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, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as well as the Labour MP and member of the Treasury select committee, Jeevun Sandher, and Cameron Brown, a former Treasury special adviser under the last Conservative government.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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 the Labour landslide last summer, he speaks to Alain Tolhurst about politics in 2025, his anger over the rhetoric around the grooming gangs issue, how his party recovers under Kemi Badenoch and takes on Nigel Farage and Reform, and what life has been like post-Parliament.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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 politics? Or will President Trump 2.0 blow it all out of the water?

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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 falling off a paddleboard, returning guest and big-time friend of the pod James Heale from The Spectator, as well as PolHome reporters Zoe Crowther, Tom Scotson, and Matilda Martin.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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 Torbitt, a campaigner on homelessness who used to advise a number of Labour MPs, join Alain Tolhurst to discuss if Keir Starmer's administration will fare better than those before him.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

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 Garland, Director of Research and Policy at the Electoral Reform Society, and Robert Ford, Politics Professor at the University of Manchester and author of the Swingometer newsletter, join Alain Tolhurst to discuss whether fragmentation is here to stay.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

So, when is a reset, not a reset? As Sir Keir Starmer outlines various ‘milestones’ he wants to achieve before the next election, a panel of seasoned analysts look at why is there a squeamishness about resets, why parties still end up doing them so often, and whether they can be done effectively. Catherine Haddon, programme director at the Institute for Government, Jo Tanner, a political comms strategist who worked on Boris Johnson’s London mayoral campaigns among many others, and Sir Craig Oliver, former Downing Street director of communications under David Cameron join Alain Tolhurst to discuss what it says about an administration that you need to undertake one in the first place.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

A panel of foreign policy experts joins host Alain Tolhurst to look at global affairs, the dangers the UK faces around the world, how the public feels about them, and what Keir Starmer's government can do to tackle the big security issues. Sophia Gaston, who works at the ASPI think tank, Tobias Ellwood, former defence committee chair, and Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, discuss whether it’s Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Gaza or China and Taiwan, if foreign policy will end up distracting Labour from their core domestic agenda fixing the country’s public services and growing the economy. Later in the episode former Conservative defence secretary Grant Shapps, and the new chair of the foreign affairs committee, Emily Thornberry, both speak to Alain about those threats, and how the government can help the public feel safer in our increasingly dangerous world.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

With the return of the bill on assisted dying next week we're unapologetically getting into the weeds of Parliamentary procedure for this episode, and looking at whether a Private Members Bill from a backbench MP is really the best way of passing such potentially important legislation. Two doyens of PMBs in UK policy circles; Dr Daniel Gover, Senior Lecturer in British Politics at Queen Mary University in London, and Dr Ruth Fox, director at the Hansard Society, help shine a light on a little understood, but sometimes hugely important, part of our legislative system, while Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage, who has her own backbench bill, explains what it's like going through the process to host Alain Tolhurst. We also hear from two former Conservative MPs; Virginia Crosbie and Dean Russell, who together managed to get a long-awaited bill securing fairer tips for hospitality staff onto the statute book last year, about how they did it.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

After a host of MPs were among the millions of people to quit X, formerly known as Twitter, in recent days over the role of its owner, the billionaire Elon Musk, and the amplification of misinformation and abuse, Josh Simons, Labour MP for Makerfield and member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, joined Ben Guerin, co-founder of creative agency Topham Guerin, which has worked on several high-profile political communications campaigns, and Alain Tolhurst and Zoe Crowther to look at the role of algorithms in mass communication, the manipulation of social media, and whether politicos should finally wean themselves off Twitter despite Westminster being glued to the bird site for more than a decade.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot

After 14 years in power the Conservatives were unceremoniously booted out of office under a Labour landslide in July's general election, so this week Baroness Kate Fall, who was deputy chief of staff to David Cameron for more than a decade, Fred de Fossard, director of strategy at the Legatum Institute, and a former Conservative special adviser, as well as Henry Hill, deputy editor of the website ConservativeHome, join host Alain Tolhurst to discuss how the party tries to rebuild in opposition, which direction its takes, what can be achieved in opposition, and how it might plot a path back to power.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot