George Michael wrote Careless Whisper, one of the biggest pop songs of our age, in an hour in his childhood bedroom. Alongside his childhood best friend Andrew Ridgeley he founded Wham!, a revolutionary pop group which became one of the defining bands of the 1980s, selling over 30 million records. Yet behind the genius of George Michael was the complex perso ... Show More
Yesterday
Is Tech Making Our Kids Less Capable? With Dr Jared Cooney Horvath
Schools were promised that laptops, educational apps and artificial intelligence would make learning more personalised, engaging and effective. Cognitive neuroscientist and former teacher Dr Jared Cooney Horvath argues that the opposite may be true. In his new book, The Digital D ... Show More
33m 14s
Aug 22
Is Ukraine’s Culture Worth Fighting For? With Charlotte Higgins
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has placed not only lives and cities under attack, but also the country’s language, history and culture. Museums have been looted, cultural sites destroyed and a generation of writers, artists and performers drawn into the war. Yet amid thi ... Show More
37m 37s
Aug 18
How George Michael Changed Music Forever, with Sathnam Sanghera (Part One)
George Michael wrote Careless Whisper, one of the biggest pop songs of our age, in an hour in his childhood bedroom. Alongside his childhood best friend Andrew Ridgeley he founded Wham!, a revolutionary pop group which became one of the defining bands of the 1980s, selling over 3 ... Show More
37m 17s
Oct 2025
On Politics: The Death of the Conservative Party?
In its nearly two hundred years of existence the Conservative Party has survived through a combination of protean adaptability and ruthlessness, not least in its willingness to change leaders. Yet under its present leader, Kemi Badenoch, the party often described (by itself, at l ... Show More
55m 22s
May 2024
74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2)
Why did the Tory Party choose to make Liz Truss and Boris Johnson prime minister? How does it feel to be the second shortest-serving chancellor in post-war history? What was the true thinking behind the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget?
On today's episode of Leading, Rory ... Show More
54m 38s