The Times Red Box Podcast

Matt Chorley is joined by a "denial" of Spin Doctors. Ayesha Hazarika - who had the unenviable task of trying to make Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman sound funny. Katie Perrior - whose PR magic helped get Boris Johnson into City Hall. Sean Kemp - who knows more about Nick Clegg and the inner workings of the Lib Dems than is healthy.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Chorley is joined by columnist Rachel Sylvester on the fall out from Iain Duncan Smith's resignation, politics professor Matthew Goodwin on the EU referendum and columnist Hugo Rifkind on the boat on everyone's lips, 'Boaty McBoatface'.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Chorley is joined by Senior Political Correspondent Lucy Fisher, European Football Writer (and fellow Times podcast presenter) Gabriele Marcotti, plus Property Editor and Assistant Editor of The Times Anne Ashworth.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Chorley is joined by Deputy Editor of The Times, Emma Tucker, who examines the latest attempt to deal with the migrant crisis, columnist Daniel Finkelstein who says Junior Doctors must face realities and columnist Matthew Parris on the legacy of the recently deceased Nancy Reagan.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Matt Chorley is joined by Political sketch-writer and diarist Patrick Kidd, columnist Jenni Russell and Assistant Editor of The Spectator, Isabel Hardman. Patrick Kidd: Marco Rubio is a big-eared sweaty robot with a water addiction, while Donald Trump is a stubby-fingered orange-faced pants-wetter with a dodgy hairdo. Meanwhile David Cameron makes "yer mum" jokes at Jeremy Corbyn, while Labour MPs still make piggy noises at the Prime Minister. Do playground insults demean politics or are they what's needed to get Joe Public interested? Jenni Russell In the last few days I've been struck by the number of people I've come across who say they want to understand the consequences of leaving or staying in Europe before they decide which way to vote. But those facts are hard to come by. There are plenty of grand assertions on both sides but their truth is hard to judge. The referendum will be won by the side that can make a complex question sound clear and plausible. Neither has managed that yet. Isabel...

Debating the UK's position in the EU: Matt Chorley is joined by Brussels Correspondent Bruno Waterfield, Columnist Melanie Phillips and the Times' Chief Political Correspondent Michael Savage.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Philip Aldrick: Global markets have been in meltdown but one man who may be smiling is the chancellor. Government borrowing costs have fallen to an all-time low, which make servicing the nation’s £1.5 trillion of debt cheaper. Over the next five years, Capital Economics estimates lower market interest rates and lower inflation will hand George Osborne a £20 billion windfall. He’s struggling to make the books balance through tax and spending policy. Instead, he’s getting a helping hand from the most unlikely of sources. Natasha Clark: The polls are all we have to try and figure out what's going to happen with the EU referendum. But the polls lately have been showing us drastically different answers; there have been 22 percentage points between some polls for results in support of Remain, and around 13 percentage points difference for Leave. Pollsters say that the phone and internet polling will show us different answers, possibly because people are more likely to want to say that they want to remain in... &

The Opinion podcast is now the Red Box Podcast from The Times. Columnist Robert Crampton, Media Editor Elizabeth Rigby and Deputy Political Editor Sam Coates joins host Matt Chorley. Robert Crampton: The Labour Party cannot achieve a coherent position on Trident while Jeremy Corbyn is leader. The moment he said he would never use the nuclear deterrent as a future PM was the moment Labour lost the next election. Party pragmatists should focus on toppling Corbyn, not cobbling together a futile compromise on Trident renewal. Elizabeth Rigby: Freedom of Information: Tony Blair [bitterly regretted] introducing FOI laws; Chris Grayling said FoI was being misused 'as a research tool to generate stories for the media' and now David Cameron is carrying out a review with one intention – to limit access to government information. Entirely antipathetic to voters’ demands for more openness not less, the backlash has been swift, ferocious and near universal. Will Cameron abandon the fight? Probably and so he...

Host Matt Chorley is joined by Chief Leader writer Giles Whittell and columnists Jenni Russell and Phil Collins. Giles Whittell: Hillary Clinton is going to be the next president of the United States. Of course a lot of people are going to spend a lot of time analysing this [Tuesday] morning's Iowa caucus results, but the facts are these: Trump and Cruz are unelectable in a national race. Only one mainstream Republican has a chance of squeezing past them. That is Marco Rubio. He has already torpedoed his image with Latinos by betraying them on immigration reform. Bernie Sanders is a socialist. Hillary beats Bernie, and then beats whoever the GOP puts up. Simple. Jenni Russell: Is David Cameron simply the luckiest prime minister ever, or is there an element of skill in his performance which we rarely credit? He beat the SNP and crushed the LibDems. Now Labour is distracted and divided and even the Eurosceptic threat is evaporating as they are consumed by vicious internal fights. With no coherent...

Matt Chorley is joined by Assistant Editor Anne Ashworth and columnists Giles Coren and David Aaronovitch. Anne Ashworth: Pension tax reliefs for the higher-paid have already been reduced and more cuts are coming. The justification for this reform is fairness: the higher-paid have had it too good. But if you make company pension scheme membership less attractive to executives, this make it less likely that they will support these schemes - which will hurt the less well-off. This is just another Treasury tax grab, disguised as redistribution. Giles Coren: A survey commissioned by the Labour party has revealed that, "A disproportionate number of members who have joined since the 2015 general election are ‘high-status city dwellers’ pursuing well-paid jobs”. Most of them are from North London. So Corbyn and McDonnell rode to power on a crest of people exactly like me, except with the politics of Rik out of the Young Ones. One Labour MP has suggested that, "Members with properties valued at over a...

On this week's panel we have columnist Rachel Sylvester on the rise of Russia (in Labour), political reporter Callum Jones on Labour’s obsession with Twitter and columnist Matthew Parris on why an Oxford college might be right to tear down a statue of Cecil Rhodes.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Opinion podcast is back with a brand new host. Red Box editor Matt Chorley is joined by panelists Hugo Rifkind, Oliver Kamm and Lucy Fisher. Hugo Rifkind: The Tories are sleepwalking into disaster on the EU. For David Cameron, with ministers freely campaigning on both sides, if he loses, he loses, and if he wins, he still loses. Cameron has asked his government to remain civil on Europe, which is a thing no Conservative ever has been before. And what happens after the vote, to those on the losing side? Will they really still have a future? Oliver Kamm: The transformation of Labour from a party of government to an irrelevant sect continues apace. The lack of respect, let alone support, for Jeremy Corbyn among Labour MPs is palpable but still worse is the incredibility of the leadership’s views. On economic policy and defence, Corbyn & John McDonnell are far out of line with the position of the party both historically and in its current stance. Electoral retribution is guaranteed and extinction...

Host Philip Webster is joined by Robbie Millen, Philip Aldrick and Patrick Kidd in this 2016 preview special. Robbie Millen: In or Out? Leave or Remain? I have all sorts of firm views about relatively trivial issues yet on the greatest issue facing Britain I flip flop around in the no-man’s land of the undecided voter. I don’t want to be a “don’t know” that’s why I’m looking forward to the EU referendum and the debate it ought to provoke. Philip Aldrick: Interest rates will finally go up - but we will have to wait until after the Brexit referendum, which the ins will win. Perversely, those rates will increase into a slowing economy. The chancellor will tighten the screw with more tax rises in the march budget. House prices will come off the boil. And there will be a small financial crisis in emerging markets that everyone will panic about before it blows over. Patrick Kidd: Next year one of the main political parties will change its leader, but it's more likely to be David Cameron going than Jeremy...

Host Philip Webster is joined by Ann Treneman, Stewart Wood and Daniel Finkelstein in this end-of-year special as each panelists picks a topic to debate from the past year. Ann Treneman: It's been a terrible year for getting it wrong. The Westminster Bubble called the election wrong, the Labour leadership wrong and it still can't quite believe what's happened in Scotland. But, just say, that Jeremy Corbyn is right and that he will increase Labour's vote, as happened in Oldham. Is Britain heading towards an American situation where half of the electorate passionately believe one thing, and the other half passionately believe the other? Is the Bubble capable of acknowledging that politics has changed, possibly if not forever, then for the time being? Stewart Wood: 2015 was the year when politics changed fundamentally in Britain. It saw the rise & further rise of politics outside the traditional Westminster cartel – from the social movement that underpinned a triumphant SNP to the Corbynista movement tha

Host Philip Webster is joined by Rachel Sylvester, Libby Purves and Hugo Rifkind. Rachel Sylvester: David Cameron once said his Party had to stop banging on about Europe but now the rest of premiership is going to be defined by a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU. The polls are narrowing and ministers who wants to stay in are increasingly worried that people will vote to leave. The essay crisis prime minister got the grades he needed in the referendums on AV and Scotland, and the general election but is complacency going to make him fail the biggest test? Libby Purves: The fear of ‘radicalization’ into actual violence is reasonable; so is public political correctness, which is basically just politeness. But they’re leading us too far down a dangerous path. Hate-speech laws haven’t helped. We need to accept that as long as you don’t incite or perform violence or discrimination, you can believe what you like, and insult other people’s behaviour and beliefs. That's a British value... &#

Opinion podcast with David Aaronovitch, Lucy Fisher and Phil Collins. -- Phil Collins: The anonymous man who said, to the attacker at Leytonstone tube station, “you ain’t no Muslim, bruv” has been hailed as speaking for moderate people of all faiths and none. Quite right too. Yet the statement is, alas, not quite true. We cannot attribute murder to faith but we cannot pretend faith is entirely irrelevant either. David Aaronovitch: Oh what a great brouhaha that Syria vote was. 'Momentous' said the BBC. A fabulous debate everyone agreed, with MPs congratulated - on either side - for weighing the issues and their consciences with almost exquisite aesthetic precision. Well, balls frankly. The decision was the minimum possible response a country like ours could have made. Anything else would have been an admission that, short of responding to being invaded, Britain had put its military out to grass. Lucy Fisher: It's received wisdom that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable & Labour will tank at the 2020 poll

Philip Webster is joined by Fay Schlesinger, Giles Whittell and Anne Ashworth. Fay Schlesinger: After Jeremy Corbyn was elected, he promised a “kinder politics”. Fast forward two months and his allies are vowing revenge on shadow cabinet ministers at odds with him over Syrian airstrikes. Even the most attractive of Corbyn’s traits are turning sour. He must drop the Mr Nice Guy act or compromise over his ideals. He can't keep up the charade of both. Giles Whittell: There is an air of unreality about the Paris climate conference. The challenge is more urgent than ever but India won't stop burning coal, America won't be legally bound by anything and yet somehow delegates are optimist for a breakthrough. It won't happen until someone does for energy what cell phones did for communications - enables the developing world to leapfrog the developed. Anne Ashworth: There's a power grab going in the housing market. Schemes - like the Help to Buy Isa which makes its debut today and the stamp duty changes - are...

Philip Webster is joined by Stewart Wood and Daniel Finkelstein. Stewart Wood: The Syrian crisis looks set to dominate British politics for the foreseeable future. Issues around the response to terrorism in Europe, dealing with unprecedented migration flows & UK involvement in bringing the Syrian conflict to an end should be the overwhelming priorities for our Government. Given the seriousness and complexity of these issues, David Cameron should seek all-party support for postponing the EU referendum until 2019. Daniel FInkelstein: During the first years of this government, it was argued that we needed to borrow more because we were in a recession. Now we aren't in one it should follow that this is the time to borrow less. We can't continue with a massive structural deficit.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Philip Webster is joined by Alice Thomson, Roger Boyes and John McTernan. Alice Thomson: Looking at the rows of victims in Paris, they all have glossy hair, white smiles and youth. It used to be the police, establishment, businesses and commuters who were the most vulnerable to terrorism. This is the first time the Facebook generation has been targeted, on a Friday night when they're relaxing at cafes, concerts and matches, how will they respond? Roger Boyes: Our efforts to " contain and degrade" Isis have failed. We are left with two rotten options: accept that Putin now controls Syria's future and mount joint bombing campaigns, using unpalatable Hezbollah and Iranians to do the dirty work on the ground. Or we overcome our fear of using ground troops and confront Isis face to face. John McTernan: To be a credible potential government Labour has to convince voters they can be trusted with national security. In uncertain times that becomes even more critical. Opposing shoot to kill, condemning French...

Philip Webster is joined by Oliver Kamm, Lucy Fisher and Michael Savage. Oliver Kamm: Jeremy Corbyn has accused the chief of defence staff, Sir Nicholas Houghton, of political bias for intervening on the question of Britain's nuclear deterrent. The claim is absurd - a measure of the frivolity of Corbyn's own stance rather than any extra-constitutional manoeuvring by the armed forces. Every postwar government has supported Britain's nuclear deterrent and our participation in Nato. That is the policy of the Labour party, regardless of Corbyn's own views. Corbyn's parliamentary colleagues know that the voters will never trust a party that is weak on defence - and they should flatly contradict their leader's whims. Lucy Fisher: Britain is facing a crisis of confidence in foreign policy, “sidelined in Syria, ineffective in Ukraine, unwilling in Europe, and inimical towards refugees”. That was the damning verdict of some of the UK’s most senior former diplomats, intelligence officers and academics in a...