Isabel Hardman

Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of The Spectator and edits the Coffee House blog. She also presents Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.

Starmer agrees to grooming gangs inquiry

15 June 2025 5:03 am

This evening, Keir Starmer has announced he does want a national inquiry on grooming gangs after all. The Prime Minister…

Starmer returns to his favourite PMQs subject: Liz Truss

11 June 2025 11:25 pm

‘Mr Speaker, he loves talking about Liz Truss – why? Because he wants to hide from his economic record.’ Kemi…

Kemi’s best PMQs yet

22 May 2025 12:55 am

Kemi Badenoch was on good, brutal form at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Keir Starmer had tried to spike her guns…

Starmer was in no mood to joke at PMQs

15 May 2025 1:32 am

Keir Starmer had a much more awkward Prime Minister’s Questions than he is accustomed to. This was largely because Kemi…

Neither Starmer nor Badenoch got what they wanted from PMQs

7 May 2025 11:36 pm

Keir Starmer wanted to spend Prime Minister’s Questions talking about the UK’s trade deal with India, while Kemi Badenoch –…

Keir Starmer can’t explain his changing views on gender

23 April 2025 11:47 pm

Keir Starmer was well aware that Kemi Badenoch would probably use Prime Minister’s Questions today to run a victory lap…

Starmer and Badenoch played a childish blame game at PMQs

3 April 2025 12:27 am

Keir Starmer had a special point to make at the very outset of Prime Minister’s Questions about the threat of…

Rachel Reeves’s non-Budget is very bad news

27 March 2025 12:43 am

Rachel Reeves framed her Spring Statement around the insistence that Labour’s Plan for Change was already working, which meant that…

Keir tells Kemi that a phone ban in schools is ‘completely unnecessary’

27 March 2025 12:16 am

Any session of Prime Minister’s Questions that takes place before a fiscal event is merely a warm-up act that everyone…

Badenoch caught Starmer out at PMQs

20 March 2025 1:01 am

Keir Starmer didn’t have to defend his welfare cuts until later in the session at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, because…

Will Labour MPs stomach Liz Kendall’s benefits crackdown?

19 March 2025 12:16 am

To underline that there was government agreement on the welfare cuts and reforms she was announcing, Liz Kendall had Keir…

Do Labour know what they want from welfare reform?

18 March 2025 4:33 am

Liz Kendall and her ministerial colleagues were forced to offer an hour’s worth of holding statements about the government’s welfare…

What is the point of abolishing NHS England?

13 March 2025 11:50 pm

What does Wes Streeting think the government will achieve by abolishing NHS England? The Health Secretary gave a statement to…

Is Kemi Badenoch finally getting the hang of PMQs?

12 March 2025 11:56 pm

Kemi Badenoch made some changes to her strategy at Prime Minister’s Questions today and had a much better time of…

Starmer avoids criticising Trump at PMQs

6 March 2025 12:29 am

Keir Starmer has clearly decided that the only way to disagree with Donald Trump and his administration without angering the…

Starmer: Zelensky is a ‘hero’

4 March 2025 3:59 am

Keir Starmer was careful in his Commons statement about Ukraine to distance himself from what happened in the Oval Office…

Starmer has his work cut out bringing peace to Ukraine

3 March 2025 5:17 am

Keir Starmer today attempted to make the debate about Ukraine’s future one primarily held by Ukraine and European countries. This…

Trump presser could not have gone better for Starmer

28 February 2025 9:48 am

Keir Starmer could not have dreamed of a better press conference with Donald Trump. Much of its success was not…

Badenoch accuses Starmer of ‘patronising’ her

27 February 2025 12:47 am

It is getting rather repetitive writing that Kemi Badenoch had an uncomfortable Prime Minister’s Questions, so how about this: today’s…

Tory backbenchers are outshining Kemi Badenoch at PMQs

13 February 2025 12:00 am

Prime Minister’s Questions is rapidly becoming a challenge for Kemi Badenoch to come up with a topic that the Tories…

Why has Labour dropped so many NHS targets?

12 February 2025 1:01 am

Does the Labour government still care about mental health? Recently, it dropped its NHS targets for mental health, along with…

Where Kemi Badenoch keeps going wrong at PMQs

30 January 2025 12:26 am

Kemi Badenoch may well have been right in the points that she made at Prime Minister’s Questions, but she managed…

Rachel Reeves tries to reverse Labour’s economic gloom

29 January 2025 11:19 pm

As expected, Rachel Reeves used her big – and long – growth speech this morning to back the expansion of…

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

29 January 2025 7:41 pm

Can the NHS reform itself? MPs on the powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) say it doesn’t know how to. It…

Ministers are clearly concerned about school reform row

28 January 2025 5:10 am

You could tell from this afternoon’s Education Questions in the Commons that ministers are worried about the row over their…