The Rundown by PoliticsHome

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 ...

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 Max Blain, who was the official spok...

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 at the UK in a Changing Europe thin...

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 faces major questions like how to deal with D...

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 be under threat as Keir Starmer tries ...

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 spokesperson for the Cabinet Office, as we...

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 by Jake Richards, Labour MP for Ro...

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 opposition parties, and if they regret...

For the 150th episode this week former deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine comes on the show for a special interview ahead of the publication of his new memoir 'From Acorns to Oaks' about the second part of his career as an advisor to David Cameron and reflecting further on his time in Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s Cabinets. The Conservative peer, who at 91 is still one of the ‘big beasts’ of British politics, desp...

Before the election Labour promised to restore confidence in government by cleaning up lobbying, improving transparency and tightening the rules for MPs, but is Keir Starmer's administration really sticking to its word? The Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, Melanie Onn, a member of the Commons standards committee, Gabe Winn, chief executive of the Blakeney Group, a public affairs and communications agency, John Johns...

A difficult financial outlook has got even tougher for Rachel Reeves in recent days, so what is happening to the UK economy, and just how difficult will things get for the Chancellor with the next OBR forecast and the spending review looming? To take a deeper look at what is fuelling the current market turmoil, and ask whether things really are as bad as during the Liz Truss era, host Alain Tolhurst is joined by Dr Isabel Stockton,...

One of the most interesting and consequential politicians of the past few years, Steve Baker was the Conservative MP for Wycombe for 14 years, served as a minister in three departments for three different prime ministers, but is probably best known as the so-called ‘Brexit hardman’, who corralled the ERG group of eurosceptic Tories into numerous rebellions over how Britain left the EU. Now out of the Commons having lost his seat in...

To mark the new year LBC’s political editor Natasha Clark and PoliticsHome editor Adam Payne join host Alain Tolhurst to look ahead to the next 12 months in British politics with a preview of 2025; What will be the big flashpoints as Keir Starmer tries to boost his flagging premiership? Can Kemi Badenoch revive the Tories in the face of threats of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK? Will Westminster continue to have a fractured five-party po...

In a special festive episode the PolHome team looks back at the biggest political moments of 2024 after a historical and tumultuous year, dominated by Labour’s landslide election victory this summer, and the fallout from the first change in government since 2010. Joining Alain Tolhurst to discuss everything from Liz Truss losing her seat to Sue Gray’s defenestration, farmer protests, Donald Trump’s return to power and Ed Davey fall...

Rough sleeping and homelessness are some of the most intractable problems successive governments have failed to solve; but does it need to be this hard, are the solutions already out there, and if so why has no administration managed to grasp the nettle? Lord John Bird, crossbench peer and co-founder of The Big Issue magazine, Andy Preston, former mayor of Middlesbrough and founder of the charity CEO Sleepout UK, and Matthew Torbit...

What does the continued fracturing of the UK’s political landscape means for our democracy going forward? After a preliminary vote on proportional representation surprised almost everyone in Westminster by passing last week, will this Parliament might finally see some movement on electoral reform? Lisa Smart, Liberal Democrat MP for Hazel Grove and vice chair of the new All Party Parliamentary Group for Fair Elections, Dr Jess Garl...