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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Why would French government officials brief that they think it most likely Britain will leave the European Union without a deal? Boris Johnson hasn’t even made it as far as his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, and is only just being welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. So why brief that out now, before
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The stand-off between Downing Street and the European Union over Boris Johnson’s latest proposal for the backstop boils down to a disagreement over whether the British government really cares about getting a Brexit deal at all. When Donald Tusk rejected Johnson’s plan today, he all but accused him of being set on a no-deal exit,
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When was the last time you were in a Twitter mob? We know these maelstroms of anger so well now, and even remember the names of some of the people randomly caught up in them over the years too. There was Justine Sacco, who lost her job after tweeting a joke about AIDS, and Jon
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Boris Johnson declaring war on anti-vaxxers is the sort of thing that no-one will disagree with unless, of course, they are the ones peddling dangerous myths about the effects of these preventative treatments on children. The Prime Minister today announced a crackdown on misleading claims about vaccinations, with plans for a summit with social media
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On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to become caretaker prime minister of a government of national unity after overthrowing Boris Johnson looks like a messy failure. The Liberal Democrats have said they won’t back him, two of the Tories who he wrote to have backed away too, and the Independent Group for Change (which he
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Is Philip Hammond’s intervention today really a problem for Boris Johnson? The former Chancellor comment piece in the Times declares that he’s kept quiet for all of three weeks, but that ‘now it is time’ to speak out and warn the new Prime Minister that he risks betraying the British people if he goes for
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He might be the only MP to have accidentally posted a screenshot of emails about ‘GE2019’ on Instagram, but Damian Hinds is far from the only one spending their summer planning to fight in a poll later this year. All the parties are gearing up for a campaign. We’ve even had glimpses of how Boris
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Usually after a big government reshuffle, the happiest-looking people are the ministers, whether they’ve survived the axe or are celebrating a promotion. But at the end of this week, the most cheerful MPs appear to be the ones who left government, whether of their own volition or after being sacked by Boris Johnson. They’ve been
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Ben Wallace also has an Iran-shaped problem in his Defence in-tray. One of the complaints about the British government’s handling of the tanker crisis is that the Navy’s capacity is too thin. It is a long-established complaint from defence chiefs that there isn’t enough money for the Armed Forces, and they are now expecting Johnson
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It’s not an easy time to become Foreign Secretary, as Dominic Raab is about to find out. There is, of course, the crisis in relations with Iran, which threatens to escalate further in the coming days. Raab is taking over shortly after Jeremy Hunt announced a European-led mission to protect shipping in the Gulf, which
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Priti Patel is the new Home Secretary. This is likely to attract a fair bit of opprobrium from Boris Johnson’s critics, given she is a supporter of the death penalty. Whether or not she has been given any remit to examine that particular policy issue, she has a big job on her hands. The Home
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Boris Johnson has just given a rather urgent-sounding, fast-paced speech in Downing Street. So fast-paced, in fact, that it almost appeared he was in a hurry to catch a train. He of course promised to deliver Brexit by 31 October, but the bulk of his statement was in fact focused on what he wanted to
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Theresa May’s final statement in Downing Street before she left for Buckingham Palace was very dignified and generous to her successor. She offered her ‘warm congratulations’ to Boris Johnson and wished him ‘every good fortune in the months and years ahead’. As with her performance at Prime Minister’s Questions, May was keen to emphasise her
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Theresa May’s final Prime Minister’s Questions had all the tributes you’d expect for an outgoing leader. Members from across the House praised her commitment to public service and the way in which she has made tackling mental illness, modern slavery and domestic abuse her priority throughout her time in government. She received a standing ovation
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Boris Johnson will now be receiving plenty of unsolicited advice about how to be Prime Minister. As his victory speech a few minutes ago showed, though, he’s not planning to ditch one of the qualities that got him into this job in the first place. Brand Boris isn’t about the typical prime ministerial behaviour, stood
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The trickle of ministers resigning before they are pushed by Boris Johnson continues this morning, with Anne Milton stepping down as an Education Minister. In her resignation letter to Theresa May, Milton cites ‘grave concerns about leaving the EU without a deal’. These resignations could set the tone for the start of Johnson’s premiership. Certainly
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Sir Alan Duncan’s resignation will only leave a hole in the Foreign Office for a couple of days before the new prime minister replaces him. But he’s not the only missing minister in that department: Mark Field is suspended while the incident at Mansion House is investigated. Duncan had been covering some of Field’s responsibilities
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Tom Watson has had more reinventions than Kylie Minogue has had mid-performance outfit changes. His performances over the years have ranged from baronial backroom fixer loathed by Blairites to scourge of Fleet Street when he took on Rupert Murdoch. There was a brief counter-culture period when he went around wearing a beret, a foray into
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An old joke among political journalists is that you know a writer has run out of topics when they start producing columns either on their children or the Liberal Democrats. With so many other things going on, perhaps this is why Westminster has been oddly indifferent to the leadership contest taking place between Jo Swinson
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Ever since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour party, many of his MPs have dreamed of deposing him. They’ve tried mass shadow ministerial resignations, a no-confidence motion, even a formal leadership contest — but to no avail. Some, like Chuka Umunna, left the party, hoping (in vain) that others would join their
