In the run up to the local elections, and following his recent piece on the care crisis, James Butler joins Tom to discuss some of the other problems facing the UK, and what the two major parties are promising to do to alleviate (or exacerbate) them.
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Today
On Politics: The Bust-up at the BBC
The BBC is in crisis, again. A leaked dossier alleging a lack of impartiality in its reporting on Trump, Israel, race and gender has felled its director general and drawn threats of a defamation lawsuit from the White House. Yet many at the corporation point to the dossier’s cult ... Show More
1h 4m
Nov 21
Aftershock: The War on Terror – Episode 1: With Us or Against Us
In the days after 9/11, George W. Bush declared a state of emergency and initiated what would become an unprecedented expansion of US power. Public debate narrowed: there were new limits on what was acceptable, and not acceptable, to say. The London Review of Books published a nu ... Show More
44m 54s
Nov 2021
How to fix a country, with James Plunkett
James Plunkett's new book, End State: 9 Ways Society is Broken, draws on his years working in both public policy and at the top tiers of government. A former advisor to UK prime minister Gordon Brown, his book looks at how to reboot some key ideas ranging from commerce to healthc ... Show More
52m 17s
Nov 2019
Election Special: Polls, manifestos, and the battle for the north w/ James Meadway
James Meadway joins me to discuss whether the Conservative manifesto and its limited spending promises will prevent the Tories taking Labour seats in the Midlands, the north of England and Wales. We also spoke about the usefulness of opinion polling, why the Liberal Democrats are ... Show More
28m 28s
Feb 2023
The UK's political battlegrounds
Last year the UK had three different prime ministers, four different chancellors and five different housing ministers. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister for close to a decade, recently announced her resignation - and it’s not clear who will replace her. British politics ... Show More
57m 30s
Jul 2023
How To Start A New Political Party
<p>More than one hundred new political parties have already been registered this year, but what does it take to create one that goes the distance? Kate McCann is in for Matt, and speaks to former First Minister Alex Salmond, the Rubbish Party's Sally Cogley, and Maia Thomas, spok ... Show More
43m 10s