Isabel Hardman is Assistant Editor at The Spectator and the host of Radio 4’s Week in Westminster. In 2015, she became the youngest person ever named Political Journalist of the Year by the Political Studies Association. A familiar voice and face in British media, Hardman regularly contributes to radio and television programmes including Have I Got News for You, The Andrew Marr Show, The News Quiz, Today, Question Time, and Sky News. Her writing spans a range of major publications, with columns featured in The Times, The Guardian, The Sun, The Observer, Evening Standard, and The Daily Telegraph.
Isabel Hardman’s first book, Why We Get the Wrong Politicians, was shortlisted for Waterstones’ 2018 Book of the Year, won Book of the Year by a non-parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Book Awards, and was longlisted for the 2019 Orwell Prize. In 2020 she published The Natural Health Service, about the benefits to our mental and physical wellbeing of spending time in nature. In her most recent book, Fighting for Life, Hardman cuts through the sentimentality and sloganeering on all sides of the political spectrum.
Hardman attended St Catherine’s School, Bramley, and and later at Godalming College. She graduated from the University of Exeter in 2007 with a first-class degree in English Literature. During her time at university, she contributed as a freelance journalist for The Observer. In 2009, she completed a National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) course at Highbury College. Hardman began her journalism career as a senior reporter at Inside Housing magazine, before moving on to become assistant news editor at PoliticsHome. In recognition of her influence, GQ magazine named her one of the 100 most connected women in Britain in September 2014.
