Headspace

This week it’s Eric Lonergan, the financier, economist and philosopher of money. Listeners will remember last year’s Bitcoin boom and bust but what next for cryptocurrencies? One day your coins may be able to decide how they are spent. Would that make the world a better place?  Plus: Sameer Rahim on VS Naipaul and Alex Dean on the WTO.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Freya Johnston wrote a widely-discussed essay for our July issue on British politeness. Is there something rude about enforced civility? More worrying, is it all an act to hide far more barbaric instincts that lurk beneath the surface? She discusses these questions with Sameer Rahim. Plus: in politics and culture, Alex Dean and Stephanie Boland look north of the border. The topics are Brexit and the devolution settlement, and the future of the Edinburgh Fringe.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week the Prospect team is joined by esteemed writer Sarah Churchwell. Churchwell’s new book Behold, America charts the origins of Donald Trump’s America First approach, which goes back much further than you’d think. She also asks: have we lost sight of the fact that equality was part of the American dream? Before we get to that, the Prospect staff discuss what’s new in politics and culture.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Zoe Williams speaks to Tom Clark about the left-wing path to a new Europe. But what would that look like and where does Jeremy Corbyn fit in? If the Labour leader did get into Downing Street could he really do a better job than the current crop? Williams raised these questions in her essay for our August issue. Plus: Alex Dean talks select committees and Sameer Rahim on the Man Booker.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Eight-year-olds playing Chopin is certainly impressive, but is it good for children to develop prodigious skills so early on? Suna Erdem talks to Prospect about maestros in miniature, whether they’ll grow up hating their parents, and why we’re so fixated on the concept of the youthful genius anyway. Erdem wrote on the subject for our August issue. Also: Alex Dean discusses the future of the Brexit departments and Sameer Rahim asks how much first time novelists can expect to be paid.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Ben Rhodes speaks to Steve Bloomfield. Rhodes was formerly at the centre of the Obama administration: he started as a speechwriter but quickly became one of Obama’s closest advisors on foreign policy. He was there for some of the most important geopolitical events in recent history. 

His new book is called The World As It Is: Inside the Obama White House. Bloomfield reviewed it for our July issue.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week Cal Flyn speaks to Stephanie Boland about Britain’s other languages. Flyn wrote about learning Scottish Gaelic in our July 2018 issue. But what is the place of Gaelic in Scotland—and are dying languages really worth saving? Flyn certainly thinks so, and argues that all of us should be taking lessons.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Rock music is on the way down, music magazines aren’t what they used to be—but there are still an awful lot of sharp pens around. That’s the opinion of DJ Taylor who expands on his piece in Prospect’s July issue and talks to Sameer Rahim about the rock memoir. It’s a curious genre and we might think of it as unsophisticated, but actually it is at the centre of a new golden age of rock writing. Before that, Alex Dean and Tom Clark do a five minute political round-up on Brexit, Heathrow and the question of whether British politics will be lifted if England delivers in the World Cup.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, as last, there’s one big story: Brexit and the Conservative Party. Theresa May just about managed to see off Remainer rebellion in the Commons. But is it a hollow victory? Tom Clark asks whether after 300 years, Brexit could be the row that finally sinks the Tories. 

It’s not just in Britain that the traditionally dominant centre-right is on its knees; Andrew Gamble argues in our new issue that it’s a much broader trend and explains why here. Hephzibah Anderson discusses the fall of another great institution: the British high street.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week saw a series of crunch votes in the commons on the EU withdrawal bill and the role of parliament in the exit process. The government escaped defeat—just—but only by making dramatic last minute concessions. It promised Tory Remainers that parliament will indeed play a significant role. Antoinette Sandbach was one of the MPs to receive personal assurances from the prime minister and she explains what was said. But over recent days Brexiteers have insisted no such assurance can have been made. It has put the stark split in the Tory Party on display for all to see: can the PM appease both the Remainers and the Brexiteers on this and other issues? Sandbach is joined by Prospect’s Jay Elwes and Alex Dean.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Michael McFaul became the United States' ambassador to Russia, he didn't realise what he was letting himself in for. As the architect of Barack Obama's "Reset," he thought he'd be welcomed. But instead Vladimir Putin's cronies orchestrated a campaign of harassment and spread lurid personal allegations. McFaul talks to Sameer Rahim about his new book, From Cold War to Hot Peace, which tells of how US-Russia relations broke down and why Putin's aggressive posture on Crimea and Syria seems to be outfoxing the west. And why on Russia Donald Trump is at loggerheards with his own administration.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week it’s football. The World Cup is fast approaching and we are preparing for what is usually one of the greatest sporting spectacles on earth. But with a cloud of corruption hanging over the event, could we fall out of love with the World Cup altogether? 

Jonathan Liew of the Independent has written an essay on this subject for our June issue. Here he talks the question through with Prospect’s Deputy Editor Steve Bloomfield.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sameer Rahim talks to philosopher John Gray about what atheists get wrong about atheism. Dismissing the "God debate," which as a non-believer Gray has no interest in, instead he focuses on the variety of atheisms on offer in the modern world: from liberalism as a modern day secular religion to the atheism of silence of Spinoza. Gray, as usual, takes no prisoners.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

China is the new great global power. But while much has been said about China’s economic and military heft, what about the rise of Chinese ideas? As Beijing grows increasingly dominant we will have to decide how firmly we hold western values of academic freedom and human rights: they will increasingly be challenged. Tom Clark is joined by Isabel Hilton, who has written an essay on China for our new issue, Kerry Brown, who examines how Australia is dealing with China’s rise, and Rana Mitter who discusses great thinkers of China’s past.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The unipolar world of a dominant United States is falling away as other nations—most prominently China—come to the fore. Ian Bremmer, the American political scientist, speaks to Prospect Deputy Editor Steve Bloomfield about his new book Us and Them. The average citizen across the west is not a believer in "globalism," he says. Executive Editor Jay Elwes speaks to David Omand, former head of GCHQ about how the internet is shaping and shifting politics around the world.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We’ve all read the local election headlines by now: disappointment for Labour, relief for the Conservatives. But what are the deeper trends at play? For this week’s edition of Headspace the Prospect team tunnels deeper into the results with help from psephology great David Butler and Jade Azim, head of Women in Political Data. We ask why Labour failed to deliver on expectations and what it all means for the shifting contours of the British political landscape.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Article 50 is ticking down and the politics is getting messier. A series of government defeats in the Lords are setting the stage for a dramatic scrap in the Commons. John Kerr, the man who wrote the exit clause, sits down with Victoria Hewson of the Institute of Economic Affairs, as well as Prospect’s Tom Clark and Alex Dean. They try to make sense of the unfolding drama in Westminster. Just how is this immense constitutional challenge going to play out?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The novelist Will Self talks to Prospect's Tom Clark and Sameer Rahim about his experiences with drugs, and how they’ve shaped his view of the world. He discusses his recent essay for Prospect which examines the new book by Michael Pollan and also offers some useful advice for those who’ve accidentally taken too much acid.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If modern economic theory led to the Financial Crisis of 2008, some of its basic ideas need to change—but how? In this podcast, Howard Reed describes how the discipline went wrong, and how it must be reformed and Linda Yueh asks how the great economists of the nineteenth century might have reacted to modern times. And if we do develop a new economic outlook, who will be in No 10 to implement it? Jacob Rees-Mogg? Perhaps, says Sonia Purnell, who describes the Tory MP’s continuing allure for his party—even if others elsewhere find him less appetising. And Patience Wheatcroft, the Conservative peer, discusses the Parliamentary fight over Brexit. Will it happen? Chaired by the Editor of Prospect, Tom Clark.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Britain’s international relationships are in a highly sensitive moment, not only with adversaries such as Russia but with more traditionally friendly states such as the United States. And with Vladimir Putin playing the poison-handed joker on the world stage, how should Britain approach these crucial diplomatic challenges? What can Britain offer and what do we want? This podcast features interviews with Jane Kinninmont of Chatham House, an expert on Saudi Arabian politics and Luke Harding of the Guardian, who has spent years delving into the relationship between Trump and the Kremlin. Who are Britain’s friends now and who are our opponents?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.