94 | Strike

After the largest strike in the sector for a generation, we talk to Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, about the politics of higher education.  How did the issue of pensions become so politically charged?  What are the long-term consequences of treating students as consumers?  How should universities respond to the challenge of Brexit?  Plus we return to the question of why having a university degree is now one of the main dividing lines in contemporary politics.  With Helen Thompson and Chris Brooke.

93 | How Democracy Ends - The Book

An extra episode this week to talk about David's new book How Democracy Ends, out next week.  With a clip from the lecture we put out at the start of the year and a chat with Helen and Chris Bickerton.  The book is available with a special discount for Talking Politics listeners  (£12 including free P&P from profilebooks.com using the code TALKINGPOLITICS at the check out)

92 | What's wrong with GDP?

We talk with economist Diane Coyle about what's wrong with our main measure of economic performance and how it impacts on politics. She tells us what we're missing in our measures of economic activity and she explains how we could do it better.  Plus we discuss whether the unemployment figures still tell a true picture of the world of work and we ask whether the dollar's days as the global reserve currency may be coming to an end.  Numbers and why they matter.  With Helen Thompson and Chris Bickerton.
 

91 | James Williams

We catch up with James Williams, winner of the Nine Dots Prize, ahead of the publication of his prize-winning book Stand Out of Our Light: Freedom and Resistance in the Attention Economy.  What is the relentless competition for our attention doing to our well-being?  How can we fight back against the endless pull of the phone in our pocket?  And what does it all mean for politics?  The book will available free to download from Cambridge University Press on 31 May.

 

90 | Tim Shipman

We talk to Sunday Times political editor Tim Shipman, author of the definitive insider accounts of three years of turmoil in British politics: All Out War and Fall Out.  He tells us about what drives the bloodletting in the Tory Party, how Theresa May survived the general election fiasco and the difference between Tory leakers and Labour leakers. Plus  we talk Trump and Tim explains how Twitter has changed political journalism.

89 | The End of the Party?

The Conservative Party now has barely 70,000 members, most of them aged over 60. Meanwhile Labour has over half a million, many of them young.  What does this mean for the future of British politics?  Can a party survive without members?  Can Labour negotiate the divisions within its ranks?  And what room is there for a new party of the centre?  With Helen Thompson and Chris Bickerton.