The Long View

Jonathan Freedland compares the Catalonia crisis with a moment in Cornish history.

Jonathan Freedland explores the parallels between recent alleged Russian state interference in the American and other foreign elections, and covert British activities of the British Security Coordination (BSC), a secret arm of MI6 founded in May 1940. The motivations in each case are very different of course but some of the methods used then and now are very similar and offer an interesting parall...

Jonathan Freedland compares the plight of black cab drivers with the fate of London's watermen. For centuries watermen had a monopoly on Thames river crossings until advances in new technology allowed for bridges to be built across the river in the mid 18th Century. The men who ferried passengers on the Thames lost their jobs and livelihood. Today, technology threatens the modern day taxi business...

Jonathan Freedland compares Theresa May's weakened premiership with that of Liberal prime minister Lord Rosebery in 1894-5. MPs Iain Duncan Smith and Grant Shapps join Jonathan to examine what lessons can be learned. Rosebery was appointed to the premiership as a unity candidate, chosen to heal rifts in the Liberal Party caused by the issue of Home Rule. But Rosebery had powerful rivals in his cab...

In the space of a few short years the male beard has made a striking return to British life. Footballers, actors, fashionable hipsters and hirsute labourers are far more likely to wear some form of facial hair than they were in the recent past. The beard used to be the marker of a particular mindset, usually involving real ale, wholesome living and a disregard for the strictures of conventional li...

In 1883 a grass-roots political organisation was founded that re-shaped Victorian politics. The Primrose League signed up a million members and an army of Conservative activists who helped win elections by reaching out to new Tory voters in industrial cities and rural shires. Today another innovative grass-roots organisation is proving influential. Emerging from Jeremy Corbyn's 2015 leadership cam...

Jonathan Freedland compares cyber-attacks today with the Great Siege of Dover Castle in 1216 during which the French used new offensive techniques to try to seize the English throne. In 1216, Prince Louis of France's near-successful bid for the English throne climaxed in Dover, where his forces used a multitude of techniques in a major assault on the castle - including digging beneath the castle g...

Jonathan Freedland takes the Long View of landmark fires exploring the parallels between the tragedies of the Watson Street fire in Glasgow in 1905 and Grenfell Tower. In the East End of Glasgow in 1905 a 'Model Lodging House' at 39 Watson Street caught fire. It housed 300 poor working men, many of them migrants from Ireland and the Highlands. The lodging house itself was densely populated with me...

As we prepare to leave the EU, Jonathan Freedland compares overseas trade in today's Elizabethan age with that of the sixteenth century. In 1570 Elizabeth I was the subject of a Papal Bull of Excommunication, Theresa May must write a letter to Europe to trigger Article 50. Both documents will have a profound impact on trade. Elizabeth's response to her European troubles was to forge new trade link...

Jonathan Freedland compares the current wave of fake news stories, particularly those targeted at Muslims and immigrants in the UK, with the anti-Semitic story of an eight-year-old Christian boy, William of Norwich, who was murdered in woodland outside his native city in 1144. His death was later reported as a Jewish conspiracy and ritual, becoming the founding myth of the so-called 'blood libel'....

Jonathan Freedland compares Donald Trump's proposed border wall with the impenetrable 2500 mile Great Hedge of India constructed in the 1840s to control trade between British India and the Princely States. Producer: Laurence Grissell.

The Long View of Brexit, comparing it with the English Reformation. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch is the lead historian explaining that Henry VIII broke away from the Ecclesiastical control of Rome with the help of his 'fixer' Thomas Cromwell. However, Cromwell's ambitions were driven by his Protestantism whereas Henry was interested in securing his legacy and not making substantial changes to the...

As Hillary Clinton becomes the official Democrat candidate for US President, with aim of becoming the first woman to take that role, Jonathan Freedland takes the long view of pioneering women politicians, examining how Nancy Astor became the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons - in a constituency previously represented by her husband. Astor faced intense press scrutiny, and a pres...

Military drones today and the Nazi V1 and V2 weapons. With Jonathan Freedland

As pre-season training gets underway and transfer business goes on a-pace Jonathan Freedland takes the Long View of celebrity Football management. The new season will see the clash of several of the world's greatest managers lead by Jose Mourinho of Manchester United and Pep Guardiola of Manchester City. It was a similar story in Manchester back in the mid 1960s. Matt Busby had been at United sinc...

Jonathan Freedland focuses on the rise of Donald Trump through the prism of the past, by examining the careers of three high-profile 20th century Americans who became rich, famous and entered the political arena. Jonathan's guests include Professor Anthony J. Badger, former Paul Mellon Professor of American History at Cambridge University; James P. Rubin, who was the Assistant Secretary of State f...

With the annual surge in online dating at the start of the New Year, Jonathan Freedland takes the Long View of internet dating by looking at a social network from 1898 devised to bring strangers together in marriage or companionship. The 'Round About', set up by newspaper editor and philanthropist WT Stead, encouraged subscribers to submit a profile and a photo and an album of users would be sent...

Jonathan Freedland examines current debates about ethical shopping and production, in the light of early 19th century campaigns to boycott goods which involved slave labour. Producer Clare Walker.

Jonathan Freedland finds out how today's concerns about the privacy of our communications, and debates about encryption, have intriguing precedents in the 17th century. Producer Clare Walker.

Jonathan Freedland takes the long view of history looking at the past behind the present. On a farm in Cambridgeshire he compares the current Dairy Crisis with the 1930's Wheat Crisis. Freedland, accompanied by an agricultural historian, rural affairs correspondent, farmer and an actor whose line about "Accrington Stanley" immortalized the Milk Board, compares both crises. Then as now a global glu...

Jonathan Freedland compares Britain's response to refugees from Vietnam in the 1970s with our reaction to refugees from Syria today. Thousands of Vietnamese refugees came to the UK from 1979, were placed in camps and then dispersed around the country. Jonathan and his guests ask how well Britain met the needs of those Vietnamese refugees, how they and their children adapted to life in the UK and w...

Jonathan Freedland and guests use a story from the past to throw light on and inform debate about an event currently in the news.

Jonathan Freedland examines current debates about the "living wage" in the light of a publication by woollen manufacturer, Sir Mark Oldroyd in 1894. As Liberal MP and the owner of a number of mills in Dewsbury in Yorkshire, he delivered a lecture to the Dewsbury Pioneers Industrial Society called "A Living Wage". It said: "A living wage must be sufficient to maintain the worker in the highest stat...