Westminster Insider

In the week Jeremy Corbyn was blocked from running again as a Labour MP, host Aggie Chambre takes a look at the secretive world of MPs' selections — and learns how insidery cliques, funding and old-school sexism can all be barriers to entry. Aggie takes a road trip with the man who helped select Rishi Sunak for his North Yorkshire seat, and hears more about the prime minister's slick sales pitch t...

Westminster Insider profiles the woman who could be running Britain alongside Keir Starmer in a year's time. Host Ailbhe Rea sits down with Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves to explore her background, her political instincts, her successes and failures ... and tries her hand at a game of chess against the former child star. Reeves takes us back to the south London of the 1980s where she grew...

Host Aggie Chambre explores the best and worst political U-turns of recent times — and ponders how and why certain politicians get away with abrupt changes of heart. Former Lib Dem Cabinet Minister David Laws recalls the tuition fee furor that sunk his party, while former Downing Street chief of staff Fiona Hill discusses Theresa May's swiftly-abandoned 'Dementia Tax' of 2017. Liz Truss' close all...

Co-host Aggie Chambre sits down for a rare interview with former Downing Street chief of staff Fiona Hill to talk about her central role in Theresa May's first government, the astonishing highs and disastrous lows of life in No. 10, and the devastating impact of being fired after the failed 2017 general election. Hill reveals the years of secret plotting behind Theresa May's successful bid to beco...

New host Aggie Chambre takes us inside the world of TV News, and asks how the advent of 24-hour rolling coverage has shaped British politics. Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge explains the importance of the Sunday shows to the Westminster news cycle, and reveals the reaction from Downing Street after she asked then-PM Theresa May a question she really didn't want to answer. Her outgoing boss John Ryl...

Host Ailbhe Rea takes you inside the weird and wonderful world of the House of Lords, and explores the increasingly bitter battles over its future. Paralympic gold medallist and crossbench peer Tanni Grey-Thompson lifts the lid on what life in the Lords is really like, and Ailbhe has a rare meeting with an endangered species: a hereditary peer, the Earl of Caithness, in his natural habitat. John M...

Host Ailbhe Rea tells the inside story of Liz Truss' chaotic, historic 49 days in No. 10 Downing Street, via candid interviews with those in the room where it happened. Speaking publicly for the first time about that turbulent period, Truss' former special adviser Hugh Bennett and ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's former aide Celia McSwaine lift the lid on life inside Truss' Downing Street — and how...

For the final episode of the year, host Jack Blanchard looks ahead to the biggest political stories coming down the track in 2023. Guests include Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies; former U.K. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon; Katy Balls of the Spectator; Stephen Bush of the Financial Times; Ipsos pollster Keiran Pedley; Tory peer and elections expert Robert Hayward; Jill Rutter and...

Host Ailbhe Rea looks at the world of political punditry with the help of some of Westminster's best-known commentators and producers, and the comedian Joe Lycett. Rob Burley, who spent years running flagship political programmes at the BBC including the Andrew Marr Show and Politics Live, explains why Lycett's infamous appearance on Laura Kuenssberg's show in September enraged him, and discusses...

Host Jack Blanchard speaks to former U.K. energy ministers and policy experts about the chequered history of British energy policy over recent decades — and how the nation was left so vulnerable to Vladimir Putin's energy price war. Guests including former Energy Ministers Charles Hendry and Michael Fallon, and former Whitehall policy chief Adam Bell, explain how what should have been a smooth tra...

Host Ailbhe Rea takes a closer look at the shadowy world of the whips — the sinister party enforcers whose job it is to keep MPs in line. Michael Dobbs, the creator of "House of Cards" and one-time chief of staff to Margaret Thatcher, lifts the lid on the murky world of whipping that inspired his novels and the hit TV dramas, while Jacqui Smith, a chief whip to Tony Blair, describes how she did it...

Host Jack Blanchard sits down with Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, to discuss life, politics and the Labour Party over a bottle of red wine at an exclusive Westminster restaurant. Streeting, tipped by many as the next Labour leader, discusses his poverty-stricken childhood, his recent battle with cancer and his vision for the future on the eve of his 40th birthday. Hosted on Acast. See...

As U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt unveils huge spending cuts and tax hikes in his Autumn Statement, host Ailbhe Rea looks back at the economic program still haunting the current debate: the austerity of the early 2010s. David Gauke, one of former Chancellor George Osborne's must trusted lieutenants, opens up about how the big decisions were taken and reflects on how he'd do things differently if he h...

Following Rishi Sunak's unprecedented 50-day turnaround from defeated leadership candidate to U.K. prime minister, Westminster Insider host Jack Blanchard looks back at some of the great political comebacks of our times. Guests include Peter Mandelson, who shocked Westminster — and himself — with a sensational return to the U.K. Cabinet in 2008 after four years away as an EU Commissioner; and U.S....

Host Ailbhe Rea profiles the U.K.'s new prime minister, with the help of those who know him best. From his early years in Southampton and his lifelong Hindu faith; his elite education at Winchester, Oxford and Stanford; to his rapid rise through the political ranks, his time as U.K. chancellor and his machinations for the top job, we uncover the values, personality traits, priorities and potential...

As the world grapples with the energy crisis stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security has climbed to the top of the political agenda. Successive U.K. governments had already laid out strategies to decarbonize all sectors of the economy to meet net-zero targets by 2050. Now, in the sprint towards energy independence, pledges have been made to make the U.K. a net energy exporter b...

As Liz Truss considers another humiliating budget U-turn, host Jack Blanchard looks back at the U.K.'s infamous 1972 'Dash for Growth' budget — when another Tory Chancellor announced unfunded tax cuts and sent inflation through the roof — and considers the parallels with Truss' chaotic first month as prime minister. Historians Duncan Needham and Nick Thomas-Symonds explain the backdrop to that 197...

Host Ailbhe Rea goes behind the scenes at this week's chaotic Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, with newly-installed leader Liz Truss already on the ropes. The conference saw Truss openly criticized by members of her own government and forced to U-turn on a flagship tax cut, just 10 days after it was announced. Ailbhe gives the inside story from the biggest speeches, the fiery fringe me...

POLITICO's Ailbhe Rea meets the ultimate Westminster Insider, Laura Kuenssberg, until recently the BBC's political editor and the new host of the BBC's flagship Sunday politics show. In a rare interview, Kuenssberg discusses her early career, life covering the tumult of the past seven years in British politics, and how she managed to survive the relentless pace at the coalface. She discusses the s...

It's time for the weirdest few weeks of the British political calendar: conference season. Host Ailbhe Rea takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the speeches, fringe events, champagne receptions and bad karaoke parties that happen at the annual Conservative and Labour conference, with the help of Emily Thornberry, Labour's shadow attorney general and a conference veteran. Two former advisers to Conse...

Behind the scenes, the late Queen Elizabeth II was the ultimate Westminster Insider.  Host Ailbhe Rea and POLITICO's Annabelle Dickson uncover how the Queen received a daily dose of gossip from deep inside the heart of government, and speaks to two of the politicians tasked with sending that private missive to Buckingham Palace: former Conservative whip Anne Milton, and former Cabinet minister Jul...

With days to go until Boris Johnson’s replacement is announced, host Ailbhe Rea considers whether the Conservatives are now on their way out of office — or whether this is just one more clever shape-shift from the most successful political party in the world. She meets Johnson’s cheerleaders and his critics, grassroots members and expert advisers, to discuss how Boris Johnson changed the Tory Part...

As Boris Johnson prepares for his final session of Prime Minister's Questions, Ailbhe Rea takes a look inside the weekly showdown at the heart of British politics. Former PM David Cameron explains what it's really like to stand at the despatch box for a noisy session of PMQs, and reveals how he prepared and strategized for the toughest event of his week. Ayesha Hazarika, a former adviser to Ed Mil...

As the jaw-dropping downfall of Boris Johnson plays out on Twitter feeds across Westminster and far beyond, Jack Blanchard looks at how the social media platform has revolutionized the way we watch, write about and conduct British politics. Co-host Ailbhe Rea, Twitter executive Nick Pickles and freelance journalist Marie Le Conte discuss how Twitter has become the main platform through which polit...

Co-host Ailbhe Rea sits down with the Labour Party's charismatic former deputy leader Tom Watson to discuss his life in politics and much beyond. Watson recalls his central role at the heart of the Blair/Brown battles of the 2000s, and the showdown with Rupert Murdoch which saw him propelled into the limelight — and trailed by private investigators — in the 2010s. He opens up about his chaotic yea...