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.
From our UK edition
This afternoon’s law and order theme to Tory conference did take a bit of a knock when police were called to an altercation involving one of the party’s MPs, resulting in the backbencher, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, being sent home. Not long after this incident, which sent parts of the conference centre into lockdown, Priti Patel walked
From our UK edition
The Tories have tried to jazz up their conference hall this year, after accusations that the whole thing was becoming a bit robotic and boring. It’s fair to say that this has had mixed results. One of the exciting developments is the use of panel discussions between ministers, which is supposed to encourage greater audience
From our UK edition
The Tory MPs who’ve bothered to turn up to conference this week are torn between two places. They’re on a three-line whip in case anything kicks off in Westminster, where parliament will continue sitting this afternoon. Solicitor General Michael Ellis joked this morning that he was on ‘red standby’ to return to the House of
From our UK edition
The Labour Party is buzzing about in Iain Duncan Smith’s constituency today, threatening both to unseat the former Conservative leader and scrap the reform he introduced: Universal Credit. Jeremy Corbyn made the promise, saying the changes to the benefits system have been an ‘unmitigated disaster’. The party will first get rid of the most controversial
From our UK edition
At first glance, Nathan Taylor might seem the very definition of a ‘right on’ hipster. He goes by the name of ‘Sockmatician’ online and he’s famous in the knitting world for his complicated double-knit patterns. On his Instagram, in between videos of people speed-knitting and many, many photos of socks, Taylor had posts about what
From our UK edition
Boris Johnson’s behaviour in the Commons last night was clearly part of his strategy to set up a ‘people vs parliament’ narrative ahead of an election. We can debate the rights and wrongs of telling MPs that the best way to honour Jo Cox would be to get Brexit done, but there are also political
From our UK edition
The House of Commons has just turned very ugly indeed, after Boris Johnson dismissed a Labour MP who was complaining about the abuse and threats she and other colleagues are receiving as ‘humbug’. Paula Sherriff – who has had a particularly sustained campaign of abuse against her, including swastikas being left at her office – made
From our UK edition
Jeremy Corbyn has just delivered one of his better party conference speeches. It wasn’t just because it was much shorter than the average political address, but also because it made clear that Labour knows what it wants to do when it gets into power. There were a lot of policies in there. Some had popped
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Time was when the box office attraction at Labour conference was going to be Tom Watson’s speech this afternoon. The biggest drama would be activists who planned to walk out in protest at the deputy leader’s constant undermining of Jeremy Corbyn. That was before the Supreme Court verdict, of course, and now Corbyn will be
From our UK edition
If you’re a pro-Remain Labour member angry that the conference yesterday voted narrowly – and chaotically – to maintain the party’s ambiguity on Brexit, where do you go? A number of shadow cabinet members are hoping they can be the answer to that question. Emily Thornberry has perhaps been the most obvious candidate to take
From our UK edition
On paper, Labour’s conference has managed to unite around the Brexit position set out by the leadership. Delegates this afternoon overwhelmingly approved the NEC statement endorsing Jeremy Corbyn’s plan to decide how the party will campaign in a referendum at a special conference after a general election. They then voted down the rebel composite motion
From our UK edition
John McDonnell’s speech showed what Labour’s aim for this conference – were it going smoothly – is. The party wants to present a domestic policy agenda so radical that it drowns out discussion of Brexit. As the progress of this conference shows, though, that’s going to be very difficult. The shadow chancellor announced plenty of
From our UK edition
Labour conference will this afternoon vote on three different motions on its Brexit position. There are two – one from the NEC, and one from delegates – which endorse the leadership’s plan to put this decision off until after the next general election, and then to hold a special one-day conference to decide instead. Then
From our UK edition
Labour was supposed to be having only one big row this week at conference – on Brexit. Instead, it’s ended up having two: one about how the party will campaign on Britain’s future relationship with Europe and the second on Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Today has not seen a good recovery from the Labour leader after
From our UK edition
The best way to understand the chaos engulfing the start of the Labour party conference is by looking at the instability of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Even if this is not immediately obvious from the outside (which, with such terrible personal poll ratings for Corbyn, it should be), it is the underlying factor in yesterday’s attempt
From our UK edition
This evening, Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee has started to discuss a motion which would oust Tom Watson as deputy leader. There is expected to be a vote on this plan, which abolishes the role altogether, tomorrow, and there is a strong chance that it will pass. It was tabled by Momentum founder Jon Lansman,
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Jo Swinson is quite obviously the only party leader enjoying what’s going on right now. This is, of course, partly because what’s going on for her is that she is regularly welcoming MPs from other parties into the Liberal Democrats. As she said in her speech to the party’s conference this afternoon, ‘I can’t be
From our UK edition
MPs who aren’t in the process of defecting to the Liberal Democrats are using their conference recess to phone around their colleagues canvassing for the next Commons Speaker. Lindsay Hoyle is, according to YouGov, the favourite to win, but Harriet Harman and Chris Bryant are also running strong campaigns, along with Meg Hillier. Then there
From our UK edition
Boris Johnson’s opponents love to accuse him of using the ‘Trump playbook’. Some on the left have become so obsessed with this comparison that they’ve even demanded that the Prime Minister be impeached. But over the past few weeks, Johnson’s behaviour has borne a far closer resemblance to a man he claims to look down
From our UK edition
Why has Tom Watson given a speech about what his party leadership should do on Brexit? The party’s deputy leader has urged Labour to ‘unambiguously and unequivocally back Remain’ and to campaign for a referendum ahead of an election. This is contrary to the current frontbench position that a referendum should contain a ‘credible Leave
