Angela Rayner has resigned as Deputy Prime Minister following revelations that she failed to pay the correct tax on a new home. But what does her departure mean for Keir Starmer, the Labour Party, and the future of the government? In today’s episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Tom Baldwin, former Labour communications chief, Guardian columnist Zoe Williams and Sir Craig Oliver, ex-Director of Communications for David Cameron, to unpack the political fallout and what it mea...
Sep 05, 2025•32 min
The Green Party in England and Wales has a new leader and by an overwhelming majority members picked the candidate from the radical left-wing of the party - Zack Polanski. His campaign focussed on poverty and Palestine rather than plants or the planet. He’s a former actor, a member of the London Assembly, though not actually a member of parliament. So, is he now the voice of progressive populism that can take on Nigel Farage and Jeremy Corbyn?
Sep 02, 2025•33 min
Nigel Farage has put mass deportations at the centre of his new immigration plan — promising to detain and remove hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from the UK. While Reform UK currently has only four MPs, polling suggests they could win the next election and be in a position to implement this. It's a striking escalation in the rhetoric around immigration — raising the question of whether this marks a turning point in British politics. Has anything like this been attempted before, is it ev...
Aug 26, 2025•19 min
Donald Trump has just met both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the same week - two leaders locked in a war that has reshaped global security. For Putin, the meeting with Trump offered legitimacy and a chance to show that Russia is still a power the US must engage with. For Zelenskyy, it was about survival, pressing Trump to keep American support flowing as Ukraine fights for its future.So what really happened behind those closed doors and what does it mean for NATO, Europe and the wide...
Aug 19, 2025•32 min
Charged with looking after the United Nations’ humanitarian projects - from Israel’s aid blockade in Gaza to the crisis in Sudan, Tom Fletcher was recently described as having the ‘toughest job in the world’. But he disagrees. “The toughest job in the world”, he says, “is sitting there watching your kid having his arm cut off in a hospital without an anaesthetic.”In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Tom Fletcher about why aid is not reaching those who need it most, in ...
Aug 14, 2025•26 min
Chris Bryant MP has lived many lives - from a childhood in Franco’s Spain to serving as a priest in the Church of England, and now more than two decades in Parliament. He reflects on growing up gay when it was still illegal, the abuse he endured as a young man in the National Youth Theatre, and how Section 28 drove him away from the Conservative Party. In this episode of The Fourcast, he tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy what power looks like behind closed doors, and why speaking out about abuse matter...
Aug 13, 2025•53 min
Is fashion the latest thing to be swallowed into politics, culture war and the backlash on woke? Stick-thin models with protruding bones were the marketing choice of Zara for a new campaign - the ad has just been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority as irresponsible. And the fallout from Sydney Sweeney's ad campaign for American Eagle jeans keeps growing - a few years ago accusations of white supremacy and promoting the right wing might have caused a share price to plummet. But after Do...
Aug 06, 2025•26 min
The world's eyes are on Gaza as the enclave faces mass starvation, but the war there is also emboldening Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.Odeh Hadalin is a Palestinian teacher and activist who campaigned against illegal Israeli settlements and settler violence. He also helped make this year's Oscar-winning film No Other Land which documents Israeli attacks on the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta.It was there that he was shot dead, reportedly after a confrontation between villager...
Jul 29, 2025•20 min
A year ago, towns across Britain were in flames as far-right anti-immigration protests turned into riots, while this week the Police Federation called recent protests in Epping a 'signal flare’ for further unrest. So with the number of migrants crossing the Channel in small boats actually up and social media - not to mention certain MPs - pumping out inflammatory comments, is another summer flare-up inevitable? And how do the police , the politicians and the protesters themselves distinguish bet...
Jul 28, 2025•33 min
Donald Trump is under pressure, again, this time over his alleged ties to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. As the scandal grows, the Speaker of the House has shut down Congress, seemingly to avoid any further questions being raised on the floor. Trump knew Epstein socially in the 1990s and early 2000s and Epstein’s longtime pilot, Lawrence Visoski, has testified that Trump flew on Epstein's private plane multiple times. Trump has denied ever being on the plane and there is no evidence h...
Jul 23, 2025•27 min
In America the Democrats are in crisis — leaderless, divided, and drifting after Donald Trump’s return to power, and on the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders and the Democrat's New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are seizing the moment, but is their radicalism the way to beat Trump's Maga bandwagon? Or will they end up alienating the majority of working class America? Tim Ryan, a senior advisor for the Progressive Policy Institute, is the former Ohio Congressman who stoo...
Jul 16, 2025•39 min
Donald Trump says he's 'disappointed' that Vladimir Putin keeps knocking down buildings in Kyiv despite all the great conversations they are having about ending the war in Ukraine, as the First Lady Melania Trump keeps pointing out to him. So the president is ramping up the threats, offering 'top-of-the-line' weaponry to Ukraine and promising severe tariffs on Russia if there's no ceasefire within 50 days.Is that enough to get Putin to the negotiating table? Or just escalating an intractable con...
Jul 15, 2025•34 min
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have announced a "one in, one out" migration deal which would see France send one asylum seeker with a British family connection to the UK for every migrant sent back. Under the terms of the deal, up to 50 people a week could be sent back to France. But what impact will the new deal really have? In today's episode of the Fourcast, Senior Political Correspondent Paul McNamara speaks to Charlotte Khan from Care4Calais and Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migra...
Jul 10, 2025•22 min
What comes first - a peace deal or a peace prize? The war rages on in Gaza - another 40 Palestinians were killed overnight in Israeli airstrikes, but Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been unable to thrash out a ceasefire deal despite two days of talks in Washington, though he did nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize. Meanwhile in Gaza families continue to struggle for food and water amid the constant bombardments and with an aid system that is failing to deliver. Israeli...
Jul 09, 2025•33 min
Sir Keir Starmer pulled Labour’s flagship welfare reform plans at the last minute - a humiliating U-turn after days of rebellion, confusion and rising anger across his own party. The government narrowly avoided defeat in the vote last night, but the cost may be far greater than any lost vote. Dozens of MPs defied the whip, disability campaigners condemned the reforms, and what was once a central policy platform now lies in ruins. Critics say Starmer has looked weak, indecisive - even irrelevant ...
Jul 02, 2025•33 min
Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance has dominated headlines and sparked a huge debate. The punk duo chanted “death to the IDF” to a live crowd of thousands, and millions more watched at home, as their set aired live on the BBC. The backlash was swift - some called it a bold act of protest, while others condemned it as deeply offensive and antisemitic. On-screen warnings issued by the BBC about discriminatory language were deemed “not good enough”, and both the festival and the BBC have since con...
Jul 01, 2025•24 min
Does Westminster make good people awful or does it attract awful people? As far as Sarah Vine is concerned, it’s the former - corrupting those with the best of intentions, turning them “mad and toxic.” For twenty years, Sarah Vine was on the frontline of UK politics - married to former Secretary of State Michael Gove, friend (and later, foe) of the Camerons and a tabloid columnist. She witnessed Brexit up close - so close in fact, that it cost her her marriage. In this episode of the Fourcast, j...
Jun 25, 2025•48 min
The ceasefire deal Donald Trump says he brokered between Iran and Israel already appears to be in jeopardy as the Israeli Defence Forces promise to "respond with force" after accusing the regime in Tehran of launching missiles at Israel. Iran denies launching any missiles. The US president has expressed his fury at both countries and has called on them to pull back. So will the ceasefire hold? If so, what does this mean for the future of the region? Can the ayatollah’s regime survive? And will D...
Jun 24, 2025•32 min
The United States and Israel have launched major airstrikes on Iranian nuclear and regime targets. Iran’s foreign minister is seeking diplomatic support in Moscow, while questions swirl around the true extent of the damage, and whether retaliation could spiral into a wider regional war. In this episode of The Fourcast, which was recorded before the latest developments in Qatar, our International Editor Lindsey Hilsum joins Krishnan Guru-Murthy in Washington and Foreign Affairs Correspondent Secu...
Jun 23, 2025•31 min
Israel and Iran have continued attacking each other overnight with more airstrikes, as both countries wait for Donald Trump to decide if America will bomb nuclear sites in Iran. What will happen next if the US decides to attack? Will the Ayatollah’s regime fall? And what will Israel do if America doesn’t intervene? To discuss all this and more on the latest episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by former Israeli Defence Forces general Amos Yadlin who also served as the head of Israel’s Mi...
Jun 19, 2025•22 min
The air war between Israel and Iran has continued overnight after President Trump issued more warnings to Iran - saying Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was an “easy target”. So will he actually follow through with this threat? Will America join the fight? And what is Israel’s plan if they don’t? To discuss all this and more on the latest episode of The Fourcast Matt Frei is joined in Tel Aviv by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy who is a controversial and divisive critic of Israel's pr...
Jun 18, 2025•29 min
As simmering tensions between Israel and Iran explode in a barrage of missiles and drones, Krishnan Guru-Murthy talks to journalist Jonathan Rugman and RUSI’s Middle East Security expert, Burcu Ozcelik about whether the conflict might escalate. After a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and military leaders including the head of the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard were killed, Iran has retaliated with 100 drones fired into Israel with more promised. So what will Israel's next move be wi...
Jun 13, 2025•30 min
Rachel Reeves has unveiled her long-awaited spending review, with the NHS and defence seeing the most gains while many other departments face cuts - so, is this the kind of spending programme that will transform the UK economy and help Keir Starmer see off the threat of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK? In this special episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by our Economics Correspondent Helia Ebrahimi and Luke Tryl, the director of the More in Common polling company.
Jun 11, 2025•30 min
As the clock ticks down to next week’s critical Spending Review, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is hitting the road, announcing infrastructure investments and focusing attention on Reform-leaning areas. Is this a last ditch effort to steady the ship? In this episode of The Fourcast, we're asking: Has Labour already lost control, just months into government? And can Keir Starmer turn things around? Joining Matt Frei in the studio is Anushka Asthana, wrapping up two decades at Westminster and releasing ...
Jun 04, 2025•31 min
The aid crisis in Gaza is deepening. This morning, Israeli soldiers opened fire near crowds of Palestinians approaching a new food distribution site in southern Gaza, the Israeli military confirmed. At least 27 people were killed and dozens more wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. This comes just days after a similar incident left 31 dead and nearly 200 injured, an event for which Israel has denied responsibility. As famine looms and disease spreads through the devastated territory, ...
Jun 03, 2025•42 min
Elon Musk has announced an end to his time as the head of DOGE with a parting shot at his former boss Donald Trump over a bill that’s projected to add trillions to government debt - and now Donald Trump’s flagship tariff policy has suffered a major setback as a federal court ruled them illegal. The White House is of course appealing. Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Evan Osnos, staff writer at the New Yorker, and Kenneth P. Vogel, reporter for the New York Times about crypto currencies, unpreceden...
May 29, 2025•42 min
It’s been 600 days since the war between Israel and Gaza began, triggered by the October the 7th attacks carried out by Hamas; a moment that reshaped the landscape of the Israel-Palestine conflict.Now, we’re at a critical moment. Discontent is growing inside Israel - particularly among the families of hostages - who are calling for an end to the conflict, fearing that it’s harming the chances of their loved ones returning home.Meanwhile, international pressure is mounting. Reports suggest a rift...
May 28, 2025•27 min
The shooting of a couple who worked for the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC has sent shockwaves around the world, while in Gaza the UN says thousands of men, women and children are in danger of severe starvation after an 11-week aid blockade. For this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to The Economist's Israel Correspondent Anshel Pfeffer and Palestinian journalist Nour Odeh. They discuss the shooting of Israeli embassy staff in DC, growing condemnation of Netanyahu by Wester...
May 22, 2025•35 min
It was one of the most shocking moments of the 2024 presidential campaign. President Joe Biden, at times appearing incoherent and confused, effectively ended his hopes of reelection as he stumbled through a debate against rival Donald Trump. It marked the beginning of the end of his campaign. He was ultimately replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris - a last-minute switch that failed to deliver the Democratic Party the White House. To many voters, it was a shocking turn of events. But, as a new...
May 19, 2025•30 min
Aseem Malhotra is a deeply controversial British doctor who has just been appointed as Chief Medical Adviser of the Make America Healthy Again campaign group co-founded by Donald Trump's health secretary Robert F Kennedy Junior. It makes him one of the US Health Secretary's most influential medical advisers - and that's alarming doctors and academics around the world, because Aseem Malhotra, like RFK JR, goes against mainstream, established opinion on many topics. Most controversially he opposes...
May 15, 2025•44 min
