Episode description

After a week-long victory lap in the UK, Sir Keir Starmer flew to America for the Nato summit where he met US President Biden and Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy - but his Western allies have been in a less celebratory mood than Britain’s new prime minister.

The far left and right are resurgent across Europe with France politically paralysed after Emmanuel Macron’s snap election gamble, while Joe Biden’s presidency is in near meltdown as Democrats turn on him after his disastrous debate with Donald Trump.

With wars in Ukraine and the Middle East threatening to spill over - the stakes couldn’t be higher. 

So, how shaky is the Nato alliance right now and are the strains a sign of a wider decline in the West? The UK has a fresh-faced prime minister, but does it have any fresh ideas? 

To discuss all this and more on this week’s episode of The Political Fourcast Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Liberal Democrats’ Mike Martin MP, Labour’s Mike Tapp MP, and Karin von Hippel, the director-general of the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Calum Fraser, Shaheen Sattar, Rob Thomson.