Episode summary: How religion explains where economic ideas came from

Episode summary: Wendy Liu, author of the memoir Abolish Silicon Valley and former start-up founder, joins us to talk about the structural issues of our current tech industry under capitalism. Wendy walks us through a left perspective on Silicon Valley, including the push to organize labor and the t...

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Episode summary: Cities around the world have distinctive modes of transportation — the canals of Venice, the double-decker busses of London, and the Twin Cities (of Minneapolis and St. Paul) have skyways. In both downtowns, there are vast networks of climate-controlled pedestrian bridges that reach...

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Episode summary: Kate Mosse is the author of nine novels & short story collections, including the No 1 multimillion selling Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel - and No 1 bestselling Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter, which she is currently ad...

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Episode summary: Mick Fleetwood is the drummer and a founding member of Fleetwood Mac, one of the most successful rock bands of all time. Fleetwood talks to Alec about how dyslexia led him to the drumming, how supportive parents encouraged his talent and his move to London as a teenager, how his fri...

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Episode summary: Dan Saladino finds out what the Brexit deal means for the fishing industry. Some exports and logistics companies have seen problems along the supply chain into Europe. Is this just a glitch or a long term issue? With the UK now outside of the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union, ne...

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Episode summary: GDP figures for the period covering lockdown appear to show that the UK suffered a catastrophic decline, worse than almost any other country. But as Tim Harford finds out, things aren’t quite as bad for the UK as they might seem - though they might be worse for everywhere else. Also...

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Episode summary: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the plague that broke out in Constantinople 541AD, in the reign of Emperor Justinian. According to the historian Procopius, writing in Byzantium at the time, this was a plague by which the whole human race came near to being destroyed, embracing the w...

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Episode summary: David, Helen and Gary reflect on what lies ahead for American politics and for the Biden administration. Does Trump pose more of a threat from inside or outside the Republican party? Is immigration about to become the central partisan dividing line once again? How much good can call...

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