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
20 min listen
The Peter Mandelson scandal just got more scandalous. Last night the story broke that Mandeslon actually failed his enhanced vetting before being made US Ambassador. Number 10 are pleading ignorance. Their defence sits on the suggestion that the Foreign Office’s most senior official unilaterally decided to ignore the findings and – what’s more – that
From our UK edition
13 min listen
PMQs is back and – predictably – Lord Robertson’s intervention on the state of the armed forces dominated proceedings. The Prime Minister gave six responses to questions about defence spending, none of which addressed the criticism properly. While it was not a painful session for Starmer, it did show how little he has to say
From our UK edition
Keir Starmer gave six responses to questions about Lord Robertson’s defence spending comments today, none of which addressed the criticism properly. Kemi Badenoch rightly chose to focus all her attacks at Prime Minister’s Questions on the speech by the author of Labour’s strategic defence review, opening with the line from Robertson about a ‘corrosive complacency’
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Is Prime Minister’s Questions past it? We frequently ask this question in Westminster when the Wednesday lunchtime ding-dong between the two party leaders has ended up being particularly low-rent – and it has definitely fallen into that category over the past few months. Today, Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch return for their first post-Easter session,
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George Robertson’s critique of the government’s reluctance to commit to proper defence spending is deeply politically inconvenient for Keir Starmer. This is not just because the Prime Minister has tried repeatedly to claim that Labour is the party that is protecting the armed forces – while holding onto Ben Wallace’s ‘hollowed out’ line about the
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Why is Wes Streeting launching a report that argues the NHS doesn’t need to change its funding model? The Health Secretary gave a speech this morning at the IPPR to mark a new analysis of whether social insurance systems automatically lead to better health outcomes. The answer, according to the report’s authors at least, is
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Mental health provision is totally inadequate in this country: we already know that. But you can only really understand quite how badly broken it is by looking at how much other public services are creaking as a result. Take the report today from patient safety watchdog the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), which warns
From our UK edition
12 min listen
The new cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, has published a list of objectives setting out her vision for what the civil service will look like under her. Many have interpreted it as her tightening control over government … especially since Darren Jones stepped back from his Downing Street role. The path is clear for her to
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Britain’s response to the conflict in Iran is dominating Westminster – but is Keir Starmer really keeping the country out of war? After a tense Liaison Committee appearance exposed divisions over defence spending, pressure is also mounting on the government’s economic strategy. With energy prices rising, mortgage products disappearing and fears of inflation returning, how
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One of the key rites of passage for all modern prime ministers is losing their temper a little during an exchange with Bernard Jenkin at the liaison committee. It happened to David Cameron, who would go rather pink and say ‘the thing is, BERNARD’ while trying to explain why he hadn’t implemented Jenkin’s committee’s plan
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The Covid inquiry has published the third of its ten (ten!) modules today, this time focused on how the healthcare systems of the UK coped with the pandemic. Its key finding is that they only just managed to do so, and ‘on a number of occasions, they teetered on the brink of collapse’. That they
From our UK edition
11 min listen
Angela Rayner has entered the chat. Last night she gave a speech to Labour members which many are reading as the soft launch of her leadership bid. She told the room that Labour needs to be more ‘bold’ – echoing Gordon Brown as she called for a more left-wing direction. She took aim specifically at
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Keir Starmer had an appalling performance at Prime Minister’s Questions today. It was summarised very well later in the session by Conservative MP Andrew Snowden, who told the chamber: Every week the Prime Minister comes here and reads out this pre-scripted nonsense that bears no resemblance to the questions he’s actually asked. The leader of
From our UK edition
23 min listen
The government’s plan to restrict jury trials passed its first parliamentary hurdle this week. It is one measure, amongst many, in a Bill designed to reduce the huge backlog currently facing the Courts. Labour MP Karl Turner and Danny Shaw, a former adviser, join Isabel Hardman to discuss why they have each come to their
From our UK edition
15 min listen
This afternoon we have had the first tranche of documents released by the government relating to the process by which Peter Mandelson was chosen to be US ambassador. Whilst we have got a clearer picture on the big question – how much Starmer and the government knew about Mandelson’s association with Epstein – Labour are
From our UK edition
Prime Minister’s Questions today saw a leader under repeated attack for a ‘screeching U-turn’ and their suitability to be Prime Minister called into question. Unusually, though, Keir Starmer was the one making that accusation, rather than being on the receiving end of it. He came to the chamber determined to tell Kemi Badenoch that she had made
From our UK edition
19 min listen
Tim Shipman is joined by Isabel Hardman to discuss the domestic fallout from the conflict in Iran – from oil prices surging past $100 a barrel to renewed pressure on Britain’s cost-of-living crisis. They examine how the rising price of energy could derail Labour’s economic plans, why Rachel Reeves may face difficult choices on fuel
From our UK edition
12 min listen
It was a bad tempered PMQs today – Kemi Badenoch attacked Starmer over his involvement, or lack thereof with the Iran conflict. And Starmer hit back at Badenoch over her questions. Not the type of unity you’d want to see on the major foreign policy issue of the day. Also today, three more arrests have
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Kemi Badenoch used Prime Minister’s Questions to accuse the government of being flat-footed in its response to the war in the Middle East. The Tory leader had plenty of material to use, and she did a good job with it: running through why the UK wasn’t allowing the RAF to attack Iranian missile sites, defence
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NHS maternity services are in crisis: everyone knows that. In fact, everyone has known a lot more than that for at least a decade. There have been so many reports highlighting the precise nature of this crisis that the health service and government now have 748 recommendations that they could implement to improve care. Instead
