On Politics: Labour's Problems

On Politics: Labour's Problems

Author: The London Review of Books September 17, 2025 Duration: 1:07:07
When Keir Starmer brought Labour back to government last year with a majority of 174, many talked about two or even three terms in power. But over fourteen months the prime minister has run into numerous problems, losing both Angela Rayner as deputy PM and Peter Mandelson as US ambassador (to different scandals), and facing formidable opposition from Nigel Farage’s Reform party riding high on the issue of immigration control. In this first episode of a new strand in the LRB Podcast, host James Butler talks to former Labour MP and minister Chris Mullin, columnist Andy Beckett and journalist Morgan Jones about whether Labour can recover from critical mistakes over tax, why they’re failing to communicate their achievements, and who they should really be trying to represent. This was our first episode. Tell us what you think! https://lrb.me/opfeedback From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
On Vigdis Hjorth [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:14
The Norwegian novelist Vigdis Hjorth is a master of the collapsing relationship. In her twenty books, five of which have been translated into English, she turns her eye to estranged siblings, tormented lovers, demanding…
Close Readings: ‘Mansfield Park’ by Jane Austen [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:41
On one level, Mansfield Park is a fairytale transposed to the 19th century: Fanny Price is the archetypal poor relation who, through her virtuousness, wins a wealthy husband. But Jane Austen’s 1814 novel is also a shrewd…
Ronald Reagan’s Make-Believe [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:31
Ronald Reagan, as Jackson Lears wrote recently in the LRB, was a ‘telegenic demagogue’ whose ‘emotional appeal was built on white people’s racism’. His presidency left the United States a far more unequal place at home,…
After Assad [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:28
In the month since Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown by a coalition of rebel forces, thousands of political prisoners have been released while many more remain missing, assumed lost to the regime. The most…
Abbamania [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:20
‘OK, that’s that. It’s over now,’ Björn Ulvaeus thought after Abba broke up in 1982. ‘But,’ as Chal Ravens writes in the latest LRB, ‘Björn’s zeitgeist detector was, as usual, on the blink.’ By the late 1990s, Abba ‘were…
A Conversation with Neal Ascherson [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:55
Neal Ascherson has worked as a journalist for more than six decades, reporting from Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, its successor states and elsewhere. He has also written more than a hundred pieces for the London Revi…
Close Readings: Marcus Aurelius [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:09
This week on the LRB Podcast, a free episode from one of our Close Readings series. For their final conversation Among the Ancients, Emily Wilson and Thomas Jones turn to the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Au…
Saving Masud Khan [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:01
Wynne Godley was by turns a professional oboist, a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, an economist at the Treasury and a director of the Royal Opera House. Yet at thirty he found himself ‘living through an artificial s…
Gaza, Before and After [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:14
Ghassan Abu-Sittah and Muhammad Shehada join Adam Shatz to describe what life was like in Gaza in the months and years leading up to the Hamas attack on Israel last October, and to discuss the experiences of Gazans durin…
On Lisa Marie Presley [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:14
As Elvis’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley was burdened from birth with extraordinary, largely unwanted fame. Before her death in 2023, she spent years as tabloid fodder, less for her sporadic music career than for her hi…