This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. I cut my journalistic teeth as a political correspondent in the 1990s and 2000s, first on newspapers and then on television. I remember those years of Cool Britannia, with the Spice Girls and Noel Gallagher traipsing into Number 10. Even when that New Labour honeymoon soured, the TB-GBs (the nickname for Tony Blair, the then prime minister, and his arguments with his chancellor Gordon Brown) seem somehow quaint compared with the existential turbulence of recent administrations. Returning to Westminster to launch The Cathy Newman Show, a new flagship nightly show airing on Sky News and streaming on YouTube, the mood couldn’t be more different. Politics feels shoutier, more bitter. The bit of green carpet that divides government from opposition looks like a chasm. It’s undeniable that politics has changed dramatically and the world has, too. Just days before the local elections, the two party political system that has reigned supreme throughout my professional life appears shattered. And the media landscape has been upended as well. The 2026 …