UnHerd political editor Tom McTague and Cambridge professor Helen Thompson team up to investigate the history of today’s politics — and what it means for our future. Each week they will explore the great forces, ideas and events that led us to where we are, whether in Britain, the United States, Europe or beyond. It’s a politics podcast for those who want a deeper, historical understanding of the news, to understand what has really shaped our world and why. We hope you enjoy! Don’t forget to please rate, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts — and, of course, to get in touch with ..read more

Talking Politics producer Catherine Carr returns to her role as mic-wielder in 'Where Are You Going?' a unique storytelling podcast, delivered in bite-size episodes. Called 'utterly compelling and unique' by the Financial Times, 'engrossing' by The Times and 'riveting' by The Spectator. In each episode, Catherine interrupts people as they go about their everyday lives and asks simply; "Where are you going?" The conversations that follow are always unpredictable: sometimes funny, sometimes heart-breaking, silly, romantic or downright 'stop-you-in-your-tracks' surprising. Be transported to p ..read more

Past Present Future is a new weekly podcast with David Runciman, host of Talking Politics, exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology. David talks to historians, novelists, scientists and many others about where the most interesting ideas come from, what they mean, and why they matter. Ideas from the past, questions about the present, shaping the future. Brought to you in partnership with the London Review of Books. New episodes every Thursday. Just subscribe to Past Present Future wherever you get your podcasts ..read more

David, Helen and Catherine get together for our final episode, to reflect on podcasting through six extraordinary years of politics, and what it means to be ending at the beginning of a war. We talk about the current crisis, how it connects to the crises of the past, and where it might fit in to the crises of the future. This episode is dedicated to Finbarr Livesey and Aaron Rapport. So you don’t miss us too much…   You can follow Catherine’s work on Relatively and The Exchange on R4. She tweets @CatherineECarr Read David in the pages of the LRB Or check ou ..read more

For our penultimate episode, David talks to Helen about her new book Disorder: Hard Times in the Twenty-First Century. It’s a conversation about many of the themes Helen has explored on Talking Politics over the years, from the energy transition to the perils of QE, from the travails of the Eurozone to the crisis of democracy, from China to America, from the past to the present to the future. In this book, she brings all these themes together to help make sense of the world we’re in. Talking Points:  Suez is often seen as a crisis of British imperial hubris. But it’s also about energy ..read more

David talks to Shahin Vallee and Chris Bickerton about the upcoming French presidential elections. Can anything or anyone stop Macron? Why has French politics moved so far to the right? And what do left and right still mean in the absence of economic disagreement? Plus we discuss what the Macron years - the five that have gone and the five probably still to come - have taught us about the changing character of European politics. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/talkingpolitics ..read more

David, Helen and Chris Brooke have one more go at making sense of the tangled web that is British politics. Can Johnson really survive, and even if he does, can his brand ever recover? Is this a scandal, is it a crisis, or is it something else entirely? Does history offer any guide to what comes next? Plus we explore what might be the really big lessons from the last two years of Covid-dominated politics. Talking Points:  It’s obvious why Boris is a problem, but it’s not clear who would replace him. There will probably need to be a deci ..read more

David and Helen talk to Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor of the Economist, about what Vladimir Putin hopes to get out of the Ukraine crisis and what anyone can do to stop him. Is some sort of invasion inevitable? Is Russia’s goal to sow dissent or to achieve regime change? What leverage does the rest of world have over Putin and his allies? Plus we explore where the roots of the crisis lie: in 2014, in the end of the Cold War, or even earlier still? Talking Points:  What does Putin want from Ukraine?  He wants to stop Ukraine’s westward shift, which is ..read more

David talks to John Naughton about what’s coming next in the tech revolution and where it’s taking us. From quantum computing to cryptocurrency, from AI to the Internet of Things: what’s hype, what’s for real and how will it shape our politics. Plus we discuss what China understands about technology that the rest of the world might have missed. Talking Points:  The metaverse is the next big thing in Silicon Valley. It feels like the logical conclusion of prevailing trends. This is not actually a radical break. The gaming industry is developing the metaverse. And big tech is investing h ..read more

One year on from Joe Biden’s inauguration David and Helen talk with Gary Gerstle about what’s gone wrong. What is the strategy behind this presidency? Has it tried to do too much or too little? And are the dark warnings of another American civil war really plausible? Plus we discuss whether the original American Civil War should really be used as the template for political breakdown. Talking Points:  It’s hard to be a transformational president when your congressional margin is as slim as Biden’s is. Are critics being too harsh? Unemployment is down, the pandemic recovery was quic ..read more