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.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

What does Starmer’s backroom reshuffle mean for Labour?

Big changes afoot tonight in Sir Keir Starmer’s top team: his head of communications Ben Nunn has stepped down to pursue other projects, with deputy Paul Ovenden also resigning for family reasons. Steph Driver is taking over as director of comms while plans are being made for the new direction of the team. I understand that Nunn and Ovenden’s departures really aren’t for the same reasons. The latter has a young family and new caring responsibilities which he has decided he has to put first, but he is a particular loss for Starmer.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

How much trouble is the DUP in?

13 min listen

New DUP leader Edwin Poots faces his first challenge today as he tries to push through a controversial candidate for First Minister. There are now rumours that the party may launch a vote of no-confidence in him, only a month after he became leader. How much trouble is the party in? Katy Balls points out that the removal of Poots perhaps would not solve the DUP's problems, given more moderate candidates like Jeffrey Donaldson lost out to him: 'If we end up in a situation where there's a vote of no confidence in Poots... it's not clear that the party is unified in what should follow next.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Rishi Sunak: I’m a fiscal Conservative (unlike Boris)

When Rishi Sunak told Andrew Neil this evening that he had his eyes on the future, he was ostensibly talking about the nation's finances. But it was difficult not to conclude from his interview on GB News that he wasn't also keeping at least one eye on his own future, too. A particularly striking exchange came when Neil asked him what kind of Conservative he is: Andrew Neil: 'Beyond the pandemic are you a One Nation conservative, are you a big Government Conservative like the Prime Minister or are you a small government, fiscal Conservative?

Isabel Hardman

Is Matt Hancock hopeless?

13 min listen

Another day, another Dom bomb. In Cummings's latest release, a number of WhatsApp messages reveal communications between himself and the Prime Minister, with the latter describing the health secretary Matt Hancock's performance as effing 'hopeless'.  Is this damaging to Hancock? Or is this the sentiment that you can expect from senior people who work at close quarters with each other during a crisis? To discuss the new revelations and its potential fallout Katy Balls is joined by James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman with a surprise appearance by Fraser Nelson.

Isabel Hardman

Where is the evidence for Cummings’s care home claim?

What has Dominic Cummings revealed about Matt Hancock that we didn't already know? The most eye-catching stuff, of course, is the Prime Minister calling the health secretary 'totally fucking hopeless'. But on the specific charges that created this impression, much of his lengthy blog on evidence reiterates what he told the select committee session last month, rather than providing the documentation backing it up. Cummings rebuts Hancock's claim that he threw 'a protective ring around care homes', writing: 'The reality: Covid patients were sent untested from hospital to care homes and Hancock neglected care homes and testing throughout April partly because Hancock was trying to focus effort on his press conference at the end of April claiming success for his announcement on 2/4.

Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer fails to use the ‘Dom bombs’ at PMQs

Keir Starmer was back on his home turf at Prime Minister's Questions today, attacking Boris Johnson for what he said was a lack of competence in containing the spread of the Delta variant. The Labour leader focused on the delay in putting India on the red list, turning one of the Prime Minister's stock phrases against him, saying: 'While the NHS was vaccinating, he was vacillating.' Starmer said that if Johnson had acted quickly enough to put India on the list, 'we wouldn't have had the Delta variant here', later adding: 'The British people don't expect miracles but they do expect basic competence and honesty.' He asked why anyone should believe Boris Johnson given the number of times he had given assurances about getting on top of the pandemic which were soon proven terribly wrong.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Will the Australia trade deal really make a difference?

17 min listen

The government has agreed its first post-Brexit bespoke trade deal. But the agreement with Australia has already caused consternation among Conservative MPs about the potential competition from Australian farmers. Are these fears overstated? James Forsyth argues yes: 'Both its proponents and its critics exaggerate its importance. Meat prices in Asia are roughly twice what they are in the UK. I think that is where Australian farmers are going to continue to focus their export energy.' And the team discuss the fallout from the extension to July 19 of the lockdown easing day. Fraser Nelson points out that not only has freedom been delayed, but that even the thresholds for freedom are not clearly set out: 'It seems to be a complete mess of communications though.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Speaker blasts Boris again over lockdown announcement

The government has just suffered a further verbal drubbing for the way it announced it would be delaying the roadmap out of Covid restrictions.  Matt Hancock gave a statement in the Commons tonight, a couple of hours after the Prime Minister announced all the details of the delay. Before he spoke, though, he had to listen to a still-angry Speaker explaining why this was so unacceptable.  Hoyle wasn't the only one to complain about the way ministers had behaved Hoyle once again described the government's behaviour as 'entirely unacceptable', adding that it was 'disrespectful to the House and to our constituents'.

Isabel Hardman

How long will political and public patience last?

11 min listen

It seems Freedom Day is no longer June 21st. The writing was clearly on the wall this morning, but now the Prime Minister has officially told the public, it is likely to be another four weeks of restrictions. 'Conservative MPs are getting really agitated by this moving of the goal posts' - Isabel HardmanBut after so many backtracks how much credibility does Boris have left?  'I think the real problem with him and the public though, will come if this July 19th date is not met' - James Forsyth Katy Balls is joined by James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman to discuss.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Matt Hancock isn’t out of the woods just yet

Matt Hancock enjoyed an early boost in his evidence session to the select committees investigating the lessons learned from the government’s handling of the pandemic, when one of the committee chairs Greg Clark confirmed that Dominic Cummings had not submitted written evidence for the allegations he had made in his own session. Those allegations included that Hancock had lied to the Prime Minister about testing of patients being discharged into care homes; that he had been told by the chief scientific adviser that not everyone who needed treatment received it; that the Cabinet Secretary had ‘lost confidence’ in the minister’s honesty; and that he had interfered in the expansion of testing capacity.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Are Brexit talks back to the bad old days?

10 min listen

Today, talks between David Frost and the EU's negotiator Maroš Šefčovič ended with little agreement about how to move forward on the Northern Ireland Protocol. As James Forsyth says on the podcast: 'it didn't end with either man walking out of the meeting, but you probably can't say much more for it than that.' This is partly down to Lord Frost's negotiating style. Katy Balls points out that he's learning from the lessons of the Brexit talks of recent years: 'David Frost, who gets a lot of criticism for being very confrontational in his methods, looks back at the Brexit negotiations which he led on the UK side, and thinks that "Well it worked then, it might work now". And therefore, all these people saying his approach is wrong...

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson takes aim at ‘lefty’ aid rebels

Normally when a Prime Minister goes on the attack in the Commons, it's the opposition in his sights. Not so today, when Boris Johnson accidentally attacked his own MPs, including former prime minister Theresa May, for being 'lefty' propagandists. He was responding to questions from SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford about the cuts in foreign aid spending from 0.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent, and said: 'We are in very very difficult financial times but you shouldn't believe the lefty propaganda that you're hearing from the people opposite.' Blackford was amused by this and quipped that he'd never expected to hear May referred to as a leftist.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Is the foreign aid row a sign of things to come?

13 min listen

Though the amendment on foreign aid was not selected by the Speaker yesterday, the row over the budget cut is not over yet. Today MPs will have an emergency debate about the policy, and Lindsey Hoyle has advised that the government should bring the matter in front of the House in the future. This is just one of a number of things bothering Tory MPs at the moment - so what's going on?  James Forsyth sums it up as: 'There's a pattern about money, essentially.' With the worst of the pandemic over the Treasury is looking to tighten its pursestrings.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Two lessons from the Commons aid revolt

The Speaker's decision to rule out an amendment which would have forced a vote on international aid cuts tells us a number of important things about the current situation in Westminster. The first is of course that Lindsay Hoyle is not John Bercow, who was prepared to ride roughshod over the advice of the clerks and convention in order to manufacture certain political confrontations and drama. Indeed, the Speaker today very pointedly opened his statement on the amendment by saying 'I respect and trust the advice from clerks in this House'. Hoyle made clear when he campaigned to be Speaker that he wanted to stop some of the games that Bercow had been playing, and that parliament deserved more respect.

Isabel Hardman

How much trouble is the government in over foreign aid?

13 min listen

After the government cut the UK's foreign aid budget a group of rebellious tory MPs bound together to try and reverse the decision, will it come to a head this week?'This cut has caused some resentment amongst other nations' - Isabel HardmanAnd has the culture war spread to cricket after the suspension of Ollie Robinson for decade old racist remarks?'I think there is a broader question in society about how do we allow people to make up for youthful errors?' - James ForsythAnd with Portugal moving to the amber list, just how limited will the options be for our summer holidays? 'The government now, it's aim is to protect the domestic reopening on June 21st' - James Forsyth Cindy Yu talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Will Hancock cling on?

14 min listen

Matt Hancock defended his position at a Downing Street press conference yesterday. He told journalists that, by his 'recollection of events', he told the Prime Minister that hospital patients would be tested before being sent to care homes 'when we could do it'. Dominic Cummings says the Health Secretary promised all patients would receive a test.On the podcast, Isabel Hardman says the press conference setup was 'a bit shifty', as journalists were denied follow up questions. 'What had started off being a reasonably good day for Hancock - he didn't get a drubbing in the Commons - ended really badly for him. The front pages were hastily rewritten, so he was on the front of many of the newspapers dodging questions,' Isabel adds.

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

The questions Matt Hancock still has to answer

Matt Hancock’s approach to Dominic Cummings’s allegations has been to come out fighting. He believes he has spent most of today answering questions about these allegations. But Thursday night's press conference highlighted what he has really been doing today: merely talking at length about the allegations, while dodging any real answers. No longer cushioned by eager Conservative colleagues, Hancock found himself being repeatedly asked about whether he had told No. 10 that people coming out of hospital would be tested before they were discharged into care homes. The journalists asking those questions listened as the Health Secretary refused to deny saying this, using a precise formula of words to dodge giving a full answer.

Isabel Hardman

Will Hancock hit back?

11 min listen

After the hanger full of Dom bombs that were dropped in yesterday's epic seven hour hearing, health secretary Matt Hancock got a sizeable chunk of Cummings wrath. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how Hancock has been handling himself since the allegations were levelled at him. James points out on the podcast that Hancock was never going to have a particularly hard time in the Commons, quoting Jack Straw, saying:’The safest place for a minister in a crisis is at despatch box in the House of Commons.

Isabel Hardman

Hancock survived MPs but questions remain unanswered

Matt Hancock's first attempt to defend himself against the bombardment of allegations from Dominic Cummings went well. The health secretary appeared in the Commons to answer an urgent question from Labour's Jon Ashworth on the matter, and he managed to get through the session without appearing beleaguered. This was partly as a result of a coterie of loyal (to the point of sounding entirely bizarre) Conservative backbenchers who stood up to congratulate the government on not having Cummings in it any more and to thank the health secretary for visiting their local hospital. There had clearly been an energetic effort on the part of Hancock's PPS and the Conservative whips to get a good number of colleagues to turn up and ask such questions.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

What we learnt from the Cummings evidence

17 min listen

From accusing Matt Hancock of criminal incompetence, to lifting the lid on the true nature of his relationship with Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings's evidence was nothing short of explosive. Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth about the highlights and what we learnt. There were few who escaped Cummings's censure. But in some ways, the sheer scale of alleged incompetence means that no one accusation will stick in the way that they might have done had they been made individually.