The Prospect Podcast

In this special episode of the Prospect Interview, listen to audio from the magazine’s latest Editor’s Club call with Andrew Adonis on writing political biography, and what makes a good leader. Andrew Adonis joins editor Tom Clark to discuss his upcoming book on Tony Blair, the difference between campaigning and governing, and why extroverts make for good political leaders.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it possible to govern well in the age of populism? That was the question our three guests took on when entering this year’s Bennett Prospect Public Policy essay contest—and they impressed the judges with their novel ideas. Winner Callum Watts and runners-up Nina Foster and Oliver Large join the Prospect Interview this week to discuss just what we mean when we talk about populism, how to make citizen’s assemblies work, and whether children should be given the right to vote. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

India’s Covid-19 crisis has seriously shaken national confidence in prime minister Narendra Modi—but will it unseat him? Prospect contributor Andrew Adonis and Cambridge historian Shruti Kapila join the Prospect Interview to talk about the swift rise of Modi, what differentiates him from other populist leaders, and what enabled India’s Covid-19 disaster.You can read Andrew Adonis’s profile of Narendra Modi here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/narendra-modi-is-everything-apart-from-what-he-seems Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Geopolitics professor Klaus Dodds and journalist Rachel Halliburton join the Prospect Interview to give the inside view on the new geopolitical battle of the decade: the race for the Arctic. As temperatures rise, new shipping routes are opening up in the ice—and the big nations are waiting. Klaus and Rachel wrote an essay on the new very Cold War in this month’s issue of Prospect and what that means for the future of our planet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The celebrated author Philip Roth was obsessed with chasing the exceptional in both his life and work. Author and critic Jon Day joins the Prospect Interview to discuss new biographies of the author of American Pastoral and Portnoy’s Complaint. He talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about why Roth marks the end of the grand literary celebrity, and how his novels precipitated the rise of “cancel culture.”You can read Jon Day’s essay on Philip Roth here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/philip-roths-ruthless-intimacy-biography-review Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new biography of Stephen Hawking argues that the celebrated scientist was shamelessly self-promoting and his reputation overrated. Philip Ball joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking: The Making of a Scientific Celebrity and talks to arts and books editor Sameer Rahim about humanising a scientific deity, and why it was that Hawking, out of all of his other similarly accomplished peers, became a household name. You can read Philip Ball’s review of Hawking Hawking here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/stephen-hawking-celebrity-physicist-flaws Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his cover story for the new issue of Prospect, human rights lawyer Adam Wagner writes about the troubling ways in which laws have been passed over the last year, and how they pose a threat to Britain’s freedom. Lockdown has, of course, helped bring the Covid-19 under control—but what about cases such as the government’s crackdown on the Sarah Everard vigils and its detention of children? Adam talks to Tom Clark about the troubling attack on Britain’s human rights, the changing role of the police, and what the courts should do next.You can read Adam Wagner’s piece, “Taking liberties”, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/adam-wagner-covid-lockdown-law-democracy-essay Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While homeschooling her eight-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son during lockdown, Eliane Glaser was shocked to discover what they got up to at school in pre-pandemic times. Her children were asked to explain the meaning of “fronted adverbials” and “determiners”; they filled in “success criteria”; their maths worksheets asked them to “use inverse relationships to solve problems.” These are not questions you would ask of an adult—let alone a young child. So what happened, and who’s to blame for the absurdities of England’s robot curriculum? Eliane joins the Prospect podcast to talk about the many sides of homeschooling, what she learned when speaking to teachers for the piece, and what needs to be done for the curriculum to change.You can read Eliane’s piece, “Homeschooling has revealed the absurdities of England’s national curriculum”, here: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/homeschooling-parents-lockdown-national-curriculum-uk-eliane-glaser Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scotland is currently seeing a radical experiment in land ownership. Currently, fewer than 500 individuals are estimated to own more than half of the nation—but there’s increasing drive to give everyone a stake in the ground beneath their feet. David McAllister joins the Prospect Interview to discuss Scotland’s land revolution, and the lessons on wealth, property, and community it holds everywhere. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist Barbara Speed joins the Prospect podcast to talk about the changing fortunes of one of the internet's most-visited websites: Wikipedia. Depending on who you speak to, Wikipedia is either a misinformation free-for-all overseen by self-selecting pedants or, as Barbara has it in her latest article, “the last redoubt of the idealism of the early World Wide Web.” Barbara joins assistant editor Rebecca Liu to discuss the past and future of this seemingly contradictory corner of the internet—and whether or not, in this new age of “alternative facts,” it might just be our unlikely saviour. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.