A Beginner's Guide to Politics: Step-by-Step

Perhaps you’d like to brush up on the basics to be able to keep up with 2025 political affairs? Grace Clift shares some helpful advice for those who’d like to better understand politics, but don’t necessarily know where to start.

2024 was a big and confusing year for politics – both the UK and the US had general elections that were monumental, and international conflict had grown in a way that even experts struggled to keep up with. For this reason, many people’s new year's resolution is to get “into politics”- meaning to figure out how to keep up with an ever changing, centuries-old narrative. 

It might feel like you’re starting a TV show 18 seasons too late, but really it’s never too late to get started and learn about current political affairs. In this article, I will be providing a beginners guide to politics, including all the key events to pay attention to in recent history, as well as tips on staying up to date.

Politics can feel overwhelming. Where to start?

Image Credit: Ludovica Dri via Unsplash

Step 1: Learn the basic terminology. 

There are a few key terms that commonly appear in political discussions and it’s useful to be clear on their meanings to accurately make sense of an argument. Below I have listed some of the most common terms you may come across and their definitions:

• Left-wing – on the ‘left’ side of the political spectrum of opinions, e.g. tend to be (but not always) pro-choice, focusing more on social issues, pro-climate-action, sceptical of large corporations. The biggest parties (arguably) representing these ideas in the UK are Labour, the Green Party (Lib Dem tend to be central but may lean more left). 

• Right-wing – on the ‘right’ side of the political spectrum of opinions, e.g. tend to be (but not always anti-choice, focusing more on economic issues, sceptical of immigration, pro-individual rights. The biggest parties (arguably) representing these ideas in the UK are the Conservatives, and Reform UK.  

• Bill – a law that’s being proposed, but isn’t yet approved by the government.

• Act – a law that has been approved by the government. 

• House of Commons / Lords – the two sections of Parliament, who govern the UK. The Commons are made up of elected MPs that represent certain locations (constituencies) in the UK, and the Lords are made up of people chosen by the Prime Minister (either experts, rich people or culturally significant people). 

• Senate / House of Representatives – the two sections of the legislature, who govern the US. The Senate is made up of 100 6-year elected people that represent the states, and the House is made up of 435 2-year elected people that represent districts. 

• Cabinet – a committee of senior representatives in charge of specific areas like health or money.

Step 2: Make it comprehensible

You’re not going to want to learn about political issues if it’s just someone droning on, using hyper-specific and incomprehensible words. Nobody does. I use podcasts to learn about specific current issues in a way that’s engaging and educational, because you can throw them on in the background while you do jobs or commute to work. For the US, I use Americast, which is hosted by the BBC and is a discussion between a few different reporters. For the UK, I use The News Agents, which is independent from the BBC and is also the same discussion format. The most popular discussion political podcast by far is The Rest is Politics, which is hosted by two centre-left and centre-right politicians. All of these podcasts also cover world politics, but just with a focus on their relevance to their main country.

Step 3: Make it part of your regular routine

Politics is always changing, not only by the day but by the minute. The best way to make sure you’re on top of what’s going on is to incorporate it smoothly into your daily life – namely, your phone. I check the Google News app daily, because it shows daily headlines around the world from a variety of different newspapers. This is especially important, because some newspapers tell stories in ways that favour one person or perspective over another. 

Another way of getting a quick overview of the day’s political goings-on is the BBC Today programme, which is a 2-3 hour show running on BBC Radio 4 Monday-Saturday. I don’t listen to the whole show – even for an avid politics fan, that’s a bit much – but the first ten minutes often gives you enough to know about the headline topics of the day. If you don’t like to listen to your news, the Instagram account simplepolitics is extremely popular and concise. 

Step 4: Catch up on the most recent topics

You can’t know everything, but you can know the most topical things. You’ll be hearing a lot about these topics across 2025, and while we can’t predict what will go on in the next year, these I predict to make headlines more times than most:

• The Palestinian genocide 

• The Ukraine War

• Climate issues 

• Trump and his inauguration (meaning process of swearing a person into the position of president)  

Check news media home pages to see what the biggest topics are – you’ll often see that they have their own pages dedicated to the topic.

Step 5: Focus on what you care about

You have the power to do something about the things you care about, and there’s communities all across the country that help people like you to take their first steps into political action. Pressure groups are groups of people that put pressure on the government to act on the issues they care about, through petitions, protests and publicity stunts. Some examples of climate pressure groups are Friends of the Earth and RSPB.

If you’re interested in some of the controversies surrounding pressure groups, check out the articles surrounding Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion. Just Stop Oil’s recent stunt, where they threw soup at a Van Gogh painting to draw attention to their cause, was met with large amounts of criticism. However, the activists’ prison sentences left many angry at the priority the British government and police place on curbing protest, rather than other, perhaps more victimising crimes. 

Hopefully, these tips should help you to enter into the massive and complicated world that is politics. Politics should be accessible to everyone – after all, we’re all affected by it – and yet, it can feel impossible to have conversations about it without feeling entirely out of depth. Remember, you don’t need to know every little fact to take interest in the issues you care about, and as long as you’re open to learning something new, you’ll be just fine. Happy 2025, and here’s to a year of learning about the world around us. 

About the Author

Grace Clift is an English Literature student at the University of York with a particular interest in UK politics, climate issues and the arts. Grace can be contacted via her email gracevclift@gmail.com or Instagram @gracevclift.