Grown Up Politics: A Chance for Change - Round Table with Neal Lawson of Compass and Rupert Read of the Climate Majority Project

About this episode

The episode discusses the current political landscape and the potential for progressive change in the context of an upcoming by-election.

We're at a pivotal moment in world geopolitics. Increasingly the masks and the gloves are both off - but it's not a binary choice any more between two sets of suits in slightly different coloured ties: now we have the right showing its true colours - and a chance for the progressive majority in this country to find its feet and lead us towards a genuinely thoughtful, emotionally literate, high-bandwidth politics that ditches the toxic tribalism and instead lays the ground for a future that could actually work. We're joined this week by Neal Lawson , co-founder and Executive Director of the progressive pressure group, Compass; and Rupert Read , Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project. Neal is a member of the Labour Party, and Rupert of the Green party and we came together to discuss the forthcoming by-election in Makerfield, where Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester is standing as a candidate, with a view to standing for leadership of the Labour Party if he wins. His main challenger is the Reform party led by Nigel Farage. The Greens are newly invigorated after their recent win in the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, so there has been a lot of conversation in…

People in this episode

Guests: Neal Lawson, Rupert Read

Topics covered

• geopolitics
• progressive politics
• by-elections
• Labour Party
• Green Party
• climate action

Keywords

• geopolitics
• progressive majority
• by-election
• Andy Burnham
• Labour Party
• Green Party
• climate action
• Neal Lawson
• Rupert Read

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Compass, Climate Majority Project, Labour Party, Green party, Reform party

Places: Makerfield, Greater Manchester, Gorton and Denton

More episodes of Accidental Gods - The Thrutopian Podcast

• Making Glorious Trouble with Uffe Elbaek, activist, system builder and author of Doubt, Hope, Action · September 9, 2026 · 1h 22m
• "We All Came By Boat!" - exploring Ireland & Britain’s ancient myths and the world’s future mythologies with Clare Murphy · September 2, 2026 · 1h 10m
• Love, Anger and Betrayal: Stories from the front line of Climate Action with Jonathon Porritt and Daniel Knorr · August 26, 2026 · 1h 6m
• Honouring the Web of Life - Thoughts from the Edge #5 with Manda Scott · August 19, 2026 · 35 min
• Building Scaleable Trust - Of Identity, Commons and Governance with Grace Rachmany of Sideways Earth · August 12, 2026 · 1h 31m
• The Art of Possibility - A Possitopian approach to the Earth Crisis with Bridget McKenzie of Earth Talk · August 5, 2026 · 1h 8m