In this PPF+ bonus episode David discusses what’s wrong with the idea of the news. How does news have its origins in gossip, rumour and travellers’ tales? Why does it put a premium on new information over true information? What turned nineteenth-century America into the quintessential example of a newspaper culture? And what makes the twenty-first century news environment so hard to navigate for anyone who wants to know what really matters?

Today’s PPF+ bonus episode is part two of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about the Brexit referendum, exploring the twists and turns of the past decade. Could any political leaders have made a better job of Brexit than the ones who actually delivered it? Was Brexit or COVID more significant in shaping British politics today? Is Britain a more sovereign nation than it was ten years ago? And how is it possible that Brexit is less popular than ever while its architect Nigel Farage might still end up as prime minister?

In today’s PPF+ bonus episode David asks Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about how Le Guin’s The Dispossessed matches up to his own understanding of the possibility of living without the Leviathan. Was her inspiration philosophical or anthropological? Does she show us how anarchistic living is possible to scale? What else can we discover about political reinvention from science fiction? Who else should we read?

In today’s PPF+ bonus episode David explores what makes George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four utterly different from and yet eerily similar to Brave New World. How did Orwell imagine that the world of Big Brother could come about so soon? What is the book saying about the relationship between past, present and future? Why does a book that is so flawed still haunt everyone who reads it? Where does the real terror lie?

In the second part of their conversation David and Sarah O'Connor go deeper into the question of what happens when supposedly intelligent machines start to do the work traditionally reserved for humans. Who decides on the division of labour? Who takes responsibility when things go wrong? Is human creativity going to save us or is it the thing most directly under threat? And where does politics come into the equation?

Today’s PPF+ bonus episode is the second part of David’s conversation with Helen Thompson about Peter Mandelson and the history of New Labour taking the story from 2008 to the present – with a whole new set of betrayals along the way. What did Mandelson get right and what did he get wrong about how to restore Labour’s fortunes? What future if any is left for Keir Starmer after the latest revelations about his dealings with Mandelson? And if this is the end of New Labour, what comes next?