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 service ..read more

After last week’s extraordinary election result, this week has seen hundreds of new MPs and their staff descend on Westminster, but what’s it like entering Parliament for the first time? Alain Tolhurst is joined by Dan Tomlinson, elected last week as the new MP for Chipping Barnet, along with one of his Labour colleagues Sarah Owen, her senior parliamentary researcher Jenny Symmons, who is also head of the GMB trade union committee branch in Westminster, and Ellie Varley, head of communications for former Tory MP Dehenna Davison. Later on in part two Alice Lilly from the Institute for Governme ..read more

David Gauke, former Justice Secretary, Victoria Gethin, head of family law at Stephensons, Rob Preece from the Howard League for Penal Reform, and Richard Atkinson, vice president of the Law Society, join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst to discuss the crisis in the UK’s justice system, with huge backlogs in crown and civil courts, a chronic lack of lawyers and judges, along with overcrowded and under-staffed prisons. Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton for Podot, edited by Laura Silver ..read more

Conservative former housing minister Brandon Lewis, chief executive of homelessness charity Shelter Polly Neate, journalist and commentator John Oxley, and senior researcher at the Centre for London Millie Mitchell, join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst to discuss whether a bold new offer on house building could help turn the Tory fortunes around, and how important the housing crisis will be at the upcoming election ..read more

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 ..read more

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 polit ..read more

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 ..read more

After the most consequential Budget in more than a decade, Labour MP Chris Curtis, vice-chair of the Labour Growth Group, Mel Stride, former Treasury minister and ex-chair of the Treasury Select Committee, join host Alain Tolhurst and two top think tank economists; Isabel Stockton, Senior Research Economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and James Smith, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation, to discuss if it will help Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer reach their goal of delivering economic growth back to the UK. There's also an with Lord Jon Moynihan, Conservative peer and a ..read more

What happens when MPs stop being MPs? With hundreds of Parliamentarians having left the Commons this summer following Labour’s landslide victory, what happens to all those turfed out of their seats? Three former Conservative MPs; Vicky Ford, ex-MP for Chelmsford, James Sunderland, who represented Bracknell, and Matt Warman, the former member for Boston and Skegness, join host Alain Tolhurst to discuss if there is enough support, both financial and pastoral, in helping them move on with their lives, how easy is it to find a new career outside Westminster, and do we have the wrong impression abo ..read more

After a new bill attempting to legalise assisted dying in the UK was introduced to the House of Commons, the Green Party MP Sian Berry, former Lord Chancellor and Labour Peer Lord Falconer, and Nathan Stillwell, assisted dying campaigner at Humanists UK, join host Alain Tolhurst to look at how likely Kim Leadbeater’s private member's bill is to eventually become law, the scope it might cover, how other countries like Canada have introduced and managed the process, and how to assuage the concerns of those worried about coercion, and that passing the law might start a slippery slope towards lega ..read more