast round talking about the evacuation efforts and the reality of there being any protection for Afghans after 31 October. But he was also asked about whether he should have come back from his holiday.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s G7 Afghanistan summit ends in failure

From our UK edition

As expected, the emergency G7 leaders’ summit on Afghanistan has broken up without agreeing an extension to the 31 August deadline for evacuations from Kabul. Boris Johnson tried to put a positive spin on the virtual meeting, which he had convened, when he gave a pool clip after, saying the group had set a condition for the Taliban to ‘guarantee, right the way through, through August 31 and beyond, safe passage for those who want to come out’. He added that while some might not accept that, it was worth noting that ‘the G7 has very considerable leverage – economic, diplomatic and political’. But he conceded that the deadline extension wasn’t going to happen.

Isabel Hardman

Is the ‘gentler, kinder’ Taliban already gone?

From our UK edition

13 min listen

As many had expected, President Biden has not agreed to extend the August 31 deadline despite pleas from Nato allies in today's G7 call. Meanwhile, there are signs that the veneer of the new and reformed Taliban is already beginning to crack in Afghanistan. Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and Fraser Nelson.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Will Biden agree to Boris’s Afghanistan request?

From our UK edition

12 min listen

The Prime Minister has requested Washington to extend the August 31 deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul. But will Joe Biden acquiesce, amidst warnings from the Taliban that there will be 'consequences' if the US stays longer? Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.

Saturday

Isabel Hardman

Can ministers ever go on holiday?

From our UK edition

14 min listen

With Dominic Raab in the firing line for his £40,000 Crete holiday, the Coffee House Shots team reflects: can ministers ever go on holiday? And if they do, should they be sticking to the domestic ones, and at what point of a political crisis does one decide to turn back? Isabel Hardman talks to Fraser Nelson and former special advisor for Sajid Javid, Salma Shah.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Is Raab the victim of a witch hunt?

From our UK edition

14 min listen

While Dominic Raab continues to weather charges of incompetence and call for resignation, it is the Health Secretary Sajid Javid who might not have any time for a holiday come autumn. Israel, one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, is seeing a rush of new Covid cases. Could mean a wave of Covid and flu, later this year? Cindy Yu talks to Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman.

Isabel Hardman

Raab comes out fighting

From our UK edition

Dominic Raab is not budging in his conviction that he did everything he could for Afghanistan while he was on his Cretan holiday. The Foreign Secretary has issued a statement in which he argues that the recommendation from his civil servants to call the Afghan foreign minister was ‘quickly overtaken by events’ and that he passed the call onto a junior minister ‘because I was prioritising security and capacity at the airport’. He then argues that this priority ‘was the right one’ and points out the numbers of people who have been evacuated. 'They simply do not have a plan. They looked so small compared to the backbenchers like Tom Tugendhat.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Should Dominic Raab be sacked?

From our UK edition

11 min listen

Pressure on the Foreign Secretary is piling up after the Daily Mail revealed today that Raab had rejected the strong advice of Foreign Office civil servants to call his counterpart in the Afghan government before the weekend, to ensure the safe departure of interpreters from the country. Instead, his junior minister Zac Goldsmith took the call. Could - or should - Dominic Raab be sacked? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Did parliament’s Afghanistan debate matter?

From our UK edition

Today’s Commons debate on Afghanistan was unusually and surprisingly good. It had the benefit of speeches from many MPs who had themselves served tours of duty in the country, or were veterans of military action elsewhere. It had the advantage of a former Prime Minister speaking with all the authority of someone who knows just how difficult these matters are, rather than the criticisms of backbenchers who had only run their own constituency office. It was a full day’s session operating under usual rules, rather than the hybrid parliament of the past year and a half. This meant that MPs could intervene on speeches, amid the normal hubbub of the Chamber. So what did we learn from the government in today’s session?