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.
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Tory MPs today re-elected Graham Brady as chair of the 1922 Committee - the group that represents backbench Conservatives to the government. Brady, who has voted against the government's coronavirus laws, was standing against Heather Wheeler, who was seen as a candidate more aligned to No. 10. Despite having an 80-seat majority, Boris has been warned. Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.
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We will shortly find out who has been elected as the leader of the Conservative backbench 1922 Committee after incumbent Sir Graham Brady faced a challenge from Heather Wheeler. I’m told that turnout in the election for the chair was over 90 per cent and that counting has just begun. Rather than emitting white smoke, the committee is notifying the two candidates of the result by text message. Brady has been at the helm since 2010 and has generally been considered a reliable figure in representing the views of backbenchers to the Prime Minister.
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Sajid Javid today said there could be 100,000 Covid cases a day in summer. He said the government would be focusing on hospitalisation and death figures, but added Britain was in 'uncharted territory for any country in the world'. Many thought of the new health secretary as a lockdown sceptic, so why is he urging caution? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
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Labour is unhappy with the government's plan for unlocking, with leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it 'reckless'. In the Commons this afternoon, shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth and then shadow education secretary Kate Green complained about the statements from their ministerial counterparts. Ashworth treated fellow MPs to the slightly bizarre spectacle of him waving a paper Sajid Javid had written on pandemics while at Harvard, which seemed an incongruous political stunt. All the more discordant is the party's stance on unlocking, which seems to be to complain about it happening while offering a plan that isn't vastly different.
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Sajid Javid’s parallel statement in the Commons to Boris Johnson’s press conference on the government’s plan for unlocking drew the same criticisms about failing to protect the vulnerable and bowing to Tory backbench pressure. He did get a ‘hallelujah’ from one such backbencher as he spoke of the end of social distancing. But the health secretary faced anger from the opposition benches about the decision to leave mask wearing up to the public and businesses at a time when cases are rising. Green MP Caroline Lucas compared Covid restrictions to road safety laws, asking why a similar approach to the speed limit couldn’t be taken to mask-wearing.
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Aftershock is a limited series by award winning journalist Isabel Hardman. In every episode she asks how we can fix the damage caused by the pandemic to a different part of British society. In this episode, Isabel talks to those working front line in the NHS and the politicians in Westminster who decide its future.
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Boris Johnson will announce details of the 19 July reopening later today. According to reports over the weekend, masks will be ditched, social distancing will be scrapped, indoor venues will open to full capacity and mass events will be allowed. Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about the plans. The government has made much of the reopening being 'irreversible'. On the podcast, James says it puts them vulnerable political position: 'As you see in Israel, where they've had to reintroduce the mask mandate, using the word "irreversible" when it comes to Covid is a political hostage to fortune.' There has been a notable change in tone since Savid Javid become health secretary.
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In an extremely close race Labour candidate and sister to the late Jo Cox Kim Leadbeater has won her by-election with a majority of just 323. What will the opposition do with this narrow but note worthy win? And is it time to for the tories to admit they aren't as invincible as they first thought? To discuss Katy Balls is joined by James Forsyth and Isobel Hardman.
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Sajid Javid has his first Commons outing as Health Secretary today, not even 48 hours after he took over from Matt Hancock. As Katy outlines here, the focus will be on how he differs from his predecessor on the pace of easing Covid restrictions. But Javid will also quickly face questions on whether he plans to scrap some of Hancock's ambitious plans to reform the NHS too. As I reported last week, there is growing anxiety in the health service and in the Conservative party about the forthcoming Health and Social Care Bill, with one senior figure warning that it could end up being 'Lansley mark II'. That's a reference to the politically explosive row the last time the Tories tried to reform the NHS a decade ago with Andrew Lansley as Health Secretary.
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It's Sajid Javid's first day in the office as health secretary. The former chancellor's comments last year that he would 'run the economy hot' have led some to think he will try to end restrictions as soon and as extensively as possible, but might he have changed his mind? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls. Katy says his position might be more complicated than many first assume: 'We know what his instinct is, but it's also the case that when he made the comments last spring, that was obviously thinking with his former chancellor hat on, and now he's going to have to look at things in terms of the health department.' Our team also talk about the CCTV leak from health department.
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14 min listen
Matt Hancock has resigned as health secretary this evening following this week's scandal and his appointment has already been appointed, former chancellor Sajid Javid. Katy Balls is joined by Isabel Harman and Fraser Nelson to discuss this breaking news.
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Sajid Javid is the new Health Secretary, replacing Matt Hancock following his resignation. Javid has been out of government ever since he resigned as Chancellor in protest at the conditions Boris Johnson was trying to impose on him during his reshuffle. Since then, he has been busy on the backbenches but bit in a particularly troublesome fashion. As a former Chancellor and Home Secretary he has the necessary experience of dealing with difficult policy issues and big departments. It’s worth noting that some of the changes that Javid resisted have since been reversed, with the Number 10 and Treasury teams no longer working in step. As a former Treasury man, he will have a particular perspective on the NHS, largely that it endlessly needs more money.
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In the past few minutes Matt Hancock has announced his resignation as health secretary after a torrid few days in which he was revealed to have broken Covid restrictions. Resigning now means that Hancock can come back to government in future Hancock writes in his resignation letter to Johnson that he does not want his private life to distract from the handling of the pandemic, while Johnson says he is ‘very sorry’ to receive the letter. This is an unsurprising change from Friday, when Downing Street said Johnson had accepted Hancock’s apology and ‘considers the matter closed’. It was very clear at the time that the matter wasn’t closed at all: neither No.
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Downing Street is trying to put a lid on the row about Matt Hancock's affair with someone he appointed as an unpaid adviser and then non-executive director at the Department of Health following the Health Secretary's own apology. At today's lobby briefing, a spokesman for the Prime Minister repeatedly said the 'Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary's apology and considers the matter closed'. He insisted that 'all the correct procedures were followed' on Gina Coladangelo's appointments. Johnson and Hancock were at this morning's daily coronavirus meeting. But the spokesman would not give any details of conversations between the two men, or whether Johnson had asked for further assurances from the Health Secretary.
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14 min listen
The Sun broke the news this morning that Health Secretary Matt Hancock has seemingly been up to some extra-marital exploits with his aide Gina Coladangelo, possibly breaking many of the Covid restrictions that he himself put in place. What will be the consequences of his hypocrisy? 'This simply demonstrates that we've been through a period where they decided to politicise things that should have never been in the political realm in the first place and that's why I think Matt Hancock is in more trouble than he would otherwise have been.' - Fraser Nelson Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and another special appearance from Fraser Nelson.
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Are the Conservatives going to repeat their mistakes of a decade ago on NHS reform? If a week is a long time in politics, perhaps ten years is such a lengthy period that it erases the memory entirely. The current Health and Social Care Bill is due for publication any day now and contains much of the same potential for an almighty political row as the Andrew Lansley reforms of 2011. Senior Whitehall figures and MPs have predicted that Matt Hancock's new legislation could be 'Lansley mark ii', as I write in today's i paper. In talking to MPs across the Conservative party, from backbencher to minister, and from lockdown sceptic to restrictions enthusiast, I've found members fall into two groups on this reform.
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Sir Keir Starmer had a powerful line of attack at today's Prime Minister's Questions. He led on the government's own review of the treatment of rape and sexual violence, which recommended sweeping reforms to the way cases are handled so that the current low rate of charges and convictions can be reversed. Prosecutions have fallen by nearly 60 per cent in four years — to just 2,102 — while convictions have also experienced a similar decline. Today, Starmer pointed out that 98.4 per cent of reported rapes don't lead to a charge. He repeatedly pressed Johnson on what the government was actually doing beyond apologising for the current situation.
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14 min listen
While Labour are shuffling people round yet again.. 'There needs to be a change in messaging from the leader's office, because otherwise it just looks like he's rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.' - Isabel HardmanAnd the DUP are getting ready to welcome in their third leader in less than a month... 'Donaldson is actually in a much stronger position this time round, than if he had won by one vote last time round.' - James Forsyth A new report seems to show that in education, the group seemingly most negatively affected by the idea of 'white privilege' are white, working class children. 'I've been involved in the social mobility foundation for quite some time and there's no doubt that the demographic most missing in these programs is white, working class.
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Labour's attempt to bring Tory divisions over planning reforms into the House of Commons flopped this evening, with no Conservatives at all supporting the party's opposition vay vote. They all abstained. Labour's failure to capitalise on the row following Chesham and Amersham doesn't mean the planning problem is going away It was a reasonably anodyne motion, calling on the government 'to protect the right of communities to object to individual planning applications'. But there weren't even that many Conservative MPs who turned up to the debate to be critical of the reforms as they are proposed at present. A smattering of them lambasted Labour for being opportunistic, or for overseeing inappropriate development at local government level.
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With the Conservatives still taking stock after their loss in the recent by-election, it seems the governments ambitions for planning reform are now firmly under the microscope. 'When you speak to these MPs... they are absolutely convinced that planning reform is dead' - Katy Balls And on what would have been 'freedom day', there are reports that the powers at be don't think they'll have to extend restrictions again (we've heard that one before). 'If they don't hit July 19th they would have major political and I would suggest economic problems too because I think that would create a real loss of confidence about when the UK would ever re-open fully.' - James ForsythIsabel Hardman is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls.