Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Whatever Happened to Unemployment? Part 2
10 August 2025
Today’s bonus episode is the second part of David’s conversation with Robert Saunders on the anniversary of Britain’s lowest-ever recorded rate of peacetime unemployment. How has the politics of work got mixed up with the politics of immigration? Do we know what counts as a job anymore? Is there such a thing as the dignity of labour in the 21st century? Plus: how should we draw the line between unemployment and disability?
The History of Bad Ideas: Silicon Valley and the Marketing of Identity
19 July 2025
Today’s bonus episode on PPF+ is the second part of David’s conversation with Alexander Douglas in which they discuss how the ideas of the French philosopher Rene Girard got taken up and corrupted by Silicon Valley. How can we escape endless pursuit of mimetic identity whereby we copy others in our desire to be ourselves? What is ‘impostor syndrome’? And can a higher power help us escape the self?
The Age of Hitler
5 July 2025
In this bonus episode David talks to historian of religion Alec Ryrie about his remarkable new book The Age of Hitler. Since WWII ‘not being a Nazi’ has become the benchmark of moral conduct. What has this meant for our understanding of good and evil? What happened to the idea of trying to be more like Jesus? What gets warped in our view of the world if we fixate on the lessons of the Second World War? And what does it mean for all of us that this period may now be coming to an end?
The History of Bad Ideas: The Myth of the Decisive Battle from Yarmuk to Stalingrad w/Dan Snow
23 June 2025
In this bonus episode David and Dan continue their conversation about the myth of the decisive battle by looking at some examples. Why do historians insist that the Battle of Yarmuk in 633 changed the course of world history? Was the Battle of Hastings not the turning point in English history that we think? What did happen at Trafalgar? What about Stalingrad? And why does Warsaw 1920 perhaps qualify as the most significant battle of the 20th century?
50th Anniversary: The 1975 European Referendum Part 2 w/Robert Saunders
6 June 2025
In the second part of their conversation about the 1975 referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Community David and Robert try to explain why the 2016 Brexit referendum was so different in so many ways. Why had the parties switched positions over the intervening decades? What made different parts of the UK vote so differently in 2016 from 1975? How did Brexit win? Plus: Where is Britain’s relationship with the EU today?
Politics on Trial: Socrates Part 2
24 May 2025
In the second part of David’s discussion of the trial of Socrates he explores what the jury was thinking and what Socrates was thinking. Why didn’t he make this a trial about free speech? Why didn’t he call out his enemies as hypocrites? Why did more jury members end up voting for a death sentence than voted to convict him in the first place? And how did the trial of Socrates inspire Gandhi two millennia later?
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