Past Present Future

The History of Bad Ideas: Political Leadership is What Counts

Today’s bad idea is a pervasive political myth: the notion that what really matters at election time is political leadership. David talks to political scientist Jane Green about why leaders are less i...

2026-07-22

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The History of Bad Ideas: Celebrity

David talks to historian and broadcaster Greg Jenner about the surprising history of the idea of celebrity, from Roman generals to 18th-century child stars to contemporary pop culture icons. How is ce...

2026-07-19

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The History of Bad Ideas: Deliverism

Today’s episode is about a bad idea with a very recent history: David talks to political historian David Klemperer about the dangers of deliverism. When did the view that delivering for the voters is ...

2026-07-15

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The History of Bad Ideas: Narrative History

Today’s bad idea is a way of doing history: David talks to historian Alec Ryrie about the seductions and pitfalls of narrative history. Why do we need more Herodotus and less Thucydides? What makes so...

2026-07-12

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The History of Bad Ideas: Hysteria

For the first in a new set of episodes about bad ideas with interesting histories David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about hysteria, an ancient idea that became a very modern diagno...

2026-07-08

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Where Are We Going? The Future of the Future

In the second part of their conversation about what has happened to our ideas of the future David and Ivan Krastev explore where the future is going next. Why do our expectations of what comes after u...

2026-07-05

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Where Are We Going? The Idea of the Future

Today’s episode is the first of two with writer and political scientist Ivan Krastev exploring what has happened to our ideas of the future. When did thinking about the future become the way we define...

2026-07-01

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Live Film Special: Never Let Me Go w/Adam Rutherford

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about Mark Romanek’s 2010 film of Kazuo...

2026-06-28

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Now & Then with Robert Saunders: The Brexit Referendum 10 Years On

Today’s episode in our occasional series looking at significant political anniversaries explores the causes and consequences of the Brexit Referendum, which took place 10 years ago this week. David ta...

2026-06-24

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Live Special: Jimmy Wales on the Lessons of Wikipedia

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival: David talks to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales about what we can learn from the astonishing success of an enc...

2026-06-21

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The Great Political Fictions: HHhH

Our final great political fiction (for now!) is a meta-fiction and auto-fiction that is also a compelling work of historical reconstruction. Laurent Binet’s HHhH (2010) tells the story of Operation An...

2026-06-17

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The Great Political Fictions: The Years

The penultimate great political fiction in this series is not strictly a fiction: it’s Annie Ernaux’s retelling of her own life in The Years (2008), thereby recapturing the story of France in the seco...

2026-06-14

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The Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor

Today’s political fiction is a spy novel, a Cold War comedy and a meditation on the nature of good and evil: Graham Greene’s The Human Factor. Why has Greene so fallen out of fashion? What made the So...

2026-06-10

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The Great Political Fictions: The Dispossessed

Today’s great political fiction is a path-breaking work of science fiction: David explores Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974), which imagines a world without the need for government or coercive ...

2026-06-07

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The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor

In the second of two episodes about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, David talks to critic and memoirist Catherine Taylor about the novel’s place in the history of feminism. Is its idea of ‘free w...

2026-06-03

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The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook

In today’s episode David explores Doris Lessing’s bold and brilliant The Golden Notebook (1962), a book about female emancipation, political disillusionment and much, much more. Why did Lessing insist...

2026-05-31

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The Great Political Fictions: Brave New World

For the first in a new set of episodes about some of the great political fictions of the past hundred years David explores Aldous Huxley’s much misunderstood dystopian masterpiece Brave New World (193...

2026-05-27

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Live Film Special: Good Night, and Good Luck w/Helen Lewis

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (...

2026-05-24

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The Starmer Crisis in Historical Perspective – Part 2: What’s Next?

Today it’s the second of our episodes trying to make sense of what’s happening in British politics with a bit of historical perspective: this time asking what is likely to follow from the current cris...

2026-05-20

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The Starmer Crisis in Historical Perspective – Part 1

Today it’s the first of two episodes in which we try to make sense of what’s happening in British politics with a bit of historical perspective: how did we arrive at the current crisis and what might ...

2026-05-17

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Past Present Future

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