Britain's broken politics

About this episode

Nick Cohen discusses the UK's political instability with historian Robert Saunders, exploring systemic issues and the impact of global crises.

Is instability the new normal with the UK's broken polticis. In this week's Lowdown podcast, Nick Cohen t alks to author and historian Robert Saunders about Britain's transition from decades of political stability to having six prime ministers in ten years and how this reflects deep systemic pressures rather than just poor individual leadership. Robert explains that modern leaders have faced an unprecedented convergence of global crises—including Brexit, COVID-19, and soaring public debt—with very little governance experience. He views Brexit as both a symptom of long-term political decline and an amplifier that polarized the electorate into rigid identities and normalised political dishonesty. Unlike the unstable 1920s, which maintained experienced leadership and defended democratic norms against extremism, today's crisis is unprecedented because both major parties have lost their traditional social roots, resulting in a highly volatile electorate. This instability is compounded by massive public debt, which severely constrains government action. Rather than addressing these constraints honestly, modern politicians have largely abandoned their "educative" role, choosing to hide…

People in this episode

Host: Nick Cohen

Guest: Robert Saunders

Topics covered

• political instability
• Brexit
• COVID-19
• public debt
• political leadership
• democracy

Keywords

• politics
• instability
• leadership
• Brexit
• COVID-19
• public debt
• democracy
• electorate
• political decline

Mentioned in this episode

Places: UK

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