The Prospect Podcast

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