Left and Right - still relevant in British and Global Politics?
British politics has long been defined by the labels of left and right but the terms are now often seen as defunct with research showing voters increasingly struggle to identify policies as being from...
25 Maj 202457min
Positive & negative politics, "intellectual vices" and the face you bring to work.
Sir Richard Evans, Margaret Heffernan, Isabel Oakeshott, Quassim Cassam join Anne McElvoy to look at the ideas shaping our lives today. Are they optimists or pessimists ? How negative should we be in ...
21 Maj 202456min
Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest
Can we still expect a meaningful job, stable income, a chance of owning property? How have expectations changed and what is the place of protest? Matthew Sweet's guests this week are: David Willetts i...
10 Maj 202456min
Winning & Losing, Plato Scroll, the Decline of Nightlife
Matthew Sweet talks about the philosophy of winning and losing with Professor Lea Ypi a political scientist at the London School of Economics and the journalist and author Peter Hitchens. They'll be j...
4 Maj 202457min
Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal
Marshmallows and Kant, ideas about girl power from Mary Wollstonecraft (born April 27th 1759) to the Spice girls; and galloping horses, sea-gull sounds and life as a goat. On today's Free Thinking Sha...
26 Apr 202457min
Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey
Classicist Mary Beard picks Tacitus as a figure who still has relevance if we're thinking about satire, power and celebrity. Shahidha Bari is joined by Mary, historian Helen Carr, who co-edited What i...
19 Apr 202457min
Change, scrabble and cultural christianity
"The times they are a changin" or are they? In politics people are talking about an appetite for change, or being a candidate for change but how radical can you be? With climate change, seasonal chang...
12 Apr 202456min
Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine
What do you owe the state and what does it provide for us? Writing during the English civil war, Thomas Hobbes came up with an outline for the social contract between individuals and the sovereign – o...
5 Apr 202456min
