Today’s bonus episode is part two of David’s conversation with Glen Rangwala about the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein. How did Saddam’s execution turn into such a grisly spectacle? Who or what ended up deciding his fate? What is Saddam’s legacy in the region today? And what has been the long-term impact of the Iraq War and its failures on contemporary global politics?

Today’s bonus episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about how the question of Irish Home Rule blew up British politics. What happened when Gladstone made a final attempt to secure parliamentary support for Home Rule? How did the House of Lords become the flashpoint for the political fight? Who ended up militarising the struggle? And what kept Britain from falling into the abyss of civil war in 1914? Plus: more Brexit analogies!

David talks to film historian Harrison Whitaker about Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), a Christmas tearjerker that also manages to be an exploration of personal identity, social justice, moral individualism and free will. Is George Bailey secretly a Sartrean? Is this really a film about the political theory of non-domination? What does it have to say about capitalism? And what’s the meaning of a wonderful life anyway?

In this PPF+ bonus to accompany our episode on the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial, David explores the book at the heart of the case. Does the focus on sex miss the central theme of the relationship between Clifford Chatterley, Constance Chatterley and Oliver Mellors? How does Lawrence think that sex relates to class? Is there any real chance this story could end happily ever after? And what is it with the red trousers?

Today’s PPF+ bonus is the second part of David’s conversation with palaeontologist and science writer Henry Gee about humanity’s battle to stave off extinction. Why have all our attempts at progress been accompanied by so much disease and dying? Can we continue to exist as a species if we carry on having fewer and fewer children? Is there any reason to think the human story will have a different outcome from that of any other species? If not, how might it all end?

In today’s PPF+ bonus episode David talks to historian of Russia Edward Acton about the trial in 1938 of Nikolai Bukharin, the darling of the Bolsheviks whose conviction and execution were the culmination of the Moscow Show Trials. Did Bukharin manage to subvert the process with the distinctive style of his confession? Did Stalin have any misgivings? And how did the case of Bukharin inspire Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, which in turn helped to inspire George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984?