Ways to Change the World with Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Billy Porter started singing in church when he was about five years old, and growing up saw performance as a lifeline out of the trauma and rejection he experienced as a Black gay man. The multi-hyphenate star won a Grammy and a few Tonys since his breakout role on Broadway with 2013's Kinky Boots, and was the first openly gay Black man to win a lead acting Emmy for his role in the drama series Pose in 2019. Now Porter is returning to mainstream music with his fifth studio album, Black Mona Lisa, which he hopes will continue to craft an empowering legacy for the queer youth of colour. Today on Ways to Change the World, he tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the challenges he faced due to homophobia in the music industry in the '90s, the harsh reality of being an actor in the golden age of streaming and what success means to him.   Produced by Silvia Maresca.

Being an astronaut is a job like no other. Of the estimated 100 billion people who have ever lived, only 628 people in human history have left Earth. Tim Peake is one of them. A former test pilot who served in the British Army Air Corps, he was the first British astronaut to ever walk in space, and completed his six-month Principia mission to the International Space Station with the European Space Agency when he landed back on Earth in June 2016. Today on Ways to Change the World, he tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about his journey to becoming an astronaut, his time on the ISS and the crucial role of Elon Musk and SpaceX in future space missions. Produced by Silvia Maresca.

Caster Semenya has never doubted that she was a woman. It wasn’t until her athletics career started to take off that the now two-time Olympic Games gold medallist and a three-time World Athletics Championships gold medallist faced any questions over her gender. Called a ‘threat to the sport’ and ‘not woman enough’, she has become the most visible DSD (difference in sex development) athlete today, and found herself at the centre of the debate around the newly drawn line between gender and sport. In this episode of Ways to Change the World, she tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about her experiences as an athlete with a difference in sex development, her tumultuous journey to the top of the athletics world, and what being a woman means to her. Produced by Silvia Maresca  

It is nearly two weeks since Israel launched its ground offensive into Gaza and more than a month since it began intensive air strikes against Hamas, following the brutal attacks in Israel in which more than 1,400 people were killed. ActionAid is one of the many charities responding to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and its UK CEO Halima Begum is urging countries that finding a humanitarian solution is paramount, with thousands of civilians dead and the majority of Gaza's 2.3 million residents having been displaced. Today on Ways to Change the World, Halima Begum tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about her journey from youth activism to NGO work, the West’s ‘moral responsibility’ to humanitarian aid and the need for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine war. Produced by Silvia Maresca.

Carlo Rovelli has devoted large parts of his life to explaining to the general public what appears on the surface to be the unexplainable - and his bestselling science books saw him dubbed 'the poet of modern physics’. But the quantum gravity researcher is as comfortable discussing his own work on black holes, as he is talking about recent politics such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, on the grounds that, like in scientific research, every issue has different facets and cooperation is key to finding a solution. Today on Ways to Change the World, Carlo Rovelli tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about his search for ‘white holes’ and how science can bridge different global narratives in the geopolitical arena. Produced by Silvia Maresca

Climate activist Mikaela Loach discusses the need for climate justice, the problems with net zero, and the intersection between the climate crisis and the conflict in Israel and Palestine. She also talks about her background, her activism as a teenager, and the importance of building networks and trust for climate action.

The world is witnessing an epochal shift, according to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis: from the now-dead capitalism, to “technofeudalism”. In his latest book, the former Greek politician - who in 2015, at the height of the Greek debt crisis, was catapulted from academic obscurity to Minister of Finance - argues that insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. And capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents; while we, the “cloud serfs”, increase these companies’ power with every online click and scroll. Today on Ways to Change the World, Yanis Varufakis tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy how the world is grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power, and why Britain and the EU are “irrelevant” compared with the “fiefdoms” of US and Chinese tech firms. Produced by Silvia Maresca

"You're categorised as not being particularly intelligent or able," says Jason Arday, an autistic Sociologist who became Cambridge University's youngest black professor.  Jason Arday was unable to speak until he was 11 and could not read or write until he was 18. As a PE teacher in 2012, he wrote a list of goals he wanted to achieve. One of them was to be a professor at Oxford or Cambridge University. Today on Ways To Change The World, Jason Arday tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy about his journey with Autism, learning to read and write at the age of 18, and why racial profiling is limiting people’s ability to achieve their dreams. Produced by Silvia Maresca and Shaheen Sattar  

At 14, Lemn Sissay inked his initials into his hand with a homemade tattoo. He didn’t write LS, but NG, for Norman Greenwood, which he thought was his name. Except that it wasn’t. His real identity had been withheld from him since he was born. Born in Wigan to an Ethiopian mother, Lemn Sissay was raised in care; first in a foster family and then, from the age of 12 to 18, in a string of children's homes, including the notorious Wood End assessment centre, where he was physically, emotionally and racially abused. Despite going on to become an award-winning and internationally acclaimed poet, the trauma of his harrowing childhood never left him, and has informed much of his work on and off the page. Today on Ways to Change the World, he talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about growing up in the care system, finding his identity as a British and Ethiopian man, and why the care system in the UK is failing children in need. Produced by Silvia Maresca

As the third Black woman ever to be elected as an MP, and then instated as a government Minister, Dawn Butler has been vocal on the disrespect that Black women face in politics. As an outspoken campaigner herself, Butler was criticised in 2019 for calling Boris Johnson a liar in the House of Commons. She was subsequently asked to leave the Parliament grounds that day.  Whilst calling for the former Met Commissioner, Cressida Dick, to resign, she ironically found herself being stopped by the police whilst driving with her friend (who is also Black).  After facing a long battle with breast cancer in 2021, she found inspiration to write her first book, ‘A Purposeful Life’, where she draws on the repeated times she’s been called a liar after facing racism and sexism both in politics and outside of it.  In today’s episode of Ways to Change the World, Labour MP Dawn Butler speaks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about calling Boris Johnson a liar in Parliament, white feminism in the Labour party (and at large) and her ambitions to be the next Mayor of London. Being a Black person in a white-dominated space, she also tells us why wearing a lime-green suit in a sea of grey-suits was her way of realising you don’t have to fit in. Produced by Silvia Maresca