I know NOTHING about politics. How can I start to learn?

[MeAgainAndAgain]

I read the headlines online. Sometimes I read the article but mostly I’m drawn to the ‘people’ story eg I probably wouldn’t read about education but I would read about how a specific law/whatever has affected these specific people (teachers/students) in this specific school/area, and the individual hardships that situation has created. But education in general? No idea. Same for eg health, any other random section of the government.

But I want to have more of a general knowledge of what is going on, I want to follow the Today programme and understand who is who, what the problems are and how they are proposing to sort them. I want to feel ‘in the loop’ and interested and to learn rather than go with the flow and enjoy it as background noise.

BUT where do I start? There’s too much politics! What shall I read? What shall I watch?

Edited - eg I have no idea who Grant Shapps is. I know he’s out. I think he’s Tory. But why do I know his name? It’s a very familiar name but why? And repeat this for literally every person and every topic to do with politics. Where do I begin?

I’m not specifically interested in education or Grant Shapps, they are just examples as to my level of knowledge.

Well listening to the today programme is probably a good start. I honestly don't know politics was discussed in my house as a child, we listened to current affair radio programmes at primary school. I read a daily news paper from around 14. I just don't know how you can't know. I realise that isn't helpful. Try Newscast on I-player

Listen to bbc radio 4 regularly / read the news / watch the news.

I was advised to start listening to R4 when I started a business related qualification in my 20s. So the today programme is a good start.

What do you do for work? Getting a job in the public sector helps link a lot of things together about the impacts of policies and local and national politics.

Lots of good insta pages, simple politics for example. Lots of satire accounts also. Munya Chawawa can be quite funny and did a lot of informative work across the election campaign around voting etc.

I was also really interested in programmes like have I got news for you as a (very strange) child. The last leg are running a special tonight at 10pm. I definitely picked up a lot of my knowledge from satirical programmes!

Well, you’ve mentioned two helpful starting points - but then dismissed them.

You don’t have to pay, but subscribing to a broadsheet newspaper online will mean you can easily read a few articles every day. The more you read, the more you’ll understand the political background. (I subscribe to The Times, The New York Times and to the FT (the latter mostly for frivolous weekend stuff) and probably browse Al Jazeera, The Guardian and at least a couple of foreign news sources every day.)

And the Today programme still feels to me an unmissable start to the day. Don’t really watch morning TV news unless at a hotel. But like the pp I’ve been listening to R4 and talking about the new since I was a child more than 50 years ago.

Channel 4 News is worth watching in the evening if you have the time and energy.

Beyond those …

If you have a child in the house (or even if you don’t!) there’s a DK book called Who’s In Charge, with a forward by Andrew Marr. We have the 2010 edition, don’t know if it’s been updated. Excellent thing.

Hiya, OP, I really understand where you're coming from as I used to feel like this. I came from a family where politics wasn't discussed (but I am an expert on cricket 😂)

I think it's a case of "when the pupil is ready the teacher will come" . . . now that you're interested in learning you will find lots of ways of picking up information, almost without realising it

Information is everywhere . . . leaflets posted through the door, TV news, documentaries, etc etc

One way I learned was when I heard friends or colleagues talking about politics and I didn't understand, I would ask a question and, bit by bit, I learned what the current issues were

It's a life time of learning as everything changes so quickly! HTH

You could probably get a basic book on politics, but listening to a podcast (free) regularly would be a good start. Suggest Rest is Politics or the Newsagents.

If you're more of an auditory person you could try some podcasts. I like The News Agents featuring Jon Sopel, Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall. They discuss some topic of interest every weekday, including US politics occasionally, and in the last 6 weeks did lots of very good informational episodes about the general election. They're online at The News Agents - Podcast (globalplayer.com) and on all the major streamers.

Just keep following along but make an effort to find out who people are by googling their names, finding out the context of who they are and what they’ve done. The more you pay attention the more you understand and eventually you start seeing the nuances beyond the basics. It takes time and you can never stop learning more so there’s not really an end point.

Agree re watching the news and reading newspapers. I read a spectrum every day, to attempt to cut down bias, e g Guardian, independent, mail, sun, mirror, times etc. Also sometimes the NY times and Washington post, you're allowed a couple of articles a month on those for free. The news stuff isn't pay walled generally, just the comment on some sites.

Also agree about chatting with friends.

Reading all the papers every day is impossible for most. You can subscribe to each ones main headlines to your inbox which is educational in itself.

True renheadlines, but an hour commute with good WiFi gave me plenty of time to scan!

It might perhaps depend on where you’re starting from, @MeAgainAndAgain.

Did you take History GCSE or equivalent? Was there any political element in your degree if you have one? Are you a member of a union? Do you donate to a global or local charity and understand why they exist? Do you have any non-UK heritage whose politics you can draw on for comparison? Do you speak any other languages?

Importantly - how much do you read? I can promise you if you make a project of Anthony Trollope’s novels you’ll feel far more informed in six months time. (And will have been hugely entertained.)

All this is easy for me to say - I did study Constitutional Law as part of my Law degree, and have generally been a voracious reader of fiction - but I have no sophisticated thoughts on any Conservative politician, at all. Swearwords usually suffice …

You are doing great @MeAgainAndAgain! All the above suggestions are good but I want to put in a special plea. Don't confine yourself to UK politics but cultivate an interest in other countries and in global politics, what happens between countries. That might sound like a tall order given where you are now, but given that we are all interconnected and have international relationships it's a false boundary to only look at the UK.
And my best recommendation on where to start with this, apart from many of the podcasts and newspapers already mentioned that will take international perspectives as well as UK perspectives is to listen to the BBC World Service.
Best of luck. The desire to learn is your greatest asset and motivator.

@heldinadream is totally right, geopolitics is important, and wanting to gen up is the first step.

It's a total rabbit hole though, you'll never get out! But in a good way.

@murasaki Ha ha you are so right! I live in the rabbit hole (love it in here to be fair). 😂

Another thing to think about, my history gcse (mumble years ago) did a lot on propaganda, images and text (in our case Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia).It taught me to look at what is being said, but also why and by whom, with what long term aim. One of the most useful things I ever took from any bit of school, and very handy re politics.

Heh, watership down isn't a bad place to be!

Lesson 1 in politics: most tell lots of lies and serve themselves.

Lesson 2 in politics: it's like a playground of fickle kids where people are besties one day and stick the knife in the back the next day.

There aren't any more lessons. That's it.

I listen to The Rest Is Politics. Alistair Campbell (Labour) and Rory Stewart (Conservative) discuss national and global politics. I find it really interesting and if, like me you hate listening to politicians and journalists talking over each other in louder and louder voices it makes it all a bit more digestible.

I find ‘politics’ coverage can sometimes feel that it almost trivialises big issues - it’s all about how policy manoeuvring affects politicians and not about the actual impact the policy will have on the ground. I used to keep up to date with UK and international news but nowadays I’m not so good at that as I find it mostly makes me angry and depressed.

What I like is reading something that gives me the big picture and helps me understand the causes of why things are how they are. Perhaps search for ‘long reads’ on topics like:
What climate scientists are saying about climate change.
How austerity has affected the UK (both generally and e.g. education, local authorities, the justice system).
Brexit
Other elections happening around the world this year - the French and US elections are the most obvious ones but there are many others and they are a good starting point for learning about other countries.
Gaza and Middle East politics (although understanding this properly is kind of advanced level - try and read some different perspectives)
And then basics of how the UK system works, elections, House of Lords, how legislation is passed.
Oh and the history of UK/Ireland/Northern Ireland

I hope that doesn’t sound too daunting or boring and dry. I think it’s really interesting though I am ignorant myself on huge chunks of it! I think the key thing is relating it to real people’s lives. And once you start getting into topics there will be books, podcasts etc.

Read books. Do NOT listen to the news or Radio 4 on this. Do NOT read the papers.

Can you explain why you have said this?

You could listen to Newscast or The Rest is Politics, or watch the Sky Politics Hub or the Sunday morning politics shows.

Ian Dunt's book 'How Westminster Works (and why it doesn't)' could be good too.

My fave youtube channels if you want to check them out

Also listen to the PMQs every Wednesday

a different bias

novara media

and
maxmilian rospberrie