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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Local government appears to be on its knees, and it’s not the usual suspects of authorities run by opposition parties who are complaining loudest. Today, Surrey County Council is revealed to have a £105 million funding gap, and this after Northamptonshire issued a Section 114 notice, which bans almost all new spending. Organisations such as
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What will the consequences be for the latest chemical weapons attack in Syria? Currently everyone is accusing everyone else, but doing very little. The United States says Russia is covering for President Assad. Turkey is accusing the United States of ‘calculations against’ Turkey, Iran and maybe Russia too. So a war of words, but no
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Today’s centenary of some women being given the right to vote seems to have bewildered a number of people. My colleague Ross Clark, in particular, was perturbed by the Today programme turning into Woman’s Hour to mark the centenary, which he felt was inappropriate for a news programme, and also didn’t cover the fact that
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Theresa May’s MPs are now constantly pressuring her to come up with a ‘vision’ of what she wants to do, whether it be on Brexit or on the domestic front. Those who are more sympathetic to the Prime Minister’s caution, though, argue that her vision is constrained by the parliamentary arithmetic. Why try something that
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Despite having to answer questions about whether or not she is a ‘quitter’, Theresa May must be reasonably glad that she’s got a few days’ escape from her domestic agenda while she is visiting China. But being away does mean that she has left her party to stew without her, and it’s not clear that
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The centrist faction in the Labour Party has been pretty quiet since the snap election, with most MPs who opposed Jeremy Corbyn trying to focus either on Brexit or local issues and avoiding confrontations with the leadership at all costs. But today’s news from Haringey suggests that this isn’t likely to hold. The council’s leader
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Can Theresa May really solve the latest crisis affecting her leadership? Previously, her survival owed a great deal to Conservative backbenchers, who vowed to protect her against a badly-behaved Cabinet, but everyone is restless now. So what can she do? The Prime Minister isn’t going to have a personality transplant, but this doesn’t mean that
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Theresa May likes to avoid awkward rows at all costs: that much we already know. Today’s papers carry two stories showing this: she is said to be abandoning plans to give a Brexit speech just in case it causes further divisions in her Cabinet, and is also racking up what The Times estimates is a
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Theresa May does seem to lose more authority with each week. A reshuffle in which people refuse to move, followed by Cabinet ministers using the media to ask for more money for the NHS and defence. But does this make her more likely to go soon? That the Prime Minister is weak has been priced
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Are young women stupid? Apparently, 15 per cent of them would miss a cervical smear appointment for a gym class or waxing appointment. These strange upside-down priorities are outlined in a study of 2,017 women published by charity Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, which also found that two thirds of those surveyed weren’t aware they were
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Turkey’s decision to send troops into Syria to fight the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has seen how the country is changing over the past few months. Turkey has become increasingly determined to forge its own way in the world, ignoring the entreaties of western countries, and
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This post first appeared in the Spectator’s Evening Blend email, a free round-up and analysis of each day’s politics. Sign up for free here. Why is Boris Johnson quite so keen on improbable-sounding bridges? The Foreign Secretary became obsessed with the idea of a ‘garden bridge’ across the river Thames when he was Mayor, a
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If you thought the main fallout from Theresa May’s reshuffle was last week, think again: over the past few days the Conservatives have been appointing their parliamentary private secretaries, which means the reshuffle has only just about ground to a halt. These PPS jobs are unpaid but count as government payroll, meaning the MP in
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What happens to a woman who leaves domestic violence? A layman’s impression might be that she gets on with her life and tries to forget what happened to her. But a question today in the House of Commons showed that this is just not the case. The SNP’s Lisa Cameron asked Theresa May about a
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Theresa May likes to boast at Prime Minister’s Questions that mental health spending is increasing. The problem is that this is rather difficult to see on the ground. The King’s Fund today published a report saying the gap between spending on hospitals and mental health widened further in the last year. The think tank even
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What is Michael Gove up to? The Environment Secretary seems to be on a tree-hugging rampage at the moment, announcing a new green measure every week. Not content with unveiling the Tories’ 25 year environment plan last week, Gove has given an interview to today’s Sunday Times in which he attacks the water companies for
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Chris Williamson’s resignation from the Labour frontbench shows that the party isn’t just a protest movement any more. The staunch Corbynite found himself the focus of Tory campaign graphics this week after suggesting that council tax should be doubled on some of the highest-value properties. This afternoon, Labour confirmed that their Shadow Fire Minister had
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Is it really ‘censorship’ that Virgin Trains won’t be stocking the Daily Mail any more? An internal company memo to staff this week announced that ‘we’ve decided that this paper is not compatible with the VT brand and our beliefs’ and that staff had raised ‘considerable concern’ about the Mail’s stance on ‘issues such as
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Will Jeremy Hunt’s new job title make any difference to the rather precarious state of the social care sector? Opposition parties have been accusing Theresa May of ‘window-dressing’ by changing the name of the Health department to the Department of Health and Social Care – though if this reshuffle is about window-dressing, May must never,
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Jo Johnson hasn’t had the best week. He’s spent most of it defending the decision to appoint Toby Young to the advisory board of the Office for Students – and was doing so yesterday afternoon, just hours before Young resigned. Now Johnson has been moved to the Transport department, and with an additional post as