As Reform UK continue to top the polls, this week we’re looking at why so many voters are turning away from the two main parties and looking in Nigel Farage’s direction, and what they need to do to convert the curious into an election-winning majority.

So PoliticsHome has teamed up once again with the polling and strategy gurus at Thinks Insight, who have conducted focus groups with a host of Labour and Conservative voters thinking of backing Reform next time round, asking why they are ditching their previous party.

So to help host Alain Tolhurst assess the results of this work and look at how and why the political landscape of the UK is changing, he is joined by Allie Jennings, director at Thinks, along with leading academic Paula Surridge, Professor of Political Sociology at Bristol University, and PolHome editor Adam Payne.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

As the Budget finally looms into view, this week the panel takes a look at one of the potential tax reforms suggested to Chancellors year-in, year-out, that could transform the Treasury coffers, but is one that this government, and every previous one stretching back decades, has refused to touch - council tax.

While economists and tax experts all agree it is an unfair, outdated and regressive levy, nobody has the political will to change it, so to look at why that is, and what it could be replaced with, host Alain Tolhurst is joined by Labour MP Jonathan Brash, chair of the APPG on council tax, along with Dan Neidle, founder of Tax Policy Associates, and two members of the Treasury select committee - Conservative former minister Harriett Baldwin, and Labour’s Catherine West.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

There is a crisis in higher education, as financial woes threaten the UK’s world-renowned university sector, with dozens of institutions in serious financial difficulties with fears of cuts, closures and collapse.

Joining host Alain Tolhurst to discuss what is causing such strain on universities, how it can be solved, and what may happen if it doesn’t, are the former universities minister, Conservative peer Lord Jo Johnson, as well as Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, Jess Lister, director at the strategy consultancy Public First, as well as Sarah Stevens, director of strategy at The Russell Group of leading universities, and Matilda Martin, reporter at PolHome.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

With the Autumn Budget looming, this week The Rundown takes a look at one of the key players in shaping the government’s fiscal policy, but one that we know little about. 

The forecast on the future health of the British economy delivered to Rachel Reeves by the Office for Budget Responsibility will have more impact on shaping what the Chancellor announces next month than almost anything else, but who are the unelected panjandrums who sit on the independent body known as the OBR, how reliable are their economic estimations, and why do they hold so much sway over the Treasury?

Joining host Alain Tolhurst to discuss whether the OBR really runs Britain, and if it needs reform, or perhaps abolition all together as some have suggested, is the Conservative former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, and Ben Zaranko, associate director at the think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Jeevun Sandher, a Labour MP and former member of the Treasury Select Committee.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here
• And to submit your nomination for this year's Women in Westminster: The 100 list, click here

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

As the storms roll in and all memories of summer recede, for the health service this only means one thing; the start of the annual winter pressures faced by the NHS.

After record waits in A&E last year, sharp increases in corridor care and waiting lists spiralling further beyond long-missed targets, this week host Alain Tolhurst looks at what the government is doing to prevent another crisis this winter.

Joining him are Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP and her party’s spokesman on health and social care, along with Rosie Beacon, research manager and head of health at  the Re:State think tank, and Siva Anandaciva, director of policy at the King’s Fund, a health sector charity.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here
• And to submit your nomination for this year's Women in Westminster: The 100 list, click here

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

After the collapse of the Chinese spying case, host Alain Tolhurst looks at the state of the Anglo-Sino relationship, how it has evolved over the years, where UK-China relations are now under this current government, and what should be done to improve them.

On the panel are Tony Vaughan, Labour MP for Folkestone and Hythe, and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on China, along with Mark Field, former minister for Asia and author of The End of an Era: The Decline and Fall of the Tory Party, with Dr Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies and director of the Lau China Institute at Kings College London, and Luke de Pulford, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here
• And to submit your nomination for this year's Women in Westminster: The 100 list, click here

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

Something a little bit different again this week, as host Alain Tolhurst and the PolHome team head up to Manchester for the Conservative Party’s annual conference, and return with a despatch from the four-day event, finding out what the mood is like among the Tories as they settle into the slog of opposition.

Featuring MPs, pollsters and academics, including Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride, Shadow Housing Secretary James Cleverly, shadow transport minister Greg Smith, pollsters Allie Jennings from ThinksInsight and Patrick English from YouGov, politics professor Rob Ford, and economist Tom Pope from the Institute for Government, they assess whether there is still life left in the party, what their plan is to get back into office, and whether it will be Kemi Badenoch who tries to lead them there...

• To sign up for our newsletters click here
• And to submit your nomination for this year's Women in Westminster: The 100 list, click here

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

This week's episode is a little different, as listeners are taken deep within Labour’s annual party conference, giving you the inside track on how things unfolded in Liverpool over the past few days, from Andy Burnham's leadership challenge, Cabinet ministers taking on Nigel Farage, as well as the less serious moments such as a charity rugby league game and the infamous Mirror party on the final night.

Host Alain Tolhurst spoke to a number of MPs, including transport minister Keir Mather, Charlotte Nichols, Josh Dean, Peter Swallow, Ben Goldsborough and Josh Fenton-Glynn, as well as West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker, former MP and Manchester deputy mayor Kate Green, and pollsters Scarlett Maguire of Merlin Strategy and Patrick English from YouGov, plus the rest of the PolHome team, about the story of this year’s event.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

This week the focus is on the Liberal Democrats after the party held their annual conference in Bournemouth.

Which despite still giving off a celebratory mood at becoming the third-largest party in the Commons last year, was beset by questions over whether Ed Davey’s stunt-based leadership style is wearing a little thin.

And a discussion whether they are punching below their weight in the political discourse 12 months on from their biggest electoral success, as Reform and Nigel Farage continue to pull Westminster and the media’s focus.

The episode starts with some despatches from the south coast, recorded by PolHome reporter Zoe Crowther at the event, who spoke to a number of the party’s MPs about the big themes of conference, and where the Lib Dems are positioning themselves in our fractured political system.

She spoke to Jess Brown-Fuller, former leader Tim Farron, and James MacCleary, before joining host Alain Tolhurst alongside another Lib Dem MP, Alison Bennett, her party’s spokesman on care and carers, as well as Sophie Church, reporter on our sister title The House magazine.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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

This week the so-called ‘dark arts’ of politics are being demystified, with a look inside the system known as whipping, where MPs are corralled by fair means or foul into voting with their party’s leadership in Parliament.

But in the modern era have things moved more from threats of punishment to pastoral care? And have the days of the 'little black book' filled with politicians misdeeds ready to be used against them, as made famous by Francis Urquhart, the fictional chief whip in the classic TV show House of Cards, been banished to a bygone era, or do whips still hold sway over their flock?

Joining host Alain Tolhurst to discuss all that - and also the changes made by Keir Starmer to his whipping operation last week- are Seb Whale, journalist and author of a new book - The Usual Channels - which unpicks the mysterious world of political whips, as well as Lord Mark Harper, the Conservative peer and former Cabinet minister, who served as Chief Whip in the Commons under David Cameron’s premiership.

• To sign up for our newsletters click here

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