The Week: The State of British Politics in 2025
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, Chris is joined by Ailbhe Rea from the New Statesman and Tim Shipman from the Spectator to review the year in politics and hazard a guess at what to expect in 2026.
They discuss a shaky year for Keir Starmer’s leadership, the (almost) welfare rebellion and the rise of the “funky fringe”. Plus what can this year tell us about next years local elections?
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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Chris Mason. It was made by Anna Harris and Miranda Slade. The social producer was Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hello, it's Chris here, and we're going to have a conversation about politics in 2025 and indeed in 26 with two fellow political editors in a sec. |
| 0:17.3 | But first, you might have heard the other day, Vic set you a challenge to send me a |
| 0:22.0 | question. And then I had the challenge of actually having to answer it. And Claire has been in touch. |
| 0:28.4 | Good morning newscast, says Claire. I hope you're all well. I've got a question for Chris. |
| 0:32.9 | I want to ask if you could have dinner with three people living or now dead. Who would you |
| 0:36.9 | choose? For your information, who would you choose? |
| 0:42.2 | For your information, mine would be Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth II and Nelson Mandela. |
| 0:46.3 | That'd be quite a bit of tea, wouldn't it, those three at the table alongside you, Claire. |
| 0:50.7 | I've listened for nearly 10 years in the days from when it was Brexit cast. |
| 0:53.1 | The show has evolved magnificently. |
| 0:56.3 | I love that idea of evolving magnificently. |
| 0:59.3 | Hopefully we'll continue to evolve and magnificently. |
| 1:00.8 | Please keep up the good work. |
| 1:02.4 | Merry Christmas to you all. |
| 1:03.7 | Claire Blackford. |
| 1:04.9 | A Merry Christmas to you, Claire. |
| 1:12.8 | I'm going to give a very authentic answer to this on hopefully what is my final working day of 2025 and say that my cast list for a dinner party would be my family who I see far less of than I ought to because I'm spending all |
| 1:18.6 | my time talking about politics. It's probably not the answer you wanted. You probably wanted me to |
| 1:22.4 | pick some big figures from history and all the rest of it. But I'm going to go with that because that's my authentic view right now as I hope to escape for a little bit of arrest for a couple of weeks. So there you go with that. Merry Christmas to you all as newscasters and let's crack on with this edition. Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. |
| 1:45.8 | I was the tattletail in the class. Can I have an apology please? I trust almost nobody. |
| 1:50.1 | That daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no solulu. |
... |
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