The Why? Curve

Should we have the right to end our lives in the way we choose - with others allowed to help us? Euthanasia is back on the agenda after a number of celebrities pushing for a change in the law. But what about the risks - the sick and elderly feeling they are a burden to be dispensed with? The devaluing of life itself? Dr Sam Carr lecturer at the Department of Education and the Centre for...

Donald Trump could be back in the White House this time next year. Politicians from London to Berlin to Canberra are scratching their heads about how to deal with another season of Trump World - he’s promised to end the Ukraine war in one day, threatened to leave NATO, do deals with authoritarian leaders in Beijing and Moscow. Can the familiar western democratic way of doing things survive when th...

Many thousands of people are in prison for crimes they didn’t do, and their chances of getting their cases reopened are minimal at best. The Post Office scandal showed how hard it is to reverse a miscarriage of justice, even when the truth is obvious to all. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is slow and inefficient, as has been shown by recent headlines - cases decades old were finally res...

Unheated classrooms, cancelled trains, delayed operations, potholed roads - it’s hard to avoid the impression that the UK isn’t working properly, that our systems are failing, that something has gone badly wrong. Is this because we have failed to invest? Have we outsourced pubic services to companies that have no interest in maintenance? Or do we have to face up to not being able to afford the kin...

The UK and US launched air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen after their missile-attacks on international shipping - could this all turn into a regional conflict? London and Washington tell Iran to stay out, but its backing for Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis suggests it’s already involved. So can this be stopped from exploding into something much bigger, with an even more deva...

It's the biggest year in the history of democracy - more than half of the people on earth have the chance to choose, through the ballot box, who governs them. So why is democracy - the system that gives the ultimate power to the people  - in such deep trouble? Autocracies like China say their form of government works better. "Illiberal" democracies like Russia cl...

It's going to be a momentous year in British politics, with a Tory administration staggering towards what almost everyone thinks will be an electoral wipeout, and a Labour leadership desperate to avoid any mistakes on their path back to power. In Scotland the SNP are looking at the damage from a year of savage headlines, and, among the smaller parties, the LibDems and Reform are seeing the po...

A look back at the highlights of 2023 on WhyCurve.com . Phil and Roger covered everything from tax-cuts to racism, from AI to Rwanda, with experts and researchers. So here's a New Year gift - their pick of the best and most insightful discussions of the past year or so. Featuring: Michele Groppi of the Defence Studies Department at King’s College, London on Israel and Gaza Stefan Wolff, professor...

The last-minute dash to the shops, the frantic hunt for something just right for your cousin…. The giving season can be tough, but has buying online changed the way we think about gifts? Is it now intangibles - experiences, subscriptions, game credits - that dominate our presents? Are we buying less of the overpriced tat that used to fill our stockings? Claire McCamley, senior lecturer in marketin...

Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill has passed its first hurdle - it says, as a matter of law, the East African state is “safe”. But is it? Is it a place we could confidently send those who have arrived on our shores seeking asylum, and be sure they would not be at risk? Or is it, in fact, a dictatorship with a history of persecuting and killing those who disagree with the president? Michela Wrong, a j...

The COP28 was big on promises, but can they be taken seriously when the location the president and so many of the participants are signed up to big oil? Is the secret to getting serious on mitigating climate change, getting capitalism on board? So that making money from saving the planet can become a real option? Julian Caldecott, Director of Creatura, an environmental consultancy, guides Phi...

All eyes have been on Gaza since October, but what has been happening in the confrontation between Ukraine and Russia - the biggest European land war since 1945? Has the West lost hope of defeating Vladimir Putin here, and is President Zelenskyy being persuaded to turn a stalemate into some sort of truce? Ukrainian doctoral research scholar and security specialist Igor Shchebetun at Sumy State Uni...

Jeremy Hunt delivered his Autumn statement this week, with 110 policy measures. The most significant of those was a 2% cut in National Insurance contributions. Roger and Phil ask Simon French, Chief Economist and Head of Research at UK investment bank, Panmure Gordon, whether the main aim of the cuts was to bolster the chances of a win for the Conservatives at the next election? On this week’s pod...

Drill, baby, drill - but does it make sense to hand out, every year, new North Sea extraction licences for oil and gas as the UK government has promised? Aren’t we supposed to be ending our reliance on fossil fuels? Or is it essential for energy security to harvest what we have on our doorstep? And is the cost of a more rapid transition to renewable sources of energy too high for hard-pressed...

Should animals have rights? Should dogs and cats be able to sue you for not feeding them on time? Should farm animals be able to get an injunction to stop us eating them? There’s a growing movement to recognise that many of our fellow creatures are sentient, feel pain and loss, and therefore, perhaps, should have legal rights. But how could this work? How would it change our lives? And where do we...

Artificial intelligence is everywhere - and politicians and business leaders are rushing to get on top of what could be an advance bigger than the Industrial Revolution. But could it also be a risk to human life on the scale of an asteroid collision or nuclear war? Is there any practicable way to control something we barely understand? Or will caution stop us from reaping the huge benefits for uni...

Accusations of attempted genocide from one side of the current Middle East crisis, and furious claims of anti-semitism from the other, show how deeply perceptions of racism still inform global conflicts. But what causes racism? What is the basis of the fear and anger it creates? Has it always been part of human society? How do we deal with it in a world where borders signify less and less, and com...

It’s a dangerous moment in one of the world’s most volatile regions. How far will Israel go to avenge the brutal killings inflicted by Hamas? Will the slaughter of innocent Palestinian civilians change global sympathies? Will Israel get bogged down in a long bloody battle inside Gaza. And will Iran and Lebanon get dragged into a widening conflict that brings violence from angry Muslims onto the st...

Labour has a real chance of forming the next government, but does it have the sense of mission, the “vision thing” to carry voters with it? Matthew Flinders, Professor of Politics at Sheffield University tells Phil and Roger that Keir Starmer is still on course to lose next year’s election, unless he and his party can uncork some of the spirit that brought Tony Blair into Number 10 in 1997 &n...

Where are the Conservatives going? Into opposition next year, almost certainly. But what sort of party will it be? Are the Tories becoming a far-right populist fringe, wedded to harsh rhetoric on immigration, culture, crime, gender and Europe? Or will a heavy defeat at the ballot box force the most successful political organisation in Europe to move back toward the centre to rebuild its attraction...

Should we be able to be anonymous online? If we all knew who we were, would the conversation be more civil? Would the bots and trolls be exposed for what they are? Or would it open vulnerable people to attack - dissidents pursued by hostile regimes? Would the free speech at the heart of the net disappear? Dr Catherine Flick, reader in Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University t...

After eighteen months of fighting in Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945, is there any sign of an end? Tens of thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent, but the frontlines have barely moved. The weather will shortly bring land warfare to a halt - when it resumes in the spring, will Ukraine’s new western weaponry deal a knockout blow to Russian forces? Or will patience run out among K...

Should the NHS be buying anti-obesity drugs? Should councils be subsidising fruit and vegetables? Or is it better to spend scarce resources on antibiotics and cancer medicines? How do we weigh up the best purchases to get the healthiest outcomes for all of us? With a health service in a deepening crisis of resources, Joan Costa-i-Font, Professor of Health Economics at the London School of Economic...

Are museums showing their age? Displays of dusty objects, looted or stolen during the imperial past, now, it seems not even safe in their cases. Is it time to reconsider what our museums should hold? And how we represent our past - and the past of other cultures? Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology at Oxford University and Curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers tells Phil and...

The 45th president of the United States will go on trial next March just as the campaign hots up to install the next chief executive of the world’s most powerful democracy. It will be the most turbulent election year since the civil war, with the prospect that Donald Trump could be competing from inside a prison cell. Joe Biden will be the oldest person ever to serve in the White House if he succe...