Matt is joined by Torsten Bell, who's chief executive of the Resolution foundation think tank and has worked as an adviser to the former Labour leader Ed Miliband and the former Conservative cabinet minister Sir John Redwood.

A country battling to work through nationwide rail strikes; inflation soaring and still not at its peak; no growth in the economy since January - it’s a grim menu for the government to sell to the country. 

Whatever people think of the strike action, and whether it's a distraction from other major issues like the cost of living crisis, will be tested at the polls next week when voters in Wakefield elect a new MP in a by-election.

Labour's shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry joins us from Westminster.

Ciaran Jenkins is at Queen's Park station in Glasgow and Andy Davies is in Cardiff.

Mick Lynch who's general secretary of the RMT union joins Cathy from outside London's Euston station.

Earlier Cathy spoke to the Government minister Michelle Donelan and began by asking her, how it is that pensioners deserve a ten per cent rise in their income and public sector workers don't deserve anything like that?

Just a fifth of trains have been running and half of lines across the country were shut altogether today - in the biggest rail strike for a generation. 

Can asylum seekers really do that in a nation that has a shocking human rights record, particularly when it comes to LGBTQ+ people?

The climate activists go out at night and deflate the tyres of SUVs in affluent areas.

Victims of grooming gangs have now been given official apologies.

The list of professions planning industrial action is growing every day.

Speaking for the government is the Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy Chris Philp.

Alongside the rail dispute, arguments over pay are building across the public sector.

Thousands of members of the RMT union will join the industrial action, bringing most of the country's rail network to a standstill.