The Rundown by PoliticsHome

In the second episode of a series over Parliament’s summer recess looking at how Labour have performed in their first year in office, this week's guest on The Rundown is Sarah Owen, Labour MP for Luton North and the chair of the Commons select committee on women and equalities.

Speaking to host Alain Tolhurst, she discusses how this government is doing on its manifesto commitments to tackle racial injustice and gender inequa...

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 most key of all questions we ask o...

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 three years in Number 10 were u...

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 agree on, and what still divides th...

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 again partnered with the pollst...

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 the Cabinets of multiple Prime M...

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 tank More in Common, and Sophie Ch...

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 to do is Michelle Clement, lectu...

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 host Alain Tolhurst alongside Bee Boile...

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 leadership, as he faces his first major re...

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 the people who helped negotiate ...

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 Paulette Hamilton, Labour MP and the acti...

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 these issues, host Alain Tolhurst is...

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 financial burden of the current state pen...

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, Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham and his p...

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, vice chair of the all-party parliamentar...

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 Donald Trump’s sudden volte face on ...

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, how they might recover once more ...

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 think tank, and Chris Curtis, Labour ...