Rock & Roll Politics with Steve Richards
Based on his live one-man show Rock & Roll Politics, the broadcaster and author Steve Richards takes a weekly behind-the-scenes tour of UK politics and the media that shapes the way we view the epic political dramas. The future is ridiculously unpredictable and the past is so easy to misread. Subscribe to your weekly guide through seismic times.
Episodes
August 4, 2025 • 39 mins
In a Question Time Special the Rock N Roll Politics co-operative reflects on the 'pause' of some rail electrification schemes, the degree to which the UK's independent nuclear deterrent is not independent, and what's wrong with digital ID cards?
RocknRoll Politics is live at the Edinburgh festival from this Sunday August 10th, with a different show every day. Tickets here.
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July 28, 2025 • 50 mins
Keir Starmer drops everything to meet Trump on the President's golfing holiday, but to what end? Post-war Prime Ministers, with two exceptions, assume Britain has a special relationship with the US, only to discover that the US has different views... Some context (our favourite word) for the co-operative!
Rock & Roll Politics is live at the Edinburgh Festival from Sunday August 10th. Time to make sense of it all. Tickets availabl...
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July 21, 2025 • 47 mins
The rushed water privatisation after the 1987 election was one of several calamitous policies launched by Margaret Thatcher –with the consequences still being played out today. Yet Tory leaders, potential leaders, and even their Labour counterparts still pay homage to Thatcher. Why?
RocknRoll Politics is live at the Edinburgh festival from Sunday August 10th, with a different show every day. Tickets here.
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July 14, 2025 • 61 mins
Number 10’s media strategy is fairly old-fashioned: the morning round for the broadcasters, interviews with the TV political editors and placing articles in right wing newspapers. Does any of this do them any good? And if not, what should they do instead? And this is partly an excuse to look at the wild media landscape!
Rock & Roll Politics is live at Kings Place this Thursday. There are only a few tickets left, and streaming tick...
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July 7, 2025 • 55 mins
Normally media frenzies exaggerate the scale of a government crisis - a distorting frenzy that feeds on itself. But this time, has it played down the significance of recent days?
Rock & Roll Politics - The End of the Political Year Special is live at Kings Place on July 17th. Tickets here.
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June 30, 2025 • 51 mins
Labour MPs flex their muscles, the government concedes, welfare reform is still in chaos and taxes will have to rise to pay for concessions. How has a landslide government landed on such rocky terrain just a year after its historic election victory?
Rock & Roll Politics - The End of the Political Year Special is live at Kings Place on July 17th. Tickets here.
Subscribe to Patreon for bonus podcasts, the main podcast a day e...
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June 23, 2025 • 53 mins
Not for the first time, a US military intervention triggers greater instability and many questions about what follows. It’s time for the co-operative to delve deep into the context and consequences!
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Rock & Roll Politics - The End of the Political Year Special is live at K...
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June 16, 2025 • 59 mins
Rachel Reeves’ spending review was a mixed bag, with some impossibly tight spending settlements combined with significant investment. But will voters make the connections between decisions at Westminster and their own lives, especially when conveyed through a hostile media?
• Rock & Roll Politics - The End of the Political Year Special is live at Kings Place on July 17th. Tickets here.
Subscribe to Patreon for bonus podcasts...
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June 9, 2025 • 54 mins
Sarah Vine, the journalist and former wife of Michael Gove, has written a book that partly chronicles their lives in the court of David Cameron and the Notting Hill Conservatives. In doing so she is the latest insider chronicler to shine light on the shallowness of the Cameron project, with dark consequences for the Conservative party and the country.
Rachel Reeves has a chance this week to reframe the government’s confused narr...
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June 4, 2025 • 53 mins
Keir Starmer is an evasive leader but on one point he is clear: he is a pragmatist, has no time for ideology and there will be no ‘Starmerism’. But without strong ideological convictions can a leader flourish? Plus, brilliant questions from the Rock & Roll Politics co-operative.
Rock & Roll Politics is live in the main concert hall at Kings Place on July 17th.. The End of the Political Year Special. Tickets here.
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June 2, 2025 • 50 mins
While researching the 1929 Labour government for a new book I found myself thinking repeatedly “this reminds me of now”. The yearning to follow economic orthodoxies of the past, the desire to be agents of ‘change’ while being fearful of change etc… and then I came across a Tony Blair interview from the 2001 election. This week, we look at the many lessons for now from a distant and another more recent Labour government.
Rock & R...
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May 26, 2025 • 65 mins
I spoke to Michael Heseltine at the Cambridge Literary Festival about his remarkable career, how he would have changed the Tory party’s approach to Europe had he won the leadership contest in 1990, his reflections on Thatcher, his radical ideas if he were prime minister now… and much more.
The Cambridge Winter Festival is held on the 22nd and 23rd of November.
Rock & Roll Politics is live in the main concert hall at Kings Pla...
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May 19, 2025 • 62 mins
The Labour government has signed a deal with the EU that brings significant improvements to the agreement negotiated by Johnson and Lord Frosty Frost… their deal being a reminder of the many calamitous developments in the wild fourteen years of misrule. Can the Tory Party recover from such a record or is it doomed to be replaced by Reform?
Rock & Roll Politics is live in the main concert hall at Kings Place on July 17th. Ticket...
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May 12, 2025 • 57 mins
Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have played their migration cards, but will they be enough to counter Farage’s populist policies? Will they work in practical terms? And if they do, what will be the impact on growth and any hope for the urgently needed National Care Service? So many questions erupt when moving on to this thorny terrain…
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May 6, 2025 • 46 mins
Labour was elected to deliver ‘change’ but Starmer, Reeves and Morgan McSweeney have been cautious and vague about their ambition to move on from the recent past. Instead Labour communications use the term ‘reform’ as if it were a policy in itself.
Now Labour faces the Reform Party, the Greens, the SNP and Lib Dems, all pitching bolder versions of change. Yet in government Labour is trapped by fiscal rules, the power of the Office...
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April 28, 2025 • 49 mins
There is a big UK/EU summit in May which ministers are confident will be a significant event – and not just a talking shop. Meanwhile Rachel Reeves has dared to state the obvious – that a deal with the EU is the biggest prize for the British government, as Trump oscillates wildly. Are these signs that a government so fearful of raising Brexit is beginning to turn towards Europe? And what would be the consequences?
Rock & Roll P...
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April 22, 2025 • 53 mins
The right are obsessed with Miliband and his zeal for net zero policies, but is there any basis for the argument that his net zero policies threaten economic growth? And what is their alternative strategy?
Rock & Roll Politics is live at Kings Place on May 8th… there’ll be a lot going on. Tickets available here.
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April 14, 2025 • 45 mins
For decades nationalisation was the great taboo in British politics, while privatisation was deemed the great triumph of Thatcherism. Blair and Brown were opposed to any attempt to renationalise – but now there is cross party support for the nationalisation of British Steel, the railways are being renationalised and there is huge support for the government to take over water companies. What’s happening… and why?
Rock & Roll Politi...
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April 7, 2025 • 38 mins
Is there a hint of British exceptionalism in the early days of the Trump-induced economic crisis? Apparently the UK got off lightly, while Keir Starmer can be a ‘bridgehead’ between Europe and the US. Let’s see…
Rock & Roll Politics is live at Kings Place on the 8th of May, just days after local elections and the Runcorn by-election. Tickets available here.
Subscribe to Patreon here for live events, bonus podcasts and to get the...
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March 31, 2025 • 45 mins
Trump has said ‘tariff’ is his favourite word, but will US consumers agree with him when prices rise? Plus - does the UK need a Department for Economic Growth?
Subscribe to Patreon here to join Thursday’s live discussion and get a vault of timeless bonus podcasts.
Rock & Roll Politics is live at the main concert hall in Kings Place on May 8th. Tickets here.
Written and presented by Steve Richards.
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