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.
After both his victories in the two Labour leadership elections he faced, Jeremy Corbyn boasted about his ‘huge mandate’ from members to reshape the Labour Party. Today, Sir Keir Starmer has a similarly resounding backing from the party as leader: he won 56 per cent of the vote in the first round, compared to Corbyn’s
20 min listen
Matthew Parris warns against comparing coronavirus to the war, Lionel Shriver fears the economic repercussions, and Isabel Hardman explains why stockpiling hens isn’t such a good idea.
Is there nothing people won’t panic-buy during this crisis? Having stripped shelves of food and toilet roll, shoppers are now turning to chickens. Coop company Omlet reports a 66 per cent rise in sales, and breeders have sold out of pullets. The British Hen Welfare Trust, which rehomes caged hens, has stopped taking new customers
Coronavirus is revealing many good things about our society: the number of people willing to volunteer to help tackle the outbreak and help the isolated, the number of former doctors and nurses keen to return to the front line, and the number of businesses that have switched to making equipment and protective clothing for those healthcare
This is an exceptionally difficult time for those working in the emergency services. They are having to respond to situations they never expected to be involved with, often risking being infected with coronavirus themselves. That much is true. What is also true is that this crisis has brought out an interfering tendency in some people
In the past few minutes, Boris Johnson has announced that the UK is going into lockdown from this evening. In a statement in Downing Street (which you can read in full here), he announced that people will not be allowed to leave their homes unless they are doing so for the following: – shopping for
This weekend has been dominated by photos of people having a jolly good time in groups at the park, or strolling along Columbia Road Flower Market as though nothing has changed. Sunday’s Downing Street press conference was therefore dominated by questions about whether the government would clamp down on this behaviour to stop coronavirus spreading
In the early years of the First World War, a man out of uniform had a reasonable chance of being stopped in the street by a young woman and handed a white feather. This campaign of social shame encouraged those who had not yet enlisted to do so using white feathers as a symbol of
The Labour leadership contest has been going on for so long that two of its candidates, Lisa Nandy and Rebecca Long-Bailey, have taken to counting down the hours they have left. The race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn started in early January, and will finally finish on 4 April. When we meet, Nandy is feeling run-down
Why hasn’t parliament been closed after Health minister Nadine Dorries contracted coronavirus? Why isn’t the government demanding the cancellation of large events and school closures to help limit the spread of the illness? Why isn’t it copying other countries who have introduced much more draconian measures, to the extent that Atlético Madrid fans arriving in
If Jeremy Corbyn had been saving his energy by giving a poor performance at PMQs, he wasn’t saving it for his Budget response. He sounded bored, almost as though he too is fed up of waiting for the Labour leadership contest to trundle to an end so that he can pack off and not have
If a Prime Minister’s Questions before a Budget is rather lacklustre, then this is normally easily excused as being the Leader of the Opposition not putting as much prep as usual into a session that no-one will watch. But while today’s performance from Jeremy Corbyn was indeed lacklustre, it wasn’t any different from his offerings
Does anyone really think the solution to the social care crisis will be found in cross-party talks? If you read the letter penned by Matt Hancock this afternoon, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Health Secretary is the one person who does. Hancock wrote to all MPs and peers ‘to begin the process of
This week’s Prime Minister’s Questions had Tory MPs bursting out of their seats to ask Boris Johnson some lovely easy questions. There were more than usual whose contribution to the session was merely to ask him to agree with them that he had the right priorities and was doing a great job. Claire Coutinho, recently-elected
Andrea Leadsom has just given a rather long and very comprehensive personal statement in the Commons following her sacking in last month’s reshuffle. She took no parting shots at Boris Johnson at all, preferring instead to focus any anger on former Speaker John Bercow, with whom she had a very long-running feud. Why did she
Dominic Cummings said he wanted to hire ‘weirdos’ and ‘misfits’ to improve Whitehall, but new adviser Andrew Sabisky (more on whether he’s actually an adviser shortly) isn’t so much a misfit in Westminster as he is a sore thumb, standing out for his views on eugenics, race and unplanned pregnancies. Today a No. 10 spokesperson
Which fad diet have you chosen to follow this year? One that helps you lose weight, or one that cures your mental health problems? Chances are that if you’re really following food trends, you’ll be discarding the piles of ‘clean eating’ recipe books in your kitchen in favour of a whole new swath of literature
Can Boris Johnson really cut violent crime by 20 per cent? James reported recently that the Prime Minister has set his Cabinet this target, and is demanding that every department get involved in realising it. Most people have focused on the most salient political problem, which is knife crime. But if the Prime Minister is
Emily Thornberry is the straggler in the Labour leadership contest. Unlike Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy, she’s not going to get on the ballot with trade union nominations. She currently only has two nominations from constituency Labour parties, and doesn’t poll well with members. She needs a breakthrough moment – or at least an explanation
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle is very keen that Prime Minister’s Questions last its allotted half an hour, rather than turning it into the hour-long drone-fest that John Bercow indulged in during his tenure. Today he had to cut off one MP who was asking a question that wasn’t just pointless (the Speaker doesn’t adjudicate on the