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.

Do the Tories have a migration plan?

28 November 2023 4:19 am

What is the Tory party’s policy on immigration after record-breaking net migration figures and the failure of its Rwanda policy…

Hunt’s Autumn Statement was surprisingly upbeat

23 November 2023 12:57 am

Jeremy Hunt has just finished the most upbeat economic statement we’ve heard in a good while – certainly since the…

Will the Tories’ ‘carrot and stick’ benefits plan work?

22 November 2023 4:22 am

Rishi Sunak wants to frame a benefits crackdown in tomorrow’s Autumn Statement in compassionate terms, with ministers saying people with…

Tory MPs want a sense of vision from the PM

20 November 2023 8:59 pm

The Autumn Statement marks the latest in Rishi Sunak’s series of (often contradictory) relaunches Jeremy Hunt has started the week…

Suella Braverman’s clumsiness makes Met reform less likely

11 November 2023 3:40 am

Suella Braverman’s career as Home Secretary may be over very soon. But a long tail of it will be the…

Sunak has no easy options in the Suella Braverman row

10 November 2023 3:44 am

Tory whips are doing a ring around of their MPs to find out what they think of the row over…

Is Suella Braverman trying to get sacked?

9 November 2023 10:54 pm

Tory MPs are in an even more fractious mood than usual following Suella Braverman’s article in the Times. No. 10…

Is Sunak right to say the Palestine march is ‘disrespectful’?

9 November 2023 12:40 am

What does Rishi Sunak mean when he says Saturday’s pro-Palestine march in London is ‘disrespectful’? The Prime Minister was responding…

All Sunak wants to do is attack Labour

8 November 2023 4:24 am

Rishi Sunak wants voters to see the Conservatives as taking difficult, ambitious choices, including on net zero and transport. He…

The King’s Speech was all about the next election

7 November 2023 11:29 pm

‘My ministers’ focus is on increasing economic growth and safeguarding the health and security of the British people for generations…

Sunak’s AI summit has achieved little on its own

3 November 2023 4:38 am

What was the point of Rishi Sunak’s landmark AI summit at Bletchley Park? The Prime Minister has just given a…

What’s the point of the Covid inquiry?

31 October 2023 4:07 am

Was anything in Martin Reynolds’s evidence to the Covid inquiry surprising today? We already knew that Boris Johnson had a…

Can Starmer take the heat off the Labour ceasefire row?

29 October 2023 10:54 pm

Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from Labour frontbenchers to change tack and back calls for a ceasefire in the…

Will the UK proscribe Iran’s revolutionary guard?

25 October 2023 12:53 am

Why won’t the government proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? MPs have been asking that question for more than a…

Sunak declares ‘watershed moment’ in Middle East

24 October 2023 4:45 am

Rishi Sunak’s update to MPs on the Israel-Hamas conflict today included the revelation that the UK security services had concluded…

Can Sunak convince Tory MPs to hold their nerve?

20 October 2023 8:21 pm

Why have the Tories lost both Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, seats they could normally rely on the laws of physics…

Sunak unites the Commons behind Israel’s right to defence

19 October 2023 12:40 am

Most of the questions to Rishi Sunak today at Prime Minister’s Questions can be usefully summarised by the point put…

Sunak calls the Israel attack a ‘pogrom’

17 October 2023 4:44 am

Should the UK warn Israel about its response to the Hamas attack? The Prime Minister was very pointed as he…

Keir Starmer looks ready for an election

11 October 2023 2:33 am

The stage invasion at the start of Keir Starmer’s speech was a total failure for the protestor who carried it…

Rishi Sunak vows to end the ‘30-year status quo’ in Tory conference speech

5 October 2023 12:15 am

Rishi Sunak pitched himself as the change candidate at the next election in his speech to Conservative party conference this…

Sunak set to scrap HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester

4 October 2023 8:55 am

Rishi Sunak will tomorrow confirm he is scrapping the HS2 link between Manchester and Birmingham, Coffee House understands. The prime…

The great Tory dilemma: try to win or prepare for defeat?

4 October 2023 12:40 am

What are the Conservatives putting the most effort into: winning the next election, or life after defeat? While Rishi Sunak…

Sunak’s climate climbdown puts Labour in a pickle

21 September 2023 3:45 am

Rishi Sunak hadn’t wanted to announce the first part of his ‘vision’ for government this way. He was bounced into…

Sunak is embracing wind farms because of politics, not principle

6 September 2023 4:34 am

Michael Gove today announced that the government was relaxing the effective ban on new onshore wind farms that was introduced…

How did the Tories not see the school concrete crisis coming?

4 September 2023 5:48 pm

How did they not see this coming? Normally that question is one of the laziest you can ask in Westminster:…