The Rundown by PoliticsHome – Details, episodes & analysis

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 rebellion since winning office with a huge majority last year.

On the panel to explain everything from the Labour Growth Group, the coastals and rural MPs, the Co-Operatives, Christian socialists, Blue Labour and a host of others are three of the finest Labour party Kremlinologists in Westminster; Sienna Rogers, deputy editor of our sister publication The House magazine and a former editor of the LabourList website, as well as Morgan Jones, journalist and another former editor of LabourList, along with Stephen Bush, associate editor of The Financial Times.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

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 the historic deal between the Tories and the Lib Dems, along with two members of the House of Lords, who in their past lives were at the heart of that 2010-2015 government, as well as a professor who quite literally wrote the book on the coalition.

David Laws was the Lib Dem MP for Yeovil from 2001 to 2015, and was part of his party’s team that thrashed out an agreement after the general election gave no party a majority to govern, and Baroness Kate Fall, who began working for David Cameron after he became leader, worked as deputy chief of staff inside Number 10 when he entered Downing Street.

Lord Jonny Oates, a Lib Dem peer, was chief of staff for Nick Clegg during his time as deputy Prime Minister, and finally Robert Hazell, Professor of Government and the Constitution at University College London, and the co-author of the book The Politics of Coalition, joins the panel too.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

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 spokesperson for three Prime Ministers, and is now a director at the global advisory firm Portland, as well as Hannah Keenan, associate director at the think tank the Institute for Government, and Suzannah Brecknell, co-editor at our sister publication and Whitehall bible, CivilServiceWorld.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here
• To view this year's Women in Westminster 100 list click here

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

Justine Greening, former Conservative Cabinet minister, Tory MP for Don Valley Nick Fletcher, and Oxford University academic and expert on class in Parliament Albert Ward, join PoliticsHome's Alain Tolhurst to discuss the ‘class ceiling’ in Parliament and how social mobility in politics can be improved.

Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton for Podot, edited by Laura Silver

Barry Gardiner, Labour MP and member of the newly-created Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, Pete Chalkley, director of think tank the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, and Luke Murphy, head of the Environmental Justice Commission at the Institute for Public Policy Research, join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst to discuss how well the government is getting on with its target of hitting net zero by 2050, as well as Labour’s updated energy plans.

Conservative MP for Stroud Siobhan Baillie, and founder of the liberal conservative think tank Bright Blue Ryan Shorthouse, join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst and Caitlin Doherty to discuss how the Tories can finally move on from the tumultuous Boris Johnson era as they desperately try to cling to power. 

Amy Leversidge, Assistant General Secretary of civil servants’ union the FDA, Institute for Government senior fellow and former Department for Education advisor Sam Freedman, and Civil Service World deputy editor Beckie Smith join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst to discuss the latest flare-up of the government’s ongoing war with its own officials in the civil service.

Veteran political journalist Michael Crick, who runs the @tomorrowsmps twitter account, Luke Akehurst, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, and Jackson Ng, a former Conservative parliamentary candidate in 2015 and 2017, join PoliticsHome's Alain Tolhurst to discuss the secretive process political parties use to select their candidates who will run to be MPs at the next general election.

Seven months on from Liz Truss’s exit from Downing Street, Tory MP Ranil Jayawardena, who served as Environment Secretary in her Cabinet, Rohan Watt, who wrote her manifesto and worked in her No 10 policy unit, and Dr Catherine Haddon, programme director at the Institute for Government think tank, join PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst to discuss the former Prime Minister’s complicated legacy, and what her role is now.

Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced by Nick Hilton for Podot, edited by Laura Silver

Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, John Myers, co-founder of the London YIMBY housing campaign, Dan Tomlinson, Labour’s parliamentary candidate in Chipping Barnet, PoliticsHome’s Alain Tolhurst discuss the housebuilding crisis that looks set to define debate in the next election.