The Prospect Podcast

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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-referendums-brexit-europe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.