Andrew Marr

Andrew Marr uses a weekly politics column to trace how ideas, institutions and leaders drive the long story of Britain’s rise and decline, rather than treating Westminster as a sequence of isolated skirmishes. He is editor at large of the New Statesman, a former political editor at the BBC and the host of Tonight with Andrew Marr on LBC radio. Across recent pieces on Labour’s internal tensions, the Conservative legacy, populist insurgencies and mounting pressure on public broadcasters, his focus stays on how political power, economic shocks and media structures reshape the country’s direction.

Britain’s decline is as much intellectual as political

Marr’s defining preoccupation is the condition of Britain as a state and a culture, and the question of how it lost confidence in its own story. In “Britain’s decline is as much intellectual as political”, he asks where the storytellers are who can shake the country and point a way ahead, treating intellectual exhaustion as a political fact in its own right.

“The death of global Britain” tackles the collapse of an exceptionalist narrative promoted by recent Conservative governments, arguing that the rhetoric of uniqueness has helped lead the country to ruin. He often anchors this analysis in literature and history, reviewing works such as Alwyn Turner’s Edwardian study in “Edwardians like us” to draw parallels between an earlier age of British decline and today’s divisive politics.

In “A view of Britain from the Highlands”, and in shorter reflections on writers such as Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch and James Joyce, he uses geography and culture to widen out from Westminster and place current politics within a longer national context. The result is coverage in which party manoeuvres sit inside a broader meditation on identity, memory and the stories Britain tells about itself.

Labour has a vibe deficit

Marr’s politics column returns frequently to the Labour Party, using leadership struggles and electoral campaigns to explore how centre-left politics is changing. “Labour has a vibe deficit” looks at a by-election in Holborn and St Pancras, contrasting Labour’s tone with a punchier Green campaign and asking what kind of energy the party now offers voters. In pieces such as “Labour’s iron discipline” he examines the tight control exerted by the party machine, including figures like Morgan McSweeney, and weighs how internal management shapes Labour’s public face.

His article on Tony Blair’s intervention in current debates about Labour warns that such moves could spark a civil war inside the party, showing his interest in how past leaders still influence new alignments. Recent work on Andy Burnham, including columns that compare him with Donald Trump, discuss the choice of chancellor and question whether he can maintain his popularity, uses one leader’s trajectory to probe the wider direction of progressive politics and populist style. He extends this lens beyond Labour to the populist right in “Will the Ice killings put voters off Reform?” and “Nigel Farage’s by-election gambit”, analysing how shock events and tactical by-elections might shift support for newer parties.

Pieces such as “Left populism is here to stay” and his coverage of Reform position rival populisms as competing representatives of the dispossessed, suggesting that the new dividing lines in British politics run through questions of representation and anger rather than traditional left-right labels.

There’s another cost-of-living crisis on the way

Marr treats economic pressures as central to political stability, returning repeatedly to the theme of living standards and fiscal choices. “There’s another cost-of-living crisis on the way” warns that recent relief is temporary, setting out how price shocks and stagnant incomes will collide with policy decisions about investment and welfare. “Tax the old” argues that Britain can no longer afford to bribe well-off pensioners and calls for resources to be redirected towards younger generations, highlighting the political risks of intergenerational fairness.

In “The Budget must give people hope”, he frames a major fiscal event as not only a balance-sheet exercise but as a test of whether government can restore public optimism and a sense of future possibility. His column “How does Starmer solve a problem like Elon Musk?” places technological disruption and powerful tech figures inside this economic story, asking how a Labour government would deal with new concentrations of corporate power and their impact on jobs and regulation.

Across these pieces he writes less about technical detail and more about how economic decisions feel to voters, treating the cost of living, taxation and investment as forces that can rebuild or erode trust in politics.

The BBC is fighting for its life

Marr also devotes significant attention to the media system, especially the fate of public service broadcasting and its relationship with political power. “The BBC is fighting for its life” describes a crisis of confidence at the corporation as flagship programmes lose presenters, using internal turmoil to explore broader questions about funding, trust and the role of impartial news.

In “The Prime Minister against the mainstream media” he asks whether political campaigns can simply bypass newspapers and broadcasters, raising concerns about direct-to-voter communication and the weakening of shared information spaces. His own position as editor at large of the New Statesman and a longtime broadcaster gives these articles an insider’s vantage, but on the page he concentrates on institutional dynamics: how parties challenge or undermine the media, and how the media’s response shapes democratic debate.

Taken together, his recent coverage of the BBC and the wider mainstream media sits alongside his writing on parties and policy, forming a consistent interest in how information, authority and power are contested in modern Britain.