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.

watch serious indepedent news channels

also check out

Gary Stevenson

The news is entertainment at the end of the day. It glosses over major issues and gives a veneer of understanding to complex topics that you can spend years researching. Expecting comprehension on these matters from a ten minute (at best) segment in the news is folly.

Case in point, the history of austerity and how the economy of a sovereign nation state operates. The news and media overall, have been peddling the same “country run as a household” narrative bollocks that got us austerity because “there’s no more money left” or “we maxed out the nation’s credit card.” This is ideology from people who have an agenda to privatise sectors of the public space and keep people down. Do not buy into it.

If you simply must listen or watch something rather than read books, then there are podcasts and YouTube channels that can give flavour to the drier texts you can find. Of course, politics is a big subject, so what part we’re meant to detail here is tricky.

I think this is a fair point. Certainly in the subject areas I know professionally, the news coverage is simplistic, and interviewers seem not to challenge politicians who misrepresent the facts.

What books would you recommend for a beginner?

I watch the last leg . The humour holds my attention

Does Ros Atkins still do his explainer videos? They're good if a news item is on TV a lot but you haven't got a clue why. But, I agree, to really understand detail, you probably need to read around the subject.

A

I would pick one newspaper on the left and one on the right. The “truth” will be between those two.

Also if someone never criticises one side then they are probably biased. You really need to focus on your instinctive reactions then try to find arguments against your instincts. If you still hold the same opinion then thats your opinion. Don’t believe everything you read of hear, try to find the counter arguments too.

The Today programme
Channel 4 News
Newsnight
PM on Radio 4
The Rest is Politics
The New Statesman
The Spectator
Newsweek
Books about 20C history
Books by current/recent politicians and historians - check your library

Whoa. That’s a lot of responses. Let me go through them today.

I can say that I listened to the Today programme yesterday (Saturday) and rewind Ed every single thing I didn’t understand. That helped a lot.

There's a huge amount on YouTube to explain anything

=_

This is the kind of explanatory video made for an American audience.

I don't knjw how good this is - it's just an example.

There's so much available.

The trouble with YouTube is that it’s completely unregulated. Far better to focus on sources with some sort of accreditation - qualified journalists working for accountable news outlets, or recognised academics attached to established university departments. People who can’t get away with spouting tripe without push back or oversight.

Start listening to the BBC Newscast podcast. It's daily and really accessible, chatty and quite fun whilst also keeping you well informed. It's the only news I bother with and it's enough that people think I'm very well informed at work. I listen to it whilst walking, doing the washing up or whatever.

Op I am exactly the same. I remember being a teenager and asking my dad to explain politics to me and he said 'watch the news'. It's like saying, can you teach me French? And the person saying 'just watch TV in French'. I find the news completely meaningless unless I have something to relate it to, otherwise it's just 'who is that? What's that party? What's that law? Why do those people oppose it? And before they've said a paragraph, I'm lost. A bit like watching the movie in French, making out the odd 'oui' but having zero idea about what's going on.

You literally need to look up kid's websites. You have to come in and read simplistic descriptions of the most basic principles of politics and very gradually expand your knowledge in very small steps. My husband used to teach politics to secondary school students and has started explaining things to our nine year old son. I feel like I'm finally starting to understand. Jumping straight into the news did not help me. Very simple, child centred descriptions did.

This is a really good point. I find it useful to look at how a big news story is covered in different newspapers from the right-wing (The Telegraph) to the left- wing (The Guardian) and consider what’s been discussed differently and why.

This also applies to information online, especially controversial topics on social media (including here on MN). Think about all the threads about the elections and how posts on them might have been false or misrepresented. Some scepticism is healthy.

Don’t use you tube. There are indeed some good resources, but there are also parties using it to promote very biased and even extremist views.

yes to newsround etc explainers to get up to speed. Then I get a couple of newspapers daily bulletin (guardian - free and very good, and financial times - also very good but online paper is paid for). Guardian will occasionally go back to basics and explain what an ongoing event in the news actually is.

Oh and I read most online newspapers through the local library - free for library card holders.

Agree with the explainers from Ros Atkins

How Westminster Works (and why it doesn’t) is good

The Tim Shipman trio (soon to be quartet) of books on the Tory government during Brexit and beyond give a good view of recent years

Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall gives a decent global overview of how terrain shapes borders and politics. If any country or region grabs you from that, you can go into it more.

Ask yourself how YOU would organise society:

Taxation : who pays and how much?

Corporation. Tax : is there a basic tax? Should larger companies pay more than small ones? If so what are the thresholds?

You can't just come up with any answer because you have constraints:

Health
Education
Defence
Transportation
Etc...

For each of these you can decide whether the state or the public pays (for instance who pays for new roads and their maintenance ?)

Does your tax intake help you pay for the above in such a way that enough voters are satisfied?

If not: do you borrow money to make up for the difference?

Once you think you have figured it out read what other people proposed : Plato, Marx , Humes , the Chicago school...

While the Today programme is useful, it doesn't always explain why things are important. I find BBC World service properly useful as there are clearer explanations for a global audience who may not know all the ins and outs of an issue. Al Jazeera is also great for a broader, world perspective.

Also if you are curious, look thngs up! Wikipedia still has good explanations of people, roles and issues - I used it a lot in the elections. The Guardian often has "explainer" articles too.

I have been a bit baffled by the French elections but it's been interesting trying to get a grip on who their system works and who is who!

I used to know about this stuff in-depth for a living. I compare it to watch EastEnders. If you watch it regularly soon you have a passable understanding of the dynamics and if you keep it up you’ll have an in-depth understanding. The Today prog is a magazine show across three hours. You would do better choosing an evening terrestrial news programme (C4 news or the BBC 10 o’clock news, a Sunday paper or The Week) because they work to sum things up for you, rather than riffing based on what’s going on right now

@westborne - I once, as an undergrad in the midst of a Jurisprudence essay crisis, had the joy of watching a boyfriend pick up a discarded page of my notes and innocently ask ‘What’s a Rawl?’ …

I think it's quite tough to learn about politics from the news tbh. Like jumping into a drama series half way through, when you don't know who the characters are or what just happened.
Journalists themselves are often frustrated that the medium doesn't allow them to explain the background.
When a subject comes up that you don't understand, I would recommend searching the briefings at the House of Commons library. (They're all online)
They are really concise, easy to read and lay out the background.
The House of Commons Library produce one for everything that's going to be debated so that politicians (who know A LOT less than you might think) can get themselves up to speed.
If a subjects been in the news lately there'll be a House of Commons briefing paper on it. Once you've read it you'll know about as much as many of the politicians making actual decisions. (Frightening but true!)