2025: Labour’s year of pain?

Sir Keir Starmer is 5,000 miles away in China, meeting President Xi Jinping to drum up investment and deepen relations, but back on the home front the PM’s leadership looks increasingly beset. Manches...

30 Jan 36min

From ‘brilliant ally’ to ‘weak and stupid’ within the same paragraph, it’s hard to know how to handle the impulsive outbursts from America’s 47th President. And yet, this is the position in which the ...

23 Jan 35min

First he was pushed and then he jumped: high drama at Westminster after Kemi Badenoch sacked her rival for the Tory leadership Robert Jenrick - his crime was plotting a defection to Reform UK. Hours l...

16 Jan 34min

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had wanted to kick off the new year with a strong domestic start, tackling the cost of living crisis head on, in the hopes of improving his dire poll ratings. Instead, ...

9 Jan 34min

Imagine a graph with one line going up over time. Below it, another line does just the opposite. It kind of looks like the letter K. On the FT's Swamp Notes podcast, Claire Jones and Rob Armstrong bre...

2 Jan 19min

Can you name all the Labour frontbenchers who resigned or were sacked during the past year? Why was Peter Mandelson delayed from returning to the UK after being sacked as US ambassador? And who will b...

19 Dec 202550min

It’s been another turbulent year in politics. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced down rebellions from within his own party, overseen scandals and sackings, and delivered a constant barrage of bad n...

12 Dec 202538min

Sir Keir Starmer started the week with not one but two speeches defending his party’s Budget decisions in the wake of claims that chancellor Rachel Reeves had misled the public and fellow MPs about th...

5 Dec 202539min