21/03/2026
The Week in Westminster
BBC
4.0 • 258 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2026
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Isabel Hardman assesses the Iran conflict, three weeks in, with Labour's Dame Emily Thornberry MP who chairs the Foreign Affairs select committee and the former Conservative deputy Foreign Secretary Sir Andrew Mitchell MP.
The chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, Ruth Curtice and the business journalist and crossbench peer Patience Wheatcroft, who sits on the Lords Economic Affiars Committee discuss rising energy costs caused by the conflict and whether the government should intervene.
Legislators in Scotland and Westminster have been debating assisted dying this week. Labour MP Beccy Cooper is a doctor, who supports assisted dying and Robert Lisvane was Clerk of the House of Commons and now sits as a crossbench peer. Is it inevitable that the bill will run out of time in Westminster?
And the Labour MP Naz Shah told Isabel about her childhood shaped by hardship and injustice within a British Pakistani family in Bradford and her journey to become a parliamentarian.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Isabel Hardman from The Spectator with The Week in Westminster. |
| 0:10.6 | What did Keir Stama and Kemi Badnock think was the most important issue facing Britain this week? |
| 0:16.6 | Well, if you'd heard Prime Minister's questions, you might be forgiven for thinking the two were operating in entirely different political time zones. |
| 0:24.9 | The Conservative leader came to the Commons wanting to ask the Prime Minister about one thing. |
| 0:31.0 | And she asked six times. |
| 0:33.2 | Did the Prime Minister personally speak to Peter Mandelson about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein |
| 0:41.6 | before appointing him as our ambassador to Washington? |
| 0:46.2 | But Kirste Stama wanted to talk about something completely different, what he called Kemi Bader Nox. |
| 0:51.4 | Gross error of judgment in calling for the UK to join the war in Iran without thinking |
| 0:57.0 | through the consequences. |
| 0:59.3 | And so the exchanges on two entirely different subjects went on. |
| 1:04.2 | It has, though, been another week where war has loomed over most of our political discussions. |
| 1:09.6 | And the impact of that war on energy prices, |
| 1:12.5 | defence and diplomatic relations means the government is rapidly reassessing its position on |
| 1:17.7 | all manner of policies. I turned to two senior MPs for their assessment of the conflict |
| 1:24.0 | three weeks in. Sir Andrew Mitchell is a Conservative former Deputy Foreign Secretary. |
| 1:29.8 | Labour's Dame Emily Thornbury |
| 1:31.1 | chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, Emily First. |
| 1:35.1 | Well, I'm obviously as worried as everybody else is, |
| 1:37.4 | and there is always concern that it could escalate at any minute. |
| 1:42.2 | And because we're not sure about what the war aims are and what it |
| 1:46.3 | is that Donald Trump wants to achieve or whether it's in sync with the Israelis and what the |
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