Episodes

  • Prospect Lives: A question of identity

    Prospect Lives: A question of identity
    May 16 2024
    This month, our writers are mulling over questions of identity: Sheila regrets her lifelong habit of judging people by appearances while sex-worker and author Tilly Lawless considers the solidarity that exists between sex-workers and trans-women. OCD sufferer Sarah Collins feels destabilised by her recent birthday, while Anglican Priest Alice Goodman is forced into a new role by her health: that of a hospital patient.

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    33 mins
  • Britain’s opioid crisis?

    Britain’s opioid crisis?
    May 15 2024
    The United States has been ravaged by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and a few months ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that a similar disaster might be coming for Europe. Is he right? Freelance journalist Ella Glover joins Prospect’s deputy editor Ellen Halliday to discuss who is really at risk from nitazenes—a category of synthetic opioids linked to an increasing numbers of deaths in Britain—and how prepared the UK is to protect them.

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    24 mins
  • Local election special, with Peter Kellner

    Local election special, with Peter Kellner
    May 8 2024

    The local elections went very badly for the Tories and pretty well for Labour—but what can the results really tell us about the upcoming general election? Prospect columnist and pollster Peter Kellner joins deputy editor Ellen Halliday to explain why Sunak is overselling the odds of a hung parliament, why Sadiq Khan underperformed in London and why Reform could still be the Conservatives’ biggest headache.


    Read Peter’s latest column here.


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    22 mins
  • Prospect Lives: A decision that changes everything...

    Prospect Lives: A decision that changes everything...
    May 2 2024
    This month, Jason Thomas-Fournillier, Prospect’s Displaced life writer makes a reappearance to reveal some truly exciting news about his story of seeking asylum in the UK.

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    32 mins
  • Will Hutton: How Labour can get it right

    Will Hutton: How Labour can get it right
    Apr 30 2024

    Polls suggest Labour is set to win the next general election—but if it does, it will face governing in dismal economic circumstances. What would it take for Labour to transform the country, despite the apparent lack of money available to government?


    Perhaps more importantly, what should the animating moral principle of a potential new Labour government be? And is Keir Starmer prepared to be bold in pursuit of a vision—or will he be timid?


    Will Hutton, economist, columnist and author of new book This Time No Mistakes: How to Remake Britain joins Ellen Halliday on the podcast.




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    30 mins
  • Avraham Burg: Israel’s tyrannical leadership

    Avraham Burg: Israel’s tyrannical leadership
    Apr 23 2024

    Author, politician and former member of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg joins Ellen Halliday to discuss political leadership in Israel and the influence that extremist voices are having on Netanyahu. Burg argues Israelis must push for the change in leadership needed for the nation to pursue a more peaceful path.



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    27 mins
  • Broke Birmingham and the council crisis

    Broke Birmingham and the council crisis
    Apr 17 2024
    Last year three councils in England went bust, and the BBC political research unit has reported that one in five councils have warned of effective bankruptcy in five years, unless there is reform. Contributing editor Tom Clark joins Ellen Halliday to unpick the deficit in local government funding, and to the chart the sorry course of Birmingham, a city that was once the cradle of municipal governance, which is now run by a bankrupt council that is forced to make unprecedented cuts.

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    37 mins
  • Margot Wallström: How Russia is wreaking environmental destruction in Ukraine

    Margot Wallström: How Russia is wreaking environmental destruction in Ukraine
    Apr 9 2024

    Prospect contributing editor Isabel Hilton is joined by Margot Wallström, a former Swedish foreign affairs minister and head of the High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine. They discuss the environmental damage Russia’s war has caused in Chernobyl and across the country. Also on the podcast, climate scientist Gavin Schmidt discusses the worrying news that climate models can’t explain 2023’s historic temperature high.




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    46 mins