Isabel Hardman's Sunday Roundup - 27/09/2026

0:05Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shops, the Spectator's daily politics podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman and this is the Sunday Roundup. This week Andy Burnham proposes a free national care service at the Labour Party conference. And tense scenes in Porter Down as protesters block the Orange Order march, which has been allowed to go ahead for the first time since 1998. Speaking to BBC, the Prime Minister said he would grasp the nettle on social care reform and hinted at a tax rise to fund a new universal care system. You know, is there any wonder that politics is in such low esteem with the public when it can't fix something as basic as the care that we give to each other?

0:48So it can't carry on. Somebody needs to grasp the nettle. I will be the one to do that. And I realise it might require me to spend some political capital, that it might make me unpopular with some, but that isn't going to stop me. If people weren't aware, your father, Roy, passed away actually less than two weeks ago. I think it's a fortnight tomorrow. So this is obviously hugely personal for you, as it is personal for so many families who will be watching this morning. What will a new system mean? What will you offer people? By when will it happen? So let's start with what you're actually going to do.

1:24So it's something that I proposed many years ago, a national care service. You have to have a situation where the care system speaks the same language as the health system. Because at the moment, social care is charged for, provided on a very different basis, and the two just don't connect. And the worst of all worlds is happening in that the care system is so threadbare, it can't support people in their own homes, or it can't support people in care homes or people can't afford to pay the charges. And then we see people arriving in hospital every day in their thousands on 999 calls into A &E, which also is the most expensive part of the system, but is not where they should be, is not right for them, their family, certainly not right for the NHS staff.

2:15So the whole system is working in the wrong way. And those are the problems right now as you see it. But to be really clear, Are you proposing a universal service, universal free care for people? Let's be really specific here. Do you mean free personal care for everyone who needs it in England? So I will set out more this week at the conference and I will set out a timetable as to how we make this reform happen. But I am talking about a system that works on NHS principles. So free at the point of use and universal? That is the only way that you can make it work. There is free personal care elsewhere in the UK.

2:54In Scotland. I don't think it's right that people in England don't get the same. And it's not something that we're going to rush. We can't rush because of what you said at the start of the interview. The challenge in the public finances is real. So it has to be done carefully without putting extra strain on the public purse. But I will bring forward proposals. Bear in mind, Baroness Louise Casey is still doing an official review for us. So I will set out the vision, if you like, on Tuesday. Louise will then help us with the how. How do we make this happen? When can we make it happen? But what I'm saying to you this morning, Laura, is I am not going to do what others have done and just say, oh, I'm looking in a different direction.

3:40This is all too difficult. To be honest with you, broken social care will in the end break the National Health Service if we leave it like it is. because staff in the NHS, God love them, staff in the NHS talk of corridor care being an everyday reality in hospitals across England. And if I look at the people who cared for my dad, you know, they must just feel invisible to the political class. They work day in, day out, with huge humour and humanity and skill in what they do, keeping a threadbare system, if you like, trying to hold it together, but caring for other people's parents on poverty pay?

4:19How have we let this go on so long? Laura Koonsberg asked Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp whether the Conservatives would back Burnham's social care plans. Well, we do not support tax increases. This country is already taxed too highly. It's already destroying jobs. It's already making businesses go bankrupt. High taxes are already driving businesses and successful people overseas. So what I inferred from Andy Burnham's interview just then is they do plan more tax rises. And let me be categoric. The Conservative Party will not support more tax rises if more money is needed, for example, for welfare.

5:00Sorry, not welfare, for social care or indeed for defence. We would find that money through savings elsewhere, particularly in the welfare budget, which is far too high. It looks like Andy Burnham is not prepared to make those difficult decisions, is not prepared to reduce the welfare budget that is totally out of control. Instead, he's going to reach for tax increases that will simply cause even more damage to our economy, even more damage than the Labour government have caused already. And I think Darren Jones, in his comments a second ago, a Labour MP, was essentially acknowledging that. We are overtaxed, we are overregulated, it's destroying jobs, it's damaging our economy.

5:36We don't want any more of that, we want less of it. Ahead of the Labour conference, Angela Rayner had criticised the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood's plans to change visa rules. But on Sky News, she insisted there was no division. Good morning. Well, your conference has barely begun and you are already causing trouble for your party. What's going on? Well, good morning, Kate. Well, today we're announcing your first home scheme. And if you're referring to the issues in regards to Shabana's plans for migration, Look, Shabana had a consultation on the transitional arrangements, and she's been really clear that we've got to have a fair system, that it's fair for people that contribute today and those that come to this country to contribute.

6:21And I have absolute support for Shabana in that, and I'm sure she'll come to a good conclusion on that. I contributed to that consultation, and I'm on the record for that, and we're all united. We've seen on illegal migration those figures coming down, so I think that she's doing a fantastic job so there's no split story there unfortunately but your first home scheme that we've announced today is about getting young people back on the housing ladder talking about the issues that really matter to people. And we can come on to talk about that but one MP told the Prime Minister in the papers today that he ought to remind you of the benefits of keeping your mouth closed.

6:57Is collective responsibility dead? Well look, no. I mean the Prime Minister was really clear that we're going to do politics differently And that means reaching out to other politicians as well and having that conversation. And our Home Secretary was really clear about that. And I think she's done a fantastic job. We can see that in the results, where it's net migration, which is down by 82%. 80 ,000 people that were illegally have been deported. And we've seen that on transitional arrangements, she's had that conversation and the consultation. And she says she wants a fair system, which is what I think the British public wants.

7:33And I fully support her in that. It is a serious question, though, isn't it? Because the message at your party conference is hope again. I mean, what's hopeful about watching your party once again have an argument in public about immigration? Well, as I've just said, Kate, we're not having an argument about immigration. We've had a conversation about it, a national conversation, and we've seen the results that this government has produced since we came into government. We've seen, with working with the French authorities, that small boat crossings have been thwarted by 48 ,000 and we've seen net migration go down by 82 % and a six-year low on boat crossings.

8:12So we can see the delivery there and that in terms of the inheritance we got from the Tories, Shabana has been really clear that we've got to have a fair system and I absolutely agree with that and I'm sure that through that consultation, which I contributed to, Shabana will come up with the right result for the British public. I'm sure she'll be pleased to have your support publicly this morning. In Northern Ireland, protesters have blocked the route of a Drum Cree Orange Order march shortly after it was controversially approved. Andy Burnham has appealed for calm. Sinn Féin's Mary Lou MacDonald spoke to Sky News at the protest.

8:49So here we are, it's eight o 'clock in the morning and there has been no orange march down the Garvahi Road. People have gathered here in huge, huge numbers. They've gathered because they are angry. They are gathered because they are devastated at what has happened. They cannot countenance the idea that anybody would seek to set this place back almost 30 years and revisit the trauma that this community endured. But they're gathered here mostly because they are absolutely determined that this will not happen again, that there will be no way back, only steps forward. People are here and they are resolute and determined.

9:40We have spent all night here, all night talking to people, listening to people, seeking to reassure people that actually this can be resolved, and it must be. So here is what needs to happen now. The Secretary of State needs to intervene. The Chief Constable of the PSNI need to intervene and put a stop to this. This is madness. This, in fact, is primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026. It is intolerable and it will not be tolerated. The mood here has been peaceful. It has been united and orderly. This is a dignified and united community and they are absolutely determined that they and we will not be drawn back into the past.

10:39That is the message from Garvahie Road today. And for us as political representatives and leaders, we have a wider concern beyond just Garvahie Road. We cannot tolerate the kind of damage that we have witnessed over the last days and indeed weeks to the process that we have built for decades. A process that has transformed people's lives across the north and across Ireland. And we will not give way. We will face down anybody who seeks to damage, to disrupt or to stop the progress that we have made. We are determined and we are here in solidarity with the people of the Garvahie Road. And we are in fact very proud to stand with them.

11:29And if I could mention in particular the young people from this community, kids of 15 and 17 and 19, kids in their 20s, who are an absolute credit to their families, a credit to their communities and a credit to Ireland. First Minister of News. And on GB News, Camilla Tomini pressed Chris Philp about the Conservatives' record on asylum. After it emerged, the last government had granted asylum to a former Hamas bodyguard. Well, Shadow Home Secretary, it's all well and good saying that now, but it's too little too late. You're no longer in power. So if we have a situation, this is the GB News audience sort of looks at all this and scratches their head and thinks to themselves, how on earth could it have come to pass that the Home Office granted asylum to a man that was a bodyguard to an actual Hamas leader?

12:21That is a bodyguard to a terrorist. I appreciate you're now coming forward saying, well, we must leave the ECHR, we must do this, we must do that. But you have to appreciate that as this did happen under the watch of the last Conservative government, our audience will rightly be asking, why didn't you stop this at the time?

12:41Yeah, well, look, we're now under new leadership. We've got a new leader, Kemi Badenok. I'm the new Shadow Home Secretary. And under new leadership, we've got a new approach. And we've looked back at the past, both what the current government, Labour government are doing, but also what happened under the previous Conservative government, which I'm going to be honest, it was not good enough. That was not good enough. That should not have happened. It was wrong, right? So we've looked back at the record of the last government as well. And it wasn't just this. there were other things that were wrong as well.

13:06We've diagnosed why those things happened. We've concluded the principal cause of it was the whole legal system. So we've now got a new policy to totally dismantle the legal system. So we've done what is thoughtful and responsible. We've worked out why these problems happened. They were problems. They should never have happened, I'll be honest about that. And we've got a detailed solution. Now, we're the only party to have a proper solution. Labour don't really want to solve it because they're in hock to their fanatically left-wing, open-borders MPs. By the way, Liberal Democrats are just as bad as Labour.

13:36Their MPs, if anything, are even more pro-open borders than Labour. Lots of people that vote Lib Dem don't realise that. But reform, they say the right things, but they don't have a detailed, credible plan. We're the only party to have that detailed, credible plan based on an assessment and an analysis of what went wrong in the past. And it did go wrong, I'll be honest. That's all for this week. I'm Isabel Hartman. and this podcast was produced by Joe Bedell-Brill. If you enjoy Coffeehouse Shots, don't forget to click the follow button on whatever platform you are listening to us on. That way you'll get the latest episodes straight to your feed as soon as it's released.

14:12And do subscribe to our daily Evening Blend email. It's a free roundup of all the political news each day, along with analysis and a diary on what to expect next. Just go to spectator.co.uk forward slash blend. Thanks for listening and I hope you join us again next week.

14:34Thank you.