Today’s great political film is Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), voted the greatest film... more

Today’s episode is a conversation between David and the former politician Chris Smith (long-time MP and Secretary of State for... more

We resume our series on the great political films with Costa-Gavras’s Z (1969), the quintessential late 60s movie about assassination, conspiracy, street... more

To finish this series of bad ideas, David tries to persuade Gary Gerstle of the futility of televised leadership debates. From... more

For our penultimate bad idea in this series, David talks to Robert Saunders about what’s gone wrong with British politics... more

Today’s bad idea is a theory of the universe: David talks to astrophysicist Chris Lintott about Steady State Theory, the... more

Today’s bad idea concerns history itself: David talks to world historian Ayse Zarakol about the temptations and the pitfalls of... more

For today’s bad idea David talks to political philosopher Alan Finlayson about what goes wrong when politicians get their hands... more

Today’s bad idea is about how ideas get adopted, argued over and rejected: David talks to political philosopher Alan Finlayson... more

For our latest bad idea with an interesting history David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about... more