Award-winning chef, TV star and now campaigner for the hospitality sector, Tom Kerridge joins The Rundown this week to talk about why his industry needs help from Andy Burnham's government.

He is leading the charge to convince the government to reduce VAT in his sector, as it faces pressures from all sides which are sending hundreds of businesses to the wall, and taking with them thousands of jobs and having a huge knock-on effect across the economy.

He spoke to Alain Tolhurst about the importance of hospitality to the UK, why he’s become a spokesman for it alongside running multiple restaurants of his own, and whether the new Prime Minister is taking the industry’s issues seriously enough.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Ewan Cameron and Lulu Goad for Podot

Next in our series of summer interviews is former Tory cabinet minister, David Lidington, who speaks to Adam Payne about the state of the Conservative Party.

He tells the podcast that leader Kemi Badenoch is “absolutely right” to rule out an electoral pact with Reform UK, saying it’d be “deeply, deeply damaging” for the Conservatives to do a deal with Nigel Farage’s party, adding that it was "contemptible" for Reform's Zia Yusuf to call his former Tory colleague Ben Wallace a "traitor".

The former long-serving MP, now part of centre-right group Prosper UK, also argues that the Tories should do more to win over young voters, like pledging to scrap the triple lock on pensions and build more new homes.

Lidington, an ex-deputy Prime Minister, also explains why he wouldn’t call a snap general election if he were in Andy Burnham’s shoes.

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Presented by Adam Payne, produced and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

In the latest of our series of summer interviews former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips speaks to Alain Tolhurst about government's battle with big tech to make the internet safer for women and children.

The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley said she was “like a kid at Christmas" as Andy Burnham prepared to enter Downing Street to replace him, and reveals how she felt his first few weeks in Number 10 were going, if the new PM was serious about tackling violence against women and girls, and what life is like back on the backbenches.

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

In the latest of our series of summer interviews, host Alain Tolhurst speaks to Carmen Smith, otherwise known as Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, a Plaid Cymru peer who made waves two years ago when not only did she enter the upper chamber at 27, becoming its youngest member, but arrived with the aim of making herself redundant by helping abolish the House of Lords altogether.

A former carer, she discusses Andy Burnham’s pledge this week to finally fix the broken social care system, what her party plans to do in office in Wales after victory in May’s Senedd elections, how that fits in with the new PM’s wider devolution agenda, but first, what it’s like as the so-called Baby of the House, and her private members bill calling for the biggest constitutional reform in decades.

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

This week The Rundown features a fantastic interview with the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride, giving his views on his new opposite number in the Treasury, John Healey, what the new Government should be doing to get growth going, and how the Tories plan to take on Reform.

Host Alain Tolhurst also takes a look at Andy Burnham’s first few days in Number 10, how his Cabinet picks and his initial policy blitz are going down with his Labour colleagues as well as the voters, and what else we can expect from our latest Prime Minister alongside two top colleagues; deputy editor of our sister title The House magazine, Sienna Rodgers, and editor at PolHome, Adam Payne.

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

This week The Rundown looks at what those first few hours are like inside Downing Street after a new Prime Minister takes over, speaking to those who were there alongside incoming leaders as they enter Number 10, and what Andy Burnham and his team can learn from the previous transitions of power about what to expect and how to hit the ground running as soon as they step through that famous black door.

First up host Alain Tolhurst speaks to James Nation, who was deputy director of the Downing Street policy unit under Rishi Sunak, and Lucia Hodgson, who entered Number 10 alongside Boris Johnson as deputy press secretary.

Then later in the show he hears from Jimmy McLoughlin, who was a special advisor on business to Theresa May, and the host of the Jimmy's Jobs podcast, as well as Tim Durrant, programme director at the Institute for Government, who works on the think tank’s academy programme which provides training for new ministers and advisors.

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

As Keir Starmer prepares to step out of Number 10 for the final time, The Rundown looks at what life is like behind that famous black door after a Prime Minister announces they are stepping down, and what goes on in those few weeks before they exit Downing Street for good.

Is everyone in the building demob happy, can anything still get done as the civil service waits for the next PM to arrive, how much focus is on crafting the last piece of a legacy, and how much is on preparing the ground for their replacement, and the temptation to chuck a few hospital passes for their successor.

So to discuss the strange nature of that interregnum period that has become all too common in recent years, host Alain Tolhurst is joined by three people who served at the side of departing prime ministers: firstly with Baroness Kate Fall, who was David Cameron’s deputy chief of staff for a decade, along with Paul Harrison, who was Downing Street Press Secretary for two years under Theresa May, and then later in the episode Guto Harri, Number 10’s director of communications for Boris Johnson in the months before he left office.

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

This week, as Andy Burnham prepares to take power, PoliticsHome has once again partnered with ThinksInsight, the global research and strategy consultancy, on their bi-annual 'mood of the nation' survey, as they take the temperature of how Brits feel about the government, the economy, and how optimistic they are about the future.

They also conducted focus groups with voters in four constituencies who backed Labour in 2024, but are now considering other parties, about what the new Prime Minister needs to do to win them back round.

So to discuss all of that host Alain Tolhurst is joined by Ben Shimshon, the co-founder and CEO of Thinks Insight, to talks through the research, along with PolHome editor, Adam Payne, and two Labour MPs; Tonia Antoniazzi, the member for Gower in South Wales and a select committee chair, and Sarah Hall, elected as the member for Warrington South at the last election.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Ewan Cameron and Lulu Goad for Podot

As the country hurtles towards appointing its seventh PM in a decade, this week The Rundown asks has the UK become ungovernable? And if so, why? And what can be done, if anything can be, to stop the rot and get back to a period of relative stability in our national politics.

Joining host Alain Tolhurst in looking at where Keir Starmer failed, as Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron did before him, and whether Andy Burnham will end up going the same way, is Caroline Slocock, former Private Secretary to two Prime Ministers and a longtime senior civil servant, who has a new book out entitled ‘Bad Government’, going behind the famous black door of Number 10 to reveal why the ship of state is so hard to steer, and exploring why successive leaders have failed in their promises to reset government and rebuild trust.

Alongside them are Joe Hill, director of strategy at the think tank Re:State, as well as Hannah Keenan, associate director at the Institute for Government.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Ewan Cameron and Lulu Goad for Podot

This week’s episode is a heady mix looking both backwards and forwards at the state of British politics; as The Rundown marks the tenth anniversary of the the vote to leave the EU by interviewing one of the key architects of Brexit, and by discussing what happens now following Andy Burnham’s remarkable victory in the Makerfield by-election, as he returns to Westminster to challenge Keir Starmer.

So later in the episode host Alain Tolhurst speaks to Matthew Elliott, Conservative peer and the former chair of Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, about his new book Ten Years On; The Untold Story of Brexit, on his reflections from that momentous period, and the lessons learned a decade on.

But before that PolHome's editor Adam Payne, and The House magazine deputy editor Sienna Rogers joined Alain very shortly after it was announced on Friday morning that Andy Burnham had romped to victory over Reform, what the next few days will look like now, and how likely he will become Prime Minister in the coming weeks.

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Presented by Alain Tolhurst, produced and edited by Ewan Cameron and Lulu Goad for Podot