The Prospect Podcast

Lionel Shriver, Afua Hirsch and Mary Beard talk freedom of speech, power and the new culture wars. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prospect today publishes an exclusive podcast interview with John Sawers, head of MI6 from 2009-2014. 

Sawers raises deep concerns over the security and intelligence consequences of Brexit. He says: “My concern on the intelligence and security front is over the exchange of data. Data is now central to the way in which security services in particular monitor threats. Track people who might pose a...

The immense political, constitutional and legal challenge posed by Brexit becomes clearer by the day. With talks now stepping up a gear and turning to the future relationship, Prospect Editor Tom Clark and Deputy Digital Editor Alex Dean sat down with representatives from either side of the debate. Gisela Stuart, the Labour politician who chaired Vote Leave, clashed with Ian Dunt, Remainer and edi...

Prospect’s Editor, Tom Clark, spoke to the writer and academic Shahidha Bari about her recent essay on the problem of art made by terrible men. What should our attitude be to their work and does history give examples of how those views might change over time? Stephanie Boland, Digital Editor and Sameer Rahim, Arts and Books Editor were on hand to offer their insights, in the first in a new series...

Not so long ago the web was on the quirky edges of life, but today it is at its heart. John Naughton started out as an enthusiast, but today he joins Tom Clark to explain why it has fallen prey to corporate capture and bred a new surveillance capitalism. James Ball explains how social media has been used to brainwash voters. Meanwhile, Samira Shackle comes back from a trip to Mosul, the Iraqi city...

Not long ago, Tony Blair and Bill Clinton said there was no more point in arguing with globalisation than the weather: it was an unstoppable wind of change. No longer. It has spun into reverse. Dani Rodrik joins Tom Clark and explains why good economics always made hyper-globalisation a dubious proposition. Meanwhile, Keynes biographer Robert Skidelsky reappraises the record of one thoughtful glob...

Britain’s business leaders are increasingly jittery about a “cliff edge” Brexit. But is leaving Europe necessarily a threat for UK PLC, rather than an opportunity? Economists Adam Posen and Diane Coyle join Tom Clark and give the low-down, both on the scale of the coming shock as they see it, and the pre-existing frailty of the low-productivity British economy. Meanwhile, Andrew Dickson has taken...

Dutchman Joris Luyendijk imagined he was moving in with European cousins when he arrived in London; six years later he was cheering on Brexit. He tells Tom Clark how he learned to loathe England. At least Britain can laugh at itself—Sameer Rahim has been talking to our greatest living satirist, Armando Iannucci. All nations are defined by the stories they tell about themselves, and Daniella Peled...

Prospect has a new podcast series starting this week, called How To Fix... - and we'd like to share it with our Headspace listeners. In the first episode, Steve Bloomfield was joined by Andrew Dilnot, Liz Kendall and Daniel Drepper to discuss social care—what's wrong with it, and how we could make it better. You can subscribe now to hear future episodes at: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/howtof...

Just how much difference — or not — do the quirks of an individual make to the tide of history? In this month’s episode we welcome historian-turned-Cabinet minister Andrew Adonis, who claims every election is won by the more talented leader. We hear from Wittgenstein's biographer, Ray Monk, who argues that one of the greatest philosophical minds of the lot—Gottlob Frege—lived in a husk of a man. F...

This month Tom Clark and guests chew over three simmering—or potential—culture wars. Immigration is often said to divide the "metropolitan elite" from "the masses", but Steve Bloomfield says that Canada proves that, done the right way, immigration can be popular. Jessica Abrahams fills us in on what's good, what's bad and what's complacent in fourth-wave feminism. And the Sun's Emily Andrews fills...

Alison Wolf, Paul Ormerod and Adam Tooze join Prospect Editor Tom Clark to discuss whether it’s a good thing that so many people go to university; why trust in experts has fallen so low; and how, 10 years on from the banking crisis, a new system of regulation has been quietly introduced under-the-radar. But how sustainable is it? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The malconents have, once again, wrought revenge on the know-it-alls, landing Britain with a hung parliament instead of the predicted Conservative landslide. Steve Richards sees election 2017 as one more instance of the worldwide trend for outsiders causing an upset at the expense of an establishment which has lost all legitimacy since the economic crisis of a decade ago. Rachel Sylvester says the...

Nick Cohen, Matthew Parris and Meg Russell (Constitution Unit) join Tom Clark and a live audience to discuss where Theresa May’s surprise ballot will leave the government, the opposition and a divided country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the ninth edition of Prospect's monthly podcast, Nick Cohen, Christine Ockrent and Geoffrey Wheatcroft join our editor, Tom Clark, to discuss the British and French elections, as well as the extraordinary resilience of the Tory party. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon Jenkins, Wendell Steavenson, and Paul Hilder join Tom Clark to discuss the fraying Union between England and Scotland, the reordering of London to favour the global elite, and the way that new digital campaigns are disrupting the old politics everywhere Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ross McKibbin, Nicholas Timmins and Lucky Wadham join Tom Clark to discuss the condition of Labour and its greatest creation, the NHS, as well as Marine Le Pen's run at the French Presidency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Debate globalisation?” Tony Blair said a dozen years ago, “You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer." Well, we’re debating it now all right, and economist George Magnus fears that it's set to spin into reverse—very possibly sinking us into a global trade war. Some unhappy dwellers on Planet Trump fear that real war could soon be on the agenda as well. Spies are better placed t...

Power to the people! As an ideal democracy has long reigned unchallenged, but could it fall out of fashion after the convulsions of Brexit and Trump? Certainly, Vladimir Putin's cyberwars raise new questions about its integrity. Journalist Luke Harding, who was expelled from Russia in 2011, explains how the Kremlin's campaign of democratic disruption abroad exports tricks long in use in its electi...

The only world order any of us can remember has been led by one super-power above all others, the United States. But the election of the intermittently isolationist Donald Trump—combined with the ongoing eclipse of American economic power by the Chinese continuing in the background—could mark the moment where the liberal rules of the game finally unravel. Certainly, that is the view of Francis Fuk...

All that is solid melts into air. It was one of Karl Marx’s most famous slogans, but the great Victorian might have been writing about 2016. Many a political death arrived suddenly, and famous names from Prince to David Bowie died literally too. The British people voted to crash out of the European Union, and now—the one thing all the wise heads agreed couldn’t happen has done. America has voted i...

Is it time to come off the love drug? Is there now real promise in the radical energy of the Corbynite left? What explains the rage pulsating through the US election campaign? In the second episode of this monthly series, Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by the novelist Will Self, the author Rachel Shabi and Diane Roberts, a commentator for National Public Radio who has been reading up on “hill...

In the first episode of this new monthly series, Prospect editor Tom Clark is joined by three contributors to discuss the ideas gracing the October edition of the magazine. We hear from Joanne Paul on what Thomas More's "Utopia" can tell us about politics some 500 years after it was first published. Rachel Holmes applauds the rise of women to positions of political power—but are they radical enoug...