Intelligence Squared

Robert Peston is one of Britain’s most trusted journalists. A fixture in British politics and business coverage, he came to national prominence as Business Editor and then Economics Editor at the BBC, where he revealed the crises at Northern Rock and RBS, the emergency rescue of HBOS, and the tumult around the credit crunch, bailouts, and austerity.  Today he hosts his namesake flagship...

Intimacy coordinators have irreversibly transformed how we portray sex on screen, and they are not without their detractors. In the wake of MeToo, Ita O’Brien’s work as a top intimacy coordinator on Normal People, Sex Education and I May Destroy revolutionised how actors, directors and audiences think about sex, consent and physical storytelling. In this episode, journalist Olivia Petter speaks wi...

Olivia Laing is known as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature. Their work is renowned for its capacity to make abstract ideas feel precise, intimate, and beautifully thought through without ever talking down to the reader. Their books include the number one Sunday Times bestseller The Garden Against Time, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency and, mos...

Olivia Laing is known as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature. Their work is renowned for its capacity to make abstract ideas feel precise, intimate, and beautifully thought through without ever talking down to the reader. Their books include the number one Sunday Times bestseller The Garden Against Time, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency and, mos...

Is our history of World War II missing its most important chapter? For many in the West, the story of the Second World War is told through D-Day, the Blitz and the liberation of Europe. Yet some of the war's most consequential battles were fought in Asia, where the conflict claimed millions of lives, hastened the collapse of European empires and reshaped the modern world. Professor Hans van de Ven...

Maggie O’Farrell is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Hamnet, a breathtaking fictional retelling of the death of Shakespeare’s only son from the bubonic plague. This much-loved novel won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, and this year the celebrated film adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley arrives in cinemas.  In June 2026, O’Farrell returned wit...

Maggie O’Farrell is the award-winning author of nine novels, including Hamnet, a breathtaking fictional retelling of the death of Shakespeare’s only son from the bubonic plague. This much-loved novel won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, and this year the celebrated film adaptation starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley arrives in cinemas.  In June 2026, O’Farrell returned wit...

Filmmaker and activist Baroness Beeban Kidron has been warning of the digital dangers facing young people for over a decade, and has played a central role in establishing standards for online safety and privacy across the world. In this episode, she talks to Carl Miller about the technologies designed to capture our attention and the algorithms that can quickly leave children exposed to harmful co...

This is an episode of Hotels with History, produced by Intelligence Squared on behalf of Perowne International⁠. Picture being on a sweep of white sand where Rio meets the Atlantic. Through revolutions, dictatorship, and the moving of the capital itself, Jules and Richard trace how this luminous beachfront palace endured it all. They reflect on how this iconic property reflects Brazil’s wild glamo...

Andrew Ross Sorkin began his career at the forefront of Wall Street news, reporting extensively for The New York Times on the financial crash of 2008 and its chaotic aftermath. His expert journalism has since established him as a leading voice on economics, finance and corporate America. As the founder of DealBook, he helps make sense of major business and policy news through nuanced conversations...

Andrew Ross Sorkin began his career at the forefront of Wall Street news, reporting extensively for The New York Times on the financial crash of 2008 and its chaotic aftermath. His expert journalism has since established him as a leading voice on economics, finance and corporate America. As the founder of DealBook, he helps make sense of major business and policy news through nuanced conversations...

Recent high-profile legal disputes with Johnny Depp and Amber Heard and Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have renewed public debate about gender, power and credibility in the courts. But beyond the celebrity cases lies a deeper question: how fairly does the justice system treat women? In this episode, Mythili Rao speaks to barrister Charlotte Proudman about the gender bias and misogyny she argues r...

In a world of economic shocks, geopolitical crises and constant predictions about the future, how should we make decisions when certainty is impossible? And what can statistics teach us about living with risk, chance and the unknown?  In this episode, physicist and science broadcaster Helen Czerski speaks with statistician David Spiegelhalter about his book The Art of Uncertainty. Drawing on proba...

In this episode, historian and philosopher Sophie Scott Brown speaks with writer Andrea Wulf about her new book The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity. A naturalist, explorer and political radical, Forster travelled around the world with Captain Cook as a teenager before becoming one of the most original and progressive thinkers of his age. Drawing on u...

Rebecca Solnit is an award-winning American writer and activist whose incisive work explores feminism, democracy, climate change and social justice. In this episode, she joins Mythili Rao to argue that, despite today's anxieties about democratic backsliding, technological disruption and environmental crisis, the past four decades have seen extraordinary social progress. From civil rights and envir...

Emmanuel Macron. Demis Hassabis. Volodymyr Zelenskiy. George Soros. Mark Carney. Christine Lagarde. Ray Dalio. Leena Nair.  Few journalists have spent more time questioning the people who shape the global economy than Francine Lacqua. As Editor-at-large at Bloomberg and host of Leaders with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg TV, Lacqua has interviewed many of the most influential political and business...

Emmanuel Macron. Demis Hassabis. Volodymyr Zelenskiy. George Soros. Mark Carney. Christine Lagarde. Ray Dalio. Leena Nair.  Few journalists have spent more time questioning the people who shape the global economy than Francine Lacqua. As Editor-at-large at Bloomberg and host of Leaders with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg TV, Lacqua has interviewed many of the most influential political and business...

The English Renaissance is often remembered as an age of Shakespeare, exploration and cultural flourishing. But it was also shaped by encounters with the Americas. From tobacco in London playhouses to silver from South America and stories of lost cities of gold, the New World became an increasingly powerful presence in English life and imagination. In this episode, historian Caroline Dodds Pennock...

In September 2022, a series of underwater explosions tore through the Nord Stream pipelines beneath the Baltic Sea. The destruction of this $20 billion pipeline severed a major artery of Russian gas supplies to Europe, disrupted economies and triggered a manhunt that strained relations within the NATO alliance. In this episode, journalist Hannah Lucinda Smith speaks with Wall Street Journal Chief...

Long before Putin's invasion of Ukraine, conflict was simmering on Europe's borders. In overlooked territories in eastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus –from the Balkans and Cyprus to Abkhazia on the fringes of Georgia – local disputes spiral into regional crises, global alliances are forged and broken, and power is brokered while the West looks elsewhere. In this episode, acc...

This is an episode of Hotels with History, produced by Intelligence Squared on behalf of Perowne International⁠. We’re in midtown Manhattan to kick off Series 2, at the very heart of New York society: the Waldorf Astoria. An icon born from family rivalry which evolved into the unofficial palace of the city; from Gilded Age ambition and Art Deco grandeur to revolutionary ideas about service, the Wa...

As the main intelligence and security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991, the KGB instilled fear across Russia and sought to sow discord abroad. This network of government spies was notorious for the often brutal methods it used to keep enemies, loyalists and common people under the thumb of the state. And far from fading as the USSR old guard fell from power, the operatives, methods and...

As the main intelligence and security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991, the KGB instilled fear across Russia and sought to sow discord abroad. This network of government spies was notorious for the often brutal methods it used to keep enemies, loyalists and common people under the thumb of the state. And far from fading as the USSR old guard fell from power, the operatives, methods and...

From cannabis legalisation in the United States to the rise of psychedelics as wellness and productivity tools, the global politics of drugs is being rapidly transformed. But who really benefits from the legalisation of recreational drugs? In this episode, journalist and author Atossa Araxia Abrahamian speaks with Kojo Koram, Professor of Law and Political Economy at Loughborough University, about...

In this episode, journalist Kamal Ahmed was joined by Jon Sopel, Dimple Ahluwalia and Matt Rowe to explore how cybersecurity has moved from a technical concern to a central force shaping economic growth, national security and public trust in an age of boundless intelligence. They examine why cyber resilience must go beyond reactive defence, and how stronger security can protect essential industrie...