312 episodes
Rock & Roll Politics with Steve Richards Rock & Roll Politics
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4.7 • 773 Ratings
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Based on his live one-man show Rock & Roll Politics, the broadcaster and author Steve Richards takes a twice-weekly behind the scenes tour of UK politics and the media that shapes the way we view the epic political dramas. The future is ridiculously unpredictable and the past is so easy to misread. Subscribe to your weekly guide through seismic times.
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Has the SNP become impossible to lead?
A First Minister and SNP leader falls after a short tenure. Like the Tory party’s problems in Westminster, does the SNP leadership crisis raise thorny questions well beyond the flaws of one leader? And with what implications?
Rock & Roll Politics: The Pre-Election Special is live at Kings Place on July 10th. Tickets here
Back Rock & Roll Politics on Patreon here to get exclusive live events, bonus podcasts, free entry to Steve’s local elections post-mortem, and much more.
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Who is Winning The Battle of Ideas?
Nigel Lawson once noted that the party that wins the battle of ideas wins elections. He was right. Ideas matter and yet play little part in the contest between Sunak and Starmer. But the Right remain ideologically confident. Will a Labour government be able to counter the anti-state onslaught that is bound to happen? Plus exciting notices and brilliant questions from the Rock & Roll Politics co-operative.
Rock & Roll Politics is live at King’s Place, London, on Wed 10 July for a pre-election special. Get tickets here.
Back Rock & Roll Politics on Patreon and get FREE access to Steve’s 2024 Local Elections Post-Mortem live on Zoom, 5pm on Friday 3 May. Analysis, projections and your questions – all free to Patreon people.
Written and presented by Steve Richards
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Subscriber Special: Preparing for Power – Robin Cook
In this episode I look back at an interview with Labour’s Robin Cook in September 1996, with less than a year to go before the 1997 election. Cook was shadow Foreign Secretary and although he held one of the most senior posts in the shadow cabinet he was not part of the New Labour inner court. In this interview Cook seeks to navigate a line between enthusiasm about a Labour government while retaining his distinctive voice which was to the left of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
See Rock & Roll Politics live at King's Place on the 10th of July.
https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/steve-richards-presents-rock-n-roll-politics-the-pre-election-special/
Written and presented by Steve Richards -
Harold Wilson’s affair and how we misread leaders
In his last term as Prime Minister, Harold Wilson was seen as old, paranoid and ineffective… yet now we discover he was lively enough to be having an affair. This suggests the caricature might be wrong. What if Wilson was livelier politically too? And what if we choose to see other leaders as stereotypes which do not present anything like the full picture?
Support Rock & Roll Politics on Patreon for early episodes, exclusive merchandise and more.
PLUS get free admission to Steve’s Local Elections 2024 Post-Mortem, live on Zoom at 5pm on Friday 3 May.
https://www.patreon.com/RockNRollPolitics
See Rock & Roll Politics live at King's Place on the 10th of July.
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This Time No Mistakes – In Conversation with Will Hutton
The journalist and author Will Hutton has written an important new book on the eve of what’s likely to be a Labour government. The title is stark: This Time No Mistakes. But what mistakes were made? What are the lessons of the past? What are his hopes and fears for a Keir Starmer government?
This Time No Mistakes is published on April 11th. Buy it through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund Rock & Roll Politics by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.
Support Rock & Roll Politics on Patreon for early episodes, exclusive merchandise and free admission to Steve’s Local Elections 2024 Post-Mortem, live on Zoom at 5pm on Friday 3 May.
https://www.patreon.com/RockNRollPolitics
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Rock & Roll Politics Live – The Easter Special
A rare chance to hear a live show… this one recorded in the main concert hall at Kings Place, London. On the agenda: How do the dramas around the current government compare with other ‘fin de siecle’ administrations? How does Keir Starmer compare with Harold Wilson and Tony Blair when they were on the edge of power? Plus unreliable predictions… Question Time… and much more.
Support the podcast Patreon for bonus editions, special merchandise and exclusive live events for subscribers. Our next one will be the day after the May local elections so sign up to find out first.
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Customer Reviews
Ah yeah, it’s great!
Great show if you want to be informed and have the madness of British politics contextualised
Solid Political Podcast
Good fun easy listening but still taught political podcast
Write a review, but only a good one!
On pain of death I am writing a good review for Steve Richard’s regular round up of Westminster politics.
If you’ve seen Steve live, or even managed to catch his BBC4 tv shows (now archived on YouTube- they’re a must watch), he is delivering a breathless monologue inspired most often by recent Westminster events but in many cases takes a more broader look at ideas, albeit those that have come into view of late, or re-entered the fray.
Steve has such a wealth of knowledge on Westminster, having interviewed a great many post WW2 figures and with such broad journalistic experience at the BBC, New Statesman, Guardian etc.
Steve’s knowledge and authority gives his monologues great interest, like listening to an inspiring lecture, then in the 2nd half of each episode tends to answer listeners questions. There’s an enjoyable community element to the listeners questions and he refers to us as a co-operative. Steve cultivates a good back and forth with listeners and likes to imagine a virtual village of listeners all baking bread for each other, offering the use of white transit vans, and most importantly aiding the collective with ‘making sense of it all’ in these turbulent times (the rock’n’roll in the title alludes to the political turbulence felt by many when his live show began in the coalition years).
The pod is very informative, and educational as well as benefiting from a cordial host with such a genuine passion for his subject and a humorous tone where fit, with some funny impressions (Thatcher’s ‘grocers daughter’, and Blair’s ‘new day is dawning’ for example)
Patreon subscribers are able to enjoy deeper dives exclusive to them based on political disrupters, historical general elections etc. These are worth chipping in for.