Headspace

Ahead of COP26 in Glasgow next month, we speak to environmental correspondent Fiona Harvey on what it will take to reach a crucial deal in the next step towards tackling the climate crisis. Having covered 14 of the last 16 COP summits, Fiona shares some of her key insights into climate diplomacy and how often success falls on the work of the host nation’s leadership. Which of course begs the question: is our current leader, Boris Johnson, up to the task? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Leading legal-aid lawyer David Renton joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the view from the frontline of the housing crisis. As a barrister in courtrooms both physical and virtual during the pandemic, while we hunkered down in our homes, David was fighting stop a panoply of clients from losing theirs. Arguing that our children need housing justice now, not money for a deposit, Renton has big and sometimes radical ideas about reforming housing policy in the UK and on ensuring that everyone has access to justice. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Seasoned political broadcaster Steve Richards joins Tom Clark to talk about the prime minsters that never were. From Roy Jenkins to Michael Heseltine, Richards charts the journeys of the pretenders that never made it to the top spot, arguing that for all the feverish speculation in the press, rivals to prime ministers rarely prevail. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Gillian Tett, editor at large at the Financial Times and author of a new book Anthro-Vision, joins Tom Clark to explain how undercover anthropology helped her to predict the financial crash. Applying an anthropological lens to life has enabled Tett to spot the patterns that others miss, like the unexpected similarities shared by wedding rituals in Tajikistan and banking conferences in the US. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Charlotte Higgins, prize-winning author and the Guardian's chief culture writer, joins Sameer Rahim talk about her book, Greek Myths: A New Retelling. Their conversation tackles the big questions. Did the Greeks believe in their Gods? Does classics have a class problem? And did Medea really kill her children? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Who is Ben Houchen and how did he help the Tories topple the red wall? Sebastian Payne, Whitehall Editor at the Financial Times joins the podcast to discuss the Tees Valley mayor that Boris Johnson is reportedly "obsessed" with, as well as the wider themes in his new book Broken Heartlands. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What does it mean to be a public intellectual in 2021? In this episode Tom Clark, Sameer Rahim and Philip Ball discuss the work of Prospect’s Top Thinker of 2021, Palestinian embryologist Jacob Hanna, as well other notable names including Priyamvada Gopal, Mahmood Mandani and Carlo Rovelli. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Bestselling author and renegade economist Richard H Thaler joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the book that made him famous, Nudge. So influential that the UK Cabinet office even created a dedicated Nudge Unit, the groundbreaking book–first published in 2008–is back in a final, revised edition. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week’s podcast we’re joined by Prospect’s own contributing editor, Andrew Adonis, who discusses the class clown who became one of our most dominant prime ministers, Boris Johnson. How did he get to where he is today? In explaining the “Johnson phenomenon,” Andrew argues that we have to look back at the school that made him as well as many other prime ministers: Eton College. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week’s episode we speak to archaeologist and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes. She joins managing editor Sameer Rahim to discuss the fascinating story of our closest cousins, the Neanderthals: how they might have lived, whether they had imagination—and just how much of our perceptions of them has changed in the 150 years since we first discovered their fossils. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this week’s episode, writer, philosopher and Oxford don Amia Srinivasan joins us to talk about the ideas explored in her latest essay collection, The Right to Sex. From male entitlement to the politics of desire, Amia tells us why sex is a topic in need of a more philosophical interrogation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ed Miliband joins the Prospect Interview to discuss how to fix some of our most pressing policy issues, which he explores in his new book Go Big: How to Fix Our World. He joins editor Tom Clark to discuss Vienna’s social housing revolution, why the UK needs to embrace decentralisation, and why we shouldn’t count out the Labour Party for the next general election.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen joins the Prospect Interview to discuss economics, globalisation and identity in his new memoir Home in the World. Editor Tom Clark talks to Amartya about watching famous historians Hugh Trevor-Roper and Eric Hobsbawm go head to head at Cambridge, the turmoil in Narendra Modi’s India, and the future of neoliberalism.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Throughout its history, England was regularly falling to foreign takeovers and perennially divided—it was a nation that never was. Author of The Shortest History of England James Hawes joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the chaotic, mixed history of England and the thorny question of English identity. James discusses English nationalism in the wake of the 2020 Euros, the enduring power of southern elites, and the great construct that is Great Britain. You can read James's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-england-delusion-scotland-united-kingdom-history See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

American historian Carol Anderson joins the Prospect Interview to discuss the secret history of America’s much-debated Second Amendment. The amendment, enshrined in the country’s bill of rights, asserts the right of “well-regulated militias” to “keep and bear arms.” Carol, whose previous book White Rage was deemed essential reading during Donald Trump’s America, illuminates the history and impact of the Second Amendment, and the many ways it has been designed to keep African Americans powerless and vulnerable.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this month’s issue of Prospect, we have two essays approaching the thorny yet increasingly unignorable question of referendums: are they really democratic? Author and former Labour MP Chris Mullin, in his cover story on the rise of nationalism under Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, warns that we may soon begin to have referendums on everything—including the return of the death penalty. Meanwhile political economist Helen Thompson argues that our whole constitution has, and always did, rest on popular consent—and referendums are inevitably needed when party politics fail. Chris and Helen join editor Tom Clark to talk about the history and future of referendums in Britain, whether Brexit could have been avoided entirely, and whether we will soon see an independent Scotland.Chris Mullin's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/hartlepool-hangman-conservative-party-nationalism-death-penaltyHelen Thompson's essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/consent-british-constitution

Journalist Christian Davies joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Poland's authoritarian turn—and what it could mean for Europe as a whole. In the latest issue of Prospect, out now on newsstands and online, Christian writes an essay about the nostalgic nationalists of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party, which is tightening its grip on the country which—not long ago—the west viewed as the very model of a new liberal democracy. He warns this could eventually have one consequence no-one for esaw—a drift towards the orbit of Russia.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Novelist Natasha Brown joins the Prospect Interview to talk about writing contemporary Britain and the fragmented self in her debut, Assembly. The novel follows a Black British woman as she navigates her high-powered job in London’s financial world, faces a medical emergency, and prepares to go to her boyfriend’s family party at their lavish countryside estate. Natasha talks to assistant editor Rebecca Liu about bringing finance into fiction, writing the inner lives of the wealthy, and what fiction can offer a nation currently caught in endless culture wars.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Ever since emerging in the late 17th century, the Tories have restlessly reinvented themselves, shamelessly shape-shifted and shown a Lazarus-like ability to rise from political death. David Cameron talked about a “big society” while Theresa May railed against “burning injustices.” So what—if anything—does the party under Boris Johnson believe in? Rachel Sylvester joins the Prospect Interview to talk about the latest reinvention of the Conservatives, why Boris Johnson may become a victim of his own success, and the PM’s journalist past.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

From Clement Attlee to Margaret Thatcher, several movers and shakers have entered government with plans to fundamentally change how the British economy is run. But have they ever truly succeeded? In this week’s podcast Tom Clark welcomes the Economist‘s Duncan Weldon, who argues that Britain’s “hands off” approach to the economy is so ingrained it’s influenced everyone, from the Treasury to trade unions.You can read Duncan’s essay here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/condemned-to-be-liberal-why-britain-cant-easily-break-with-economic-laissez-faire  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.