The latest Covid inquiry report barely caused a ripple in Westminster yesterday. It's not just that this is the sixth module of the inquiry, which has been running since 2022, but also that the report itself has offered little in the way of revelations. The care sector suffered particularly as a result of poor pre-pandemic planning. Ministers' claim to have thrown a 'protective ring' around care homes was manifestly untrue. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/why-ar… | @IsabelHardman

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: This week, The Spectator hosted a debate on the motion: This house believes Britain no longer has free speech. Chaired by The Spectator's Assistant Editor Isabel Hardman, the debate saw former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie and women's rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen propose the motion, with former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption and politician and commentator Ed Vaizey arguing against it. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/does-b…

Remember NHS waiting lists? They used to be a political priority for the Labour government, which would claim it was meeting its targets on getting the length of the lists and the amount of time patients were waiting down. Strangely, that chat has all but disappeared lately. Today's waiting list data from NHS England underlines why. The number of people waiting for elective treatment on the NHS has gone up for a second month running, this time to 7.37 million treatments at the end of August. It's the highest since October 2025, and the health service's national medical director Professor Frankie Swords has warned that there are 'ominous signs of early pressure' ahead of the traditional winter high demand that the health service experiences. It is also now looking nigh-on impossible for the health service to reach the Labour manifesto target of 92 per cent of patients getting treatment within 18 weeks by 2029. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/rememb… | @IsabelHardman

Why has Andy Burnham delayed the publication of Alan Milburn's review into Neets until after the Budget? The review is something the Prime Minister and his Labour colleagues cite repeatedly as evidence that they are taking the problem of youth unemployment seriously – and yet they seem not to want to take it seriously enough to actually publish the document. It's almost as if its main purpose is to exist as a future prospect, rather than a real, physical report that would require action from ministers. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/why-wo… | @IsabelHardman

This year's Conservative party conference contains a number of examples of a party having some genuinely original thoughts, rather than just running along the same tramlines as everyone else. The Bayeux Tapestry parody that the party has produced in order to attack its opponents is striking because it is a much more creative attack job than the usual amusing mugs, beers and T-shirts that you can normally pick up at a conference. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/the-to… | @IsabelHardman

Andy Burnham gave Labour activists fire in their bellies at the Labour party conference this week, showing them emotion and a sense of purpose that they've not really seen from a party leader in a good while. Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch won't respond with a similar level of emotion: that's just not how she's built as a person. As she says to Tim in this week’s magazine, she wants to be 'the person saying "No"', the people displeaser. It won't just be a battle of ideas in politics this autumn, but also a battle of behaviour. But for every bit of energy that Burnham has given his party, he is still going into the autumn with the big, urgent questions unanswered. How is he really going to fund defence? How does he really propose to cut welfare? ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/the-ur… | @IsabelHardman

On today's Coffee House Shots podcast: Andy Burnham delivered his first conference speech as Prime Minister in Liverpool yesterday, promising a sweeping expansion of public services and a fresh look at Brexit, to warm reviews from the hall. Patrick Gibbons is joined by Isabel Hardman and Claire Ainsley, Sir Keir Starmer's former director of policy, to weigh up what was promised and how the party is taking it. Listen | spectator.com/podcast/can-an… | @claire_ainsley | @IsabelHardman

Normally when politicians really cry, it's because they're on their way out of a big job, rather than just getting settled. Today, Andy Burnham cried on stage at the Labour conference as he explained what he wanted to do and why he wanted to do it. He was talking about his father Roy, who died earlier this month. He told the conference hall that on the day of his father's death, John Swinney had said that Burnham would be the last prime minister of the United Kingdom. He suspected that the First Minister of Scotland hadn't yet heard the news of his bereavement, he added, but 'I want you to know how it made me feel – utterly determined to prove him wrong'. Crying doesn't always help a politician (think of Matt Hancock wiping away a tear none of us could see live on TV when talking about the Covid vaccine rollout). But this show of emotion worked for Burnham because it was clearly genuine. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/burnha… | @IsabelHardman

The meltdown in the criminal justice system has been particularly egregious for victims of rape and sexual violence. They have been forced to wait years for their cases to come to trial, which means they have very little prospect of being able to recover fully from the trauma in the meantime. Their memories are also affected by the passing of time, which doesn’t serve them or the wider principle of justice at all, given it undermines the quality of the evidence being heard when the case does eventually reach a court room. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/the-pr… | @IsabelHardman

Would renaming the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero really make it easier for the government to persuade the public of the benefits of net zero? The select committee with the same name seems to think so, warning in a new report that the current messaging on the energy transition at the moment is 'overly technical' and that the 'term net zero has lost much of its significant positive association'. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/rebran… | @IsabelHardman

Andy Burnham repeatedly claims that he can fund defence using savings from the welfare budget – just not the 'crude cuts' that the Tories want him to make. But today his own adviser on youth unemployment has rather undermined that: Alan Milburn has confirmed to the Financial Times that the plans he has for Neets will cost more money upfront and take time to produce savings. 'Honestly, in order to fix this, if we're going to get to anywhere near the [Neet] levels of Holland or even Belgium, that that is not going to happen in two or three years,' he said. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/welfar… | @IsabelHardman

They are particularly concerned that given one of the systemic problems in maternity is an ideological one about 'normal birth', if the appointment goes to a figure with a sympathy for this ideology, then it will never address the cultural problems in NHS maternity units. There is also another point worth exploring about all these commissioners. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/there-… | @IsabelHardman

John Healey has tried so far as chancellor to suggest that he is part of a 'continuity' Labour government – largely because he hopes that this will reassure the nervous bond markets that Andy Burnham isn't going to veer off to the left on public spending and borrowing. It has sparked some speculation that the two men aren't on the same page. Today, in his first speech in the job, the Chancellor insisted that they were in fact 'in lockstep' – which is the kind of assertion a politician only makes when there are doubts about the relationship. ✍️ Isabel Hardman Article | spectator.com/article/is-joh… | @IsabelHardman