The Prospect Podcast

Ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ellen and Alona are joined by researcher Maksimas Milta. Maksimas is the Ukraine Country Director at The Reckoning Project, which trains journalists to document war crimes and human rights violations. He talks about the mood in Ukraine as the civilian casualty rate surges—as well as the difficult process of seeking justice...

This week, Ellen and Alona are joined again by Prospect editor and former Labour speechwriter Philip Collins to unpack the government’s ongoing crisis. With Peter Mandelson currently under investigation by the Metropolitan Police, Starmer’s premiership came close to collapse. He appears to have clung on for now—but how long can he survive as prime minister? And why, in his moment of peril, did no...

This month, Anglican priest Alice Goodman observes that Jesus would not be considered manly enough by today's far-right, while actor and writer Sheila Hancock ditches The Traitors in favour of a programme about Irish dancing. Sarah Collins, who lives with OCD, faces a collapse in her emotional geography after a year of travel, while Kiran Sidhu swaps The News at Ten for Postman Pat. Hosted on Acas...

More of the Epstein files have been released—but why now, and what do they really tell us? This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan, editor of the Democracy for Sale newsletter, to unpack what the documents reveal about power, money and impunity. Peter discusses the ways powerful figures protect themselves, and the latest political fallout in Britain—from r...

Britain needs new infrastructure and housing—and devolution could be a help or a hindrance. Will giving a greater say to local communities through devolution increase the legitimacy of infrastructure and housing plans and accelerate their delivery? Or does it add complexity and aid the ‘blockers’ not the builders? This podcast explores the issues, explains how to address the risks and charts an op...

Politics in Britain was once dominated by two big parties with predictable voter bases. But times have changed—and for the first time, new parties are on the rise. This week, Ellen and Imaan are joined by  Prospect ’s new editor Philip Collins, to discuss the breakdown of British politics as we know it. Philip argues that we have entered a new political era—one where the traditional giants of...

A crackdown by the Iranian government has quietened protests that swept across the country in recent weeks, but tensions remain high. This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, a Middle East analyst at Control Risks, who dials in from Abu Dhabi to explain how these protests differ from previous rounds of unrest in the country—from the scale of grievances to new geopolitical c...

This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by Isabel Hilton—former Latin America editor, expert in Arctic security and  Prospect  contributing editor—to discuss how American foreign policy has evolved under the Trump administration, particularly after the US abduction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. How different was this from the US’s history of coups and previous military interventi...

What hope is there for the future? Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise and right-wing populists rage against net zero. But, according to the UK’s climate minister and a leading American environmentalist, though, the economics of electrification will make the future brighter than it first appears. Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy security and net zero, and Bill McKibben, an e...

Anglican priest Alice Goodman explains how clerics manage their Christmas “turnaround time’, while Gen Z-er Alice Garnett takes us behind the scenes on a comedy panel show. Vitali Vitaliev is reminded of his first life in Soviet Russia by a museum of banned books in Tallinn, while Sarah Collins cautions against the use of AI therapy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the final podcast of the year, Ellen and Alona look back at their favourite episodes from 2025. During a dark year, Prospect has been collecting glimmers of hope. They asked some of the most interesting thinkers today—from politics, to environment to tech—for their perspectives on hope and optimism. What keeps them fighting for a more just world? Philosopher Slavoj Zizek and broadcaster Mehdi H...

Swooning audiences, demon-hunting popstars, and Sydney Sweeney’s jeans—it’s been quite a year for arts and culture. In this week’s special episode, three of  Prospect ’ s  critics join books and culture editor Pete Hoskin to chat over eggnog and mince pies. Kate Maltby, Lucy Scholes and Laura Barton encounter the  Prospect  wheel of fortune and share their recommendations, as w...

Seven MPs were suspended for rebelling on the two-child benefit limit last year. Now that the government has announced it will lift the policy, what will change? And why was this such a major focus for anti-poverty campaigners? Ellen and Alona are joined by two experts on the subject: journalist and campaigner Terri White and Ruth Patrick, professor in social and public policy at the University of...

This month, Anglican priest Alice Goodman explains why she has mixed feelings about pilgrimages, while Gen Z-er Alice Garnett despairs at the development of AI friends. Sarah Collins contracts a case of burnout, while Kiran Sidhu enters into correspondence with a stranger. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why does every platform seem to get worse over time? This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by journalist, tech activist and sci-fi writer Cory Doctorow, who coined the term “enshittification” to describe the decay of digital services into exploitative, user-hostile platforms. As constraints that once kept platforms in check have broken down, Cory shares how tech giants polluted the digit...

Palantir has acquired key UK government contracts, promising to make government more effective. But Peter Thiel’s controversial company has also worked with the US government and ICE on deportations and with Israel’s military during its war on Gaza. This week, investigative journalist Mark Wilding joins Ellen to explain how the tech giant has become embedded in the British state—and what it might...

In a world of unpredictable strongman leaders, do nuclear weapons keep us safe or make us more vulnerable? This week, Ellen and Alona are joined by Serhii Plokhy, historian and author of The Nuclear Age , to discuss the threat of nuclear conflict. From Putin’s war in Ukraine to China’s expanding arsenal and new nuclear “threshold” states, Serhii discusses whether governments still hold to the idea...

How should the left resist fascism? This week,  Prospect ’s Ben Clark speaks to Yanis Varoufakis, economist and Greece’s former finance minister, whose most recent book is  Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance . Yanis reflects on writing a feminist history as a man, what his family’s encounters with Nazism taught him, and whether today’s left can still speak to young men dri...

In this episode of Policy Insights, sponsored by ASI and produced by Prospect Publishing, Prospect  deputy editor Ellen Halliday talks to Annalisa Prizzon from ODI Global, Daniel Pimlott from ASI, and Stefan Dercon from the Blavatnik Institute and Oxford University about the future of foreign aid. Our expert guests share their perspectives on the changing dynamics of foreign aid and explore h...

Zombies, werewolves and...ChatGPT? In this week’s spooky special, Ellen and Alona are joined by historian and “monster consultant” Surekha Davies, who argues that humans have always created monsters to understand the world—and ourselves. In her new book Humans: A Monstrous History, she explores a history of monsters, as well as the weird and horrifying monsters we’ve created in modern day life, in...

Does Washington need a shake up? As the Democratic party faces its lowest favourability ratings on record, one man wants to completely change its brand. This week,  Prospect ’s Ben Clark speaks to Saikat Chakrabarti, progressive political adviser and former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is now running for Congress himself. Saikat discusses running against Democratic powerbro...

This month our writers are reflective: Alice Goodman asks how to be a priest in divided times, while Gen Z-er Alice Garnett questions the assumptions that underpin modern texting etiquette. Mindful life writer Sarah Collins decides to shift her pessimistic mindset, while rural life writer Kiran Sidhu learns to let go. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, political columnist Ben Ansell joins Prospect’s Alona and Imaan to discuss the rise of ethnonationalism in British politics, and the popularisation of the term “white British”. Ben explains the origin and implications of a term that has gone politically “viral”. He also discusses how a national conversation about asylum policy has “metastasised” into criticism of legal migrants—and now...

This week, Alona is joined by Omer Bartov, the Israeli-American historian and professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University.   Two years after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel, Israel’s retaliation has killed one in 33 Gazans. Omer argues that the war on Gaza is genocidal—and that many Israelis are in denial about what their government is doing.   On the podcast,...

The Labour government is struggling and the party is divided. Meanwhile, Reform is on the rise, and the Tories are collapsing. What kind of change does Labour need, if it is to get back on track? This week, Ellen and Alona dial in from the party conference in Liverpool, where they’re joined by Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy, and deputy leadership candidate Lucy Powell. Powell explains why she’s runn...