From housebuilding to sewage systems to the NHS, private companies are deeply intertwined with our essential public services. But is partnering with big corporations the only way of improving people’s lives? Is private investment a vital ingredient in economic renewal? Or will it just lead to price gouging for us and soaring profits for corporate execs?
Thi ... Show More
Feb 2025
Are we falling for the myth of minority rule? With Ash Sarkar
We are living in a time of contradictions.
For the last forty years, our politics and media have been dominated by neoliberal, right-wing voices - yet pundits insist that the UK is dominated by a woke, left-wing elite.
Our politicians claim to champion the voices of the forgotten ... Show More
46m 47s
Feb 2025
Is the Labour government delivering on its promises?
Half a year ago, the Labour Party swept into power with a huge parliamentary majority and Kier Starmer celebrated by saying that the country could “get its future back”.
Today, Labour are dogged by low approval ratings, having upset everyone from environmentalists to pensioners, ... Show More
48m 34s
Nov 2024
What’s wrong with Britain’s economy? With Sam Bowman
The UK is lagging behind its peers in the Eurozone. Its per capita GDP trails that of France and Germany, and yet its housing and energy is scarcer and more expensive. A recent essay by Sam Bowman, co-authored with Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes, argues that Britain has struggle ... Show More
37m 4s
Nov 2024
Labour's Economic Conundrum
William Davies joins Tom to assess the efforts of the new Labour government in tackling the UK's many economic challenges. They consider whether Rachel Reeves’s first budget, with its substantial tax rises, can do anything more than arrest the decline of the public finances, and ... Show More
53m 19s
Oct 2024
The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook, with Paul Johnson, Part Two
Paul Johnson is the economist who has set the terms of so much political debate over the past few decades in Britain. Having served as Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies since 2011, his expertise on matters of public spending and global economic trends have provided inv ... Show More
47m 18s
Apr 2024
What’s the future for cities in the postpandemic world?
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Ed Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. His latest book, coauthored with health economist David Cutler, is Survival of the city: The future of urban life in ... Show More
37m 4s