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Institute for Government

The first Labour government in 14 years is facing a daunting to-do list and complex challenges at every turn. Public services are under strain. The civil service is under pressure. And ministers must deliver the government’s missions and milestones. But could Keir Starmer’s plan to “rewire the British state” – through using AI and creating a “start-up” culture – turn these challenges into opportunities?
So where is government working well and what is it doing badly? What can be done to make No10, the Treasury and the rest of government function more effectively? What can Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do to achieve faster economic growth? What will Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and the other opposition parties do to hold the government to account? How might Donald Trump shape British politics – and how could the UK’s relations with the EU change in the years ahead?
Get behind the scenes in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond on the weekly podcast from Britain’s leading governmental think tank, where we analyse the latest events in politics and explain what they mean. Every week on Inside Briefing, IfG director Hannah White and the team welcomes special guests for a thought-provoking conversation on what makes government work – and how to fix it when it doesn’t.

INSIDE BRIEFING with Institute for Government

Drop the excuses culture. Stop complaining about civil servants. And just get it right the first time rather than repeatedly u-turning. Wes Streeting didn’t hold back at the IfG conference this week - so what does the health secretary’s verdict on the government say about Keir Starmer and the challenges he and his ministers face in 2026? 

Wes Streeting, Mel Stride, Darren Jones, Louise Casey, Andy Burnham, Michael Gove, Ayesha Hazarika and Ed Balls all joined the IfG Annual Conference to discuss what government is doing right, what it is getting wrong, and what it needs to do differently. We discuss the fascinating, headline-making and thought provoking day.

The performance of the civil service was a theme that recurred throughout the conference. What does rewiring the state really mean? Is it even happening? What are the reforms that Whitehall really needs? This week also saw the publication of the IfG’s annual Whitehall Monitor, our flagship stocktake of the size, shape and performance of the civil service. It’s packed with data and analysis - and its lead author joins the podcast to tell us all about it.

 

Presented by Hannah White

Featuring Hannah Keenan, Tim Durrant and Ben Paxton
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Wes Streeting’s government health-check

With US military strikes on Venezuela dominating headlines, Lawrence Freedman joins the podcast team to ask what Donald Trump's foreign plans mean for the UK - and assess whether Keir Starmer’s Trump strategy will hold in 2026.

The prime minister found his January announcements knocked off the front pages - but was anyone really listening? We explore the government challenges facing Starmer and his team in the year ahead.

Plus: Ed Balls, Wes Streeting, Mel Stride, Louise Casey, Ayesha Hazarika, Andy Burnham and more. We preview the IfG annual conference.

Hannah White presents.

With Alex Thomas and Hannah Keenan. 
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Donald Trumps Starmer’s New Year Plans

A year is a long time in the podcasting world, especially for podcasts keeping a close eye on the highs, lows, trials and tribulations of government. Because it has been quite some year for Keir Starmer and his team - and for British politics more generally. 

We’ve had reshuffles, resignations and resets. The rise of Reform. The breakthrough of the Greens. Promised policy blitzes. A planned rewiring of the state. The start - apparently - of the government’s delivery phase. A government-defining budget. Some government-disrupting leadership challenges - real or imagined. And every now and then someone called Donald Trump crashes into the picture. 

The IfG team and the Financial Times’s Public Policy Editor look back on an eventful 12 months and pick out the big moments of 2025 - the most significant stories, the big political developments, and the key appointments that could shape the year ahead. Not all of these will have made huge headlines. Perhaps they should have done - let’s see. 

 

Presented by Alex Thomas

Featuring Chris Smyth, Jill Rutter, Stuart Hoddinott and Catherine Haddon
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2025 in Review: Starmer's Year of Drama

According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his first term as US president – and Trump 2.0 has also shown little regard for facts or evidence. Unexpected presidential announcements are made on social media or in press conferences, and Trump’s positions can appear to change overnight. Leaders of other countries, including Keir Starmer, find their own plans and statements overshadowed or knocked off course.

Despite this chaos and confusion, Trump appears authentic and able to galvanise his base while other, more conventional, political communicators struggle to get their message across.

So is Trump rewriting the rules for government communications? Does the UK have sufficient safeguards against our political leaders adopting Trump’s attitude to facts? Does the UK have robust enough rules to ensure that government communications serve the public not partisan interest? And how is it possible to plan government communications when those plans are constantly blown away by overnight developments in the US?

To discuss these questions and more, the Institute for Government, in partnership with Vuelio, was delighted to bring together an expert panel including:

 
Katy Balls, Washington Editor for The Times

 
Simon Baugh, Chief Executive of Government Communications, 2021–25

 
Alastair Campbell, former No.10 Chief Press Secretary (1997–2000) and No.10 Director of Communications (2000–03) and presenter of the Rest is Politics podcast.

 
Alex Thomas, Programme Director at the Institute for Government

This webinar was chaired by Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government. 

We would like to thank Vuelio for kindly supporting this event.
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The Trump challenge: Chaos, confusion and government communications

The government announced that elections for new mayors in four regions will now be delayed. Voters in Greater Essex, Sussex and Brighton, Hampshire and the Solent, and Norfolk and Suffolk will be waiting until 2028 instead. Why has the government done this? Is this part of a clever strategy or a desperate last-minute fumble? 

Meanwhile, the government is installing yet more peers into the House of Lords after a series of battles between the government and the second chamber. So what lies behind the battle, what might happen and will it make a difference to the long-running debate about Lords reform?

And finally... Sajid Javid says he lost faith in Boris Johnson’s leadership, Simon Hart says the Sunak government nearly collapsed over the Rwanda bill and Theresa Villiers says that WhatsApp group chats were critical to defeating Theresa May’s Brexit deal. We speak to the team behind our latest Ministers Reflect series.

Hannah White presents

With Akash Paun, Jack Pannell and Rebecca McKee
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Four mayors delayed, three ministers reflect, and a House of Lords battle renewed

The chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility has gone, the Chancellor is being accused of misleading the public. So how did that budget go? 

Richard Hughes has taken responsibility for the accidental leak of the budget and resigned. What does this mean for the OBR’s future and political trust in it? 

Meanwhile, the Chancellor has been accused of misleading the public over the state of public finances. So what did happen in the budget pitch-rolling and what does this tell us about how well the UK does budgets? Could we, should we, do them differently? 

Plus - the Justice Secretary has revealed his plans for changes to jury trials. We dig into the latest news. 

Hannah White presents

With Gemma Tetlow, Alex Thomas and Cassia Rowland 
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Should the U.K. do budgets differently?

Just hours after Rachel Reeves sets out the budget to parliament, this webinar brought together a team of Institute for Government (IfG) experts to share their instant and essential analysis of the chancellor’s plans.

 

Who are the winners and losers of Reeves’s tax and spending announcements? How will her measures affect economic growth? Has the chancellor finally set a coherent tax strategy? And what challenges now lie ahead for Keir Starmer’s government?

 

To answer these questions and more, this budget day webinar from the IfG brought together an expert line up featuring Dan Haile, Jill Rutter, and Giles Wilkes. The webinar was chaired by Dr Hannah White.
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Autumn budget 2025: What is Rachel Reeves’ plan for the economy?

Scotland is just six months away from May’s crucial parliamentary election, with First Minister John Swinney preparing to lead the SNP into one of the most unpredictable campaigns since the party entered government almost 19 years ago. 

On 19 November, the Institute for Government was delighted to welcome Scotland’s First Minister to discuss his priorities ahead of the 2026 Scottish parliament election, the political context in Scotland ahead of the crucial UK budget, and the SNP’s vision for Scotland’s constitutional future.

John Swinney was in conversation with Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, followed by a Q&A with the live and online audience. 
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In conversation with John Swinney MSP, First Minister of Scotland

The First Minister for Scotland joined the Inside Briefing team to discuss football, the political context in Scotland ahead of the UK budget, and the SNP’s vision for Scotland’s future.

Meanwhile, the Home Secretary announced significant reforms to the UK’s asylum and migration system. We discussed how the plans landed, what might happen next and what challenges lie ahead.

And this week saw the final instalment of the IFG’s public services Performance Tracker. We talked to the team about the government’s record on public services since the election, where the greatest risks lie and what the Prime Minister needs to do to turn things around before the end of this Parliament.

Presented by Catherine Haddon.

With Nick Davies, Cassia Rowland, and Jill Rutter.
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John Swinney’s goals for Scotland

Ambitious Labour politicians might or might not be eyeing up the top job. No. 10 isn’t working well. The Prime Minister is on the defensive. Here we go again.

 

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is in the headlines - accused of plotting a leadership challenge against the prime minister. Streeting has dismissed the attacks as “self-defeating nonsense” and has urged Keir Starmer to sack whoever is briefing the media. So what does this all say about how Number 10 is working, or not, and what impact does this type of row have across government?

 

PLUS: Wes Streeting really wants to be talking about his plans for turning around NHS performance. But our new report has some mixed news about how that is going. 

 

Catherine Haddon presents.

With Alex Thomas, Jill Rutter, and Stuart Hoddinott.
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Keir Starmer’s government: Traitors or Faithfuls?

We look back on a tumultuous year in politics, from the Owen Paterson debacle to the endless Christmas party scandals, from the shame of Afghanistan to Lord Frost melting away. Has Boris Johnson’s approach of muddling through at the last minute run out of road? And will he try to reassert control by amping up conflict with the EU? 
Plus what’s coming in 2022, from the Levelling Up White Paper, to elections across the UK and especially Northern Ireland, to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. 

“In a matter of weeks Boris Johnson went from looking like nothing could stop him to a journalist asking if everything was OK.” – CATH HADDON

“I wonder if the Christmas party stories would have been so big if the narrative hadn’t already started to move against Johnson.” – ALEX THOMAS

“Johnson has clearly alienated a huge tranche of his backbenchers… Johnson looks like a prisoner of his own party.” – JILL RUTTER 

“This is the end for the moment of the Johnson playbook of ‘never apologise, never explain’.” – ALEX THOMAS

“We’ve seen repeated questioning of No.10’s ability to handle crises – or just escalated them and make them worse than they ever were.” – CATH HADDON

“If Johnson keeps asking his backbenchers to vote for things he himself then fails to support, that creates real focused anger on the backbenches.” – ALEX THOMAS

Presented by Bronwen Maddox with Cath Haddon, Jill Rutter and Alex Thomas. Audio production by Alex Rees. Inside Briefing is a Podmasters Production for the IfG
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2021: Groundhog Year

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