Working to make government more effective

Working to make government more effective

King Charles III reads the King's Speech in the House of Lords Chamber during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster in London
Podcast

Britain with the brakes off, America at the abyss

The FT’s Lucy Fisher hot foots it from Blenheim Palace to join the podcast team to make sense of big events either side of the Atlantic

The pace of British politics isn’t slowing down. A big international summit for Keir Starmer. Devasting Covid inquiry headlines. And a King’s Speech full of bills.

But all this is nothing compared to the US. President Biden - now isolating with Covid - is under pressure to withdraw from the 2024 race, and his rival Donald Trump survived, by millimetres, an assassination attempt.

The FT’s Lucy Fisher hot foots it from Blenheim Palace to join the podcast team to make sense of big events either side of the Atlantic.

 

What we talked about in this episode

People featured in this episode

Topic
Parliament and the constitution
Keywords
King's Speech / State opening of parliament International development Defence and security Foreign affairs Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy
Political party
Labour
Institution
Monarchy The Crown
Administration
Starmer government
Department
Northern Ireland Office Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Public figures
Keir Starmer King Charles III
Publisher
Institute for Government

Related content

22 DEC 2025 Podcast

2025 in review: Starmer's year of drama

The IfG team and the Financial Times’s public policy editor Chris Smyth look back on an eventful 12 months and pick out the big moments of 2025.