Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman

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.

Rachel Reeves tries to reverse Labour’s economic gloom

As expected, Rachel Reeves used her big – and long – growth speech this morning to back the expansion of Heathrow and argue that Britain was taking too long to make decisions on building infrastructure, let alone getting it done. The Chancellor did devote large passages of her speech to criticising the ‘structural problems in

Isabel Hardman

The NHS isn’t solely to blame for its failure to reform

Can the NHS reform itself? MPs on the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) say it doesn’t know how to. It has published a stinging report this morning, accusing both NHS England (NHSE) and the department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of ‘complacency’ and blaming external factors for the poor financial position of the health

Ministers are clearly concerned about school reform row

You could tell from this afternoon’s Education Questions in the Commons that ministers are worried about the row over their school reforms: they’d planted loyal questions from backbenchers to help them fend off criticism. Even before the Conservatives had raised the latest concerns about the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, Labour backbencher Luke Akehurst had

Do Reform want to bring back the death penalty?

10 min listen

Reform MP Rupert Lowe has called for the death penalty to be re-established in the wake of the sentencing of the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana. With the Assisted Dying Bill still making its way through Parliament, it has been decades since the topic of death has been so hotly debated by MPs.  Katy Balls speaks

This was Badenoch’s best PMQs yet

Kemi Badenoch had her best Prime Minister’s Questions yet today. She alighted on a topic that Keir Starmer really struggled to answer questions on and which should blow up as a row further in the coming weeks. The Tory leader devoted her six questions to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and specifically the reforms

Cooper announces Southport public inquiry

Yvette Cooper has this evening announced that the government will be setting up a public inquiry looking for ‘answers’ on how the Southport attack could have taken place, along with reforms to the Prevent programme. This comes after Axel Rudakubana changed his plea to guilty in his trial for murder and attempted murder. In fact,

Labour caves on grooming gangs

14 min listen

There will be more inquiries into grooming gangs. After sustained pressure, the Home Secretary announced yesterday a series of local, government-backed inquiries, rather than a full public inquiry. Critics argue that this either doesn’t go far enough, or that Labour have been forced to go back on their word by certain figures on the right

Yvette Cooper announces new local grooming gang inquiries

There will be more inquiries into grooming gangs after all – just not a full public inquiry. Yvette Cooper has just announced in the Commons that there will be five new local inquiries, including one in Oldham which triggered the most recent row on these crimes. The Home Secretary also announced that Louise Casey is going to

Starmer saved his favourite attack until the end at PMQs

Kemi Badenoch continued with her theme of ‘why can you trust anything the Prime Minister says’ at Prime Minister’s Questions today, covering the economy, the Chagos Islands, Tulip Siddiq and Gerry Adams. The Tory leader also claimed that Starmer was once again not answering the questions that she asked, which was true, but his replies

Is Westminster forgetting about the grooming gangs already?

Remember grooming gangs? Last week’s big story has amazingly already been superseded by other political rows, but they came up again at Home Office questions in the Commons this afternoon. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp used his topical question to ask Yvette Cooper whether she now agreed with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and Liverpool

What’s the point of public inquiries?

21 min listen

This week, MPs voted against a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The vote followed weeks of pressure on Labour after Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight, after safeguarding minister Jess Phillips rejected a new national inquiry. If we did have a national inquiry, what would it achieve? We’ve had many in

Reform and Tories accused of weaponising grooming gangs scandal

Unsurprisingly, the Conservative attempt to amend/kill off the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill failed tonight, with MPs voting 364 to 111 against the reasoned amendment tabled by Kemi Badenoch. The amendment declined to give the bill its second reading on the basis of a lengthy list of issues, with the call for a national inquiry

Isabel Hardman

Kemi Badenoch must ask better questions

Keir Starmer has not seemed in control of the grooming gangs story since it broke, but at Prime Minister’s Questions, he had a rare period of command. This was largely because he is more adept at answering questions than Kemi Badenoch currently is at asking them, and also because the Conservative line on this matter

Sarah Champion and the grooming gang attention span problem

There are now two debates underway about grooming gangs and how the government should investigate them further. The first is the one raging on social media, largely conducted by people who haven’t up to this point shown much interest in the issue but who are busily accusing others of not doing enough. The second is

Wes Streeting’s ‘care plans’ are old news

There is much that is good in today’s NHS elective recovery announcement: changes to incentives for trusts so that they are rewarded for clearing their backlogs faster; a new partnership agreement with the private sector; a proper plan for returning to 92 per cent cent of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral

Isabel Hardman

Grooming gang row overshadows Starmer’s big NHS speech

17 min listen

In a speech this morning, the Prime Minister unveiled his plans to tackle the NHS backlog and hit back at comments Elon Musk has made regarding grooming gangs, the government’s response to them, and about the Prime Minister’s own role in their prosecution. Whilst the Prime Minister’s speech was plagued by the familiar platitudes about

Isabel Hardman

Grooming gang row overshadows Keir Starmer’s NHS speech

Keir Starmer spent a significant time this morning arguing that the last thing we need is another review and report when the government just needs to act. Unfortunately, he wasn’t talking about social care reform, but grooming gangs, which ended up dominating the question and answer session after his big NHS speech. The NHS staff

Is Labour serious about social care reform?

14 min listen

Happy New Year and – of course – happy new long-term social care plan. Not only has Labour announced a ‘longer-term’ solution to a problem the party itself has acknowledged is urgent by setting up a commission that won’t report until 2028, but it has also taken steps to make that reform even harder to