The Rundown by PoliticsHome

With Parliament now into its summer recess, The Rundown is going to spend the next few weeks assessing how the Labour government is performing after a year in office in a number of key areas, with the help of some top experts and those with experience of having facing the same problems staring back at Keir Starmer and his Cabinet. Starting this week with the subject of social mobility, and that mo...

This week marks nine years since Theresa May entered Downing Street, after David Cameron’s resignation the morning after the EU referendum, but while Brexit was the reason she became Prime Minister, ultimately it was the thing that ended her premiership too, after she was unable to get a deal through Parliament. Consequently most look back on her tenure as a failure, but looking back now while her...

With this week’s state visit to Britain by Emmanuel Macron, we’re looking at the state of UK-Franco relations, and how important a new ‘entente cordiale’ is to Keir Starmer as he deals with political problems both home and abroad. Joining host Alain Tolhurst to discuss why the French president is open to a rapprochement after a pretty frosty few years post-Brexit, what both sides have been able to...

This weekend marks 12 months since last year’s General Election, when Labour were swept to power with an enormous landslide victory ending 14 long years in opposition, but it seems unlikely they will be hanging the bunting outside Number 10 after a very tough first year in office for Keir Starmer. To discuss just how bad things have got, and how Labour might solve their problems, PoliticsHome have...

This week we’re taking a look at what life is like not for politicians themselves, but for their spouses, asking what does a life in the Westminster spotlight do to relationships, what their role is, and the often unfair way they are portrayed in the public eye. Someone who knows more about this than most is the journalist Sarah Vine , who for many years was married to Michael Gove as he served in...

This week host Alain Tolhurst is joined by Zack Polanski , Green Party deputy leader, as the podcast takes a look at the forgotten winners of last year’s general election, as despite unprecedented success in winning 1.8 million votes and quadrupling their number of MPs to 4, the Greens finds themselves at something of a crossroads. They are joined by Sophie Stowers , research manager at the think...

While this week Rachel Reeves set out her plans on how and where Labour is set to spend money for much of the rest of this Parliament, the question now is do they have a plan for how they’re going to deliver on their priorities, and succeed in completing Keir Starmer’s missions for government? Joining host Alain Tolhurst to discuss the vexed issue of actually delivering in office what you came in...

With Rachel Reeves still finalising her comprehensive spending review next Wednesday, this week we’re looking at how the process works, going inside the battles between the Treasury and Whitehall departments on spending plans for the coming years, with John Glen , conservative MP and a former Treasury minister, Sonia Khan , a special adviser to Philip Hammond during his time as Chancellor, join ho...

As disquiet brews within Labour over cuts to welfare, and a perceived failure to pursue a progressive enough agenda, this week host Alain Tolhurst looks inside the governing party as a host of new caucuses and organised campaign groups have sprung up, and asking - who are the new tribes within Labour Who is behind them, what are their aims, and how dangerous could they be to Keir Starmer’s leaders...

With this month marking 15 years since the signing of the historic Conservative - Liberal Democrat coalition agreement, and given the fractured five-party politics of 2025, what can be learned from five chaotic days in 2010, that led to five years of surprisingly stable government? To discuss how it all came together, and what stopped it from falling apart, host Alain Tolhurst is joined by one of...

This week the podcast looks at another of those knotty, seemingly intractable issues sat on Labour’s in-tray when they entered government last year; namely social care. To look at how successive administrations have failed to grasp the nettle and deal with the rising costs of a sector that has ballooned in size to deal with our ageing population, host Alain Tolhurst is joined on the panel by Paule...

This week the podcast takes a look at the government's plans to try and fix the UK’s rental market, with soaring rents, terrifying competition, no fault evictions, poorly maintained properties and huge supply pressures trapping an increasingly large cohort of tenants in a system that means they may never own their own homes. To discuss the Renters Rights Bill and how it will look to solve some of...

This week the panel is discussing whether the government can avoid a pensions crisis? As most analysts think the UK’s retirement industry is at a tipping point, needing bold and meaningful - if politically unpopular - reforms, Guy Opperman , the former Tory MP who was the UK’s longest-serving pensions minister from 2017 to 2022, joins host Alain Tolhurst to discuss how ministers can ease the finan...

With much of England set to go to the polls next week we’re previewing a crucial set of local elections, with more than 1,600 council seats up for grabs, as well as six mayoral contests and a high-profile Parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby. On the panel is Jonathan Ashworth , chief executive of the think tank Labour Together and a former shadow cabinet minister, Max Wilkinson , Libera...

With the Commons in recess the pod heads down the pub for another episode looking at the UK’s hospitality industry and the struggles it continues to face - with a host of global headwinds and domestic policy contributing to a bleak outlook for the sector in 2025. Joining host Alain Tolhurst for a pint in The Westminster Arms , a stones throw from Parliament, is Conservative MP Richard Holden , vic...

Senior Labour MP Liam Bryne , who chairs the Commons business and trade committee, joins host Alain Tolhurst to discuss how Keir Starmer navigates the post-tariff world, and whether the market turmoil could be an opportunity for Britain. Later in the episode a panel of experts discuss the small matter of what on earth is happening to the global economy - and what that will mean for the UK - after...

Former Conservative MP and minister Mark Field speaks to host Alain Tolhurst about his new memoir The End Of An Era , which as the title suggests charts both his own time in politics as well as the waning fortunes of his party over the past 25 years. They discuss his reflections five years on from stepping down from the Commons, what the Tories got right as well as wrong in their time in office, h...

To discuss the fallout from this week’s Spring Statement, after Rachel Reeves confirmed a host of cuts to benefit payments and a squeeze on public spending to offset a downgrade in the country’s growth forecast, John Glen , Tory MP and a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Helen Barnard , Director of Policy at the Trussell charity, Greg Thwaites , Research Director at the Resolution Foundation...

Last week Keir Starmer scrapped NHS England as he signalled the government's aim to fundamentally reshape and rewire how the state operates, so the panel is discussing what this means for civil service staff numbers, what impact this will have on the delivery of public services, and how briefings about a so-called ‘project chainsaw’ have gone down in Whitehall. Joining host Alain Tolhurst is M...

After winning five MPs last year and continuing to surge in the polls - are the wheels starting to come off for Reform UK after this week's damaging but wholly predictable internal row involving MP Rupert Lowe and party leader Nigel Farage? Gawain Towler, the party's former director of communications and a long-time spokesman for Nigel Farage, as well as Sophie Stowers , research associate...

As the future of Europe dominates the headlines, Lib Dem defence spokesperson  Helen Maguire  MP, former Tory ministers  James Heappey  and  Greg Hands , and More in Common’s  Luke Tryl  join host  Adam Payne  to discuss a seismic week in world affairs as Prime Minister Keir Starmer tries to bring peace to Ukraine. With the tectonic plates of geopolitics shifting day by day, the Labour government...

With the Prime Minister in Washington this week the Labour MPs Steve Yemm and Chris Evans , as well as Professor Sam Edwards from Loughborough University, and Lord John Alderdice , Liberal Democrat peer, join host Alain Tolhurst to look at the so-called ‘special relationship’. From its history, to why the close bilateral partnership between the UK and America is so enduring, but why it might now b...

This Parliament could finally see further modernisation of the way the Commons operates, with a new committee led by Cabinet minister Lucy Powell setting out plans for meaningful reform in a host of areas, after clamour from new MPs to finally bring how Westminster works into the 21st century. One of the 2024 intake, Labour’s Rachel Blake , joins Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney , her party’s spoke...

One of the most complex, and divisive, issues in modern politics is making a return under this government; ID cards. Advocates describe it as a potential way to improve public services, tackle illegal migration and modernise the state, but it remains intensely controversial, due to significant concerns over privacy, data security and equality. To discuss those issues host Alain Tolhurst is joined...

Instead of tapping into the mood at Westminster, this week The Rundown is looking at the political mood of the country as we move further into 2025, teaming up once again teamed up with the guys at Thinks, the global insight and strategy consultancy. Last week they polled more than 2,000 UK adults on how they feel about the first six months of the Labour government, their view of the different opp...