It's not that our economies haven't already taken a hit because of the coronavirus, it's that what's coming may be much worse. Politicians, and people in finance and business, can see it, but there are no prizes for talking openly about it. So we've gone back to two people who really understand the depths of the trouble ahead. Alastair Darling was UK Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 2008 financial crash, and Mervyn King was Governor of the Bank of England. When they look around the corner, wha...
Oct 22, 2020•32 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the ...
Oct 17, 2020•37 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the ...
Oct 16, 2020•35 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast If animals share many qualities with humans - if they're self-aware, if they communicate, and grieve for their dead, as we know they do - do they deserve human-like rights? Next month, the case of Happy the elephant comes before the New York Supreme Court. Happy's lawyer (yes, she has one) will argue that her long incarceration in the Bronx Zoo has breached her right to bodily freedom. The case will get a respectful hearing; it's not inconceivable that Happy will win. But even if she loses, the ...
Oct 15, 2020•36 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast The serial failures of the UK's test and trace system will never be a footnote in the coronavirus crisis. In fact, they're the headline. Matthew d'Ancona reports on how it got so bad. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 08, 2020•36 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast The fertility industry is booming, but there is a tightrope to walk between what is possible, ethical and harmful. Reporter Claudia Williams and host Basia Cummings investigate the rise and rise of IVF. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 01, 2020•42 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast Coronavirus can kill, or pass through a body unnoticed. Its effects in the short term are wildly unpredictable. But as we learn to live with this new virus we're discovering more of its grisly secrets. One of them is that the damage it does to the body in the long run might leave a dreadful legacy. This is the story - as much as we know it – of Long Covid. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 23, 2020•35 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast We went to the perennial swing state where Trump won narrowly in 2016. Four years later, is Florida ready to flip again? Will it be an election about Covid and competence, law and order or racial justice? Will it be a referendum on the character of Donald Trump or just further evidence of a hopelessly divide nation? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 17, 2020•42 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast Evin Prison is one of the most secretive places on earth; the heart of Iran's oppression of its own people. We've spent months getting inside its walls through the testimony of people who've been detained there over the past 40 years. Together, their accounts are not simply the story of the prison, they're the story of what Iran has become. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 10, 2020•46 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast Drill music styles itself as a tough and uncompromising representation of life in poor communities in cities like Chicago and London. Police forces have clamped down on it in the belief that it provokes violence, but the evidence for a causal link is thin. Not for the first time, an innovative, anti-establishment Black voice is being quietened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 03, 2020•24 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast Something which is now almost unimaginable happened between 1974 and 1989. The world spotted a massive problem; the fix required action by consumers, businesses and governments; and they came together to pull it off. This is the story of the discovery of what man-made emissions were doing to the ozone layer and mankind's brilliant response. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 27, 2020•25 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast Michaela Coel's TV drama I May Destroy You has just finished playing on the BBC and HBO. Based partly on her own experience it's an unsettling, sometimes harrowing, examination of sexual assault, consent, friendship, and the experience of growing up Black and British. It may come to be seen as a watershed moment in British television, and it's not Coel's first. Basia Cummings talks to journalist and critic Yomi Adegoke about Michaela Coel's remarkable talent. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...
Aug 20, 2020•26 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast The story of the toppling of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol became a prominent chapter in the global response to the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests. Those events were the reasons the statue came down, but the more intriguing question is why it stayed up for so long. Why did a monument to a prominent slave trader remain standing for decades in spite of a local campaign to have it moved to a museum? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 13, 2020•31 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast How a member of the Kennedy political dynasty has become the most prolific super-spreader of conspiracies connecting anti-vaxxers, 5G and coronavirus Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 06, 2020•36 min•Ep 42•Transcript available on Metacast Chancellor Rishi Sunak is diligent and decent, but is he really the right man for the job of saving the British economy? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 30, 2020•29 min•Ep 41•Transcript available on Metacast As president Xi uses the pandemic to crack down again, we speak to Dr Teng Biao and Simon Cheng about their treatment in China's battle to control its people Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 23, 2020•34 min•Ep 40•Transcript available on Metacast "How are you?" used to be a throwaway question, but the pandemic has given it new meaning. Former spin-doctor Alastair Campbell, now a prominent mental health campaigner, asks high-profile people from sport, politics and entertainment how they've coped with life's new realities. Their answers have something to say to all of us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 16, 2020•43 min•Ep 39•Transcript available on Metacast Late every evening in London at the Ministry of Justice, dozens of poorly-paid workers slip into the offices to begin their night-time cleaning jobs. Many - maybe most - have recently arrived in the UK. Economically, their lives are precarious. But when coronavirus struck life itself became precarious. Emanuel Gomes and Luis Eduardo Veintimilla are two of the cleaners at the Ministry who carried on working there as the virus took hold around them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more ...
Jul 09, 2020•37 min•Ep 38•Transcript available on Metacast The royal family's finances are mysterious, and the strange formula which calculates the money they get from the taxpayer is badly understood. Tortoise has been going through the accounts. What they show is a family which has become enormously richer over recent years and may benefit from huge windfalls in years to come. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 02, 2020•29 min•Ep 36•Transcript available on Metacast Like a handful of football managers before him, Jurgen Klopp is fascinating as a leader. His ability to motivate people around him would be exceptional in any occupation, in any circumstances, and the connection he has forged with the city of Liverpool is extraordinary. Klopp's explanation for his success is simplicity itself: a belief in selflessness and community. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 25, 2020•31 min•Ep 35•Transcript available on Metacast Boris Johnson could have died from coronavirus. He recovered, but the costs to the country of his illness were huge. Government was paralysed without him and vital decisions weren't taken. How did things fall apart so badly in Number 10 Downing St? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 18, 2020•51 min•Ep 34•Transcript available on Metacast The protests on the streets of the United States and around the world have taken the authorities by surprise. But they haven't sprung from nowhere; they've sprung from attitudes and events dating back hundreds of years. Previous protests demanding racial justice - famously, the riots in Chicago in 1968 - didn't heal the problems of the communities which took to the streets. In fact, in Chicago's case, they created scars which are still visible today. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mo...
Jun 11, 2020•32 min•Ep 33•Transcript available on Metacast Amazon is a true economic superpower; a company of a scale and kind we haven't seen before. It's relentless in its pursuit of efficiency on behalf of its customers, but what does it believe in? How does it see its place in the world? Tortoise is investigating the big tech companies as rigorously as if they were countries. What sort of country has Jeff Bezos created? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 04, 2020•33 min•Ep 32•Transcript available on Metacast It's not just the hopes of young people which depend on them going to university, whole towns and cities rely on them too. The British government estimated that education would be worth £23bn to the UK economy this year. If coronavirus keeps students away, universities, shops, landlords, pubs and clubs will all be poorer. In some places, it could be a devastating blow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 28, 2020•24 min•Ep 31•Transcript available on Metacast No part of British society has been harder hit by the coronavirus pandemic than care homes. 15,000 people have died there. Why were they uniquely vulnerable? Partly because they housed vulnerable people; partly because the financial structures that lie behind them left them open to a disaster of this kind. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 21, 2020•28 min•Ep 30•Transcript available on Metacast When coronavirus struck and the UK locked down, the government began paying the wages of furloughed workers. It's a hugely expensive policy. There are risks in continuing it but the risks of stopping may be even greater. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 14, 2020•27 min•Ep 29•Transcript available on Metacast The Nightingale hospitals - huge intensive care hospitals built in a matter of days to deal with the overspill if regular hospitals couldn't cope with the numbers of coronavirus patients - are sitting empty. It's good news, but what does it tell us about the way the British government has handled this pandemic? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 07, 2020•29 min•Ep 28•Transcript available on Metacast Claude Jibidar is country director for the World Food Programme in the Democratic Republic of Congo - a huge country beset with vast problems, not just food shortages but armed conflict and ebola as well. As the coronavirus hits, this fragile state will struggle to cope. Many of Claude's colleagues have left, fearful of contracting cover-19 in a place with such poor healthcare. But Claude has chosen to stay. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 30, 2020•26 min•Ep 27•Transcript available on Metacast Jan Gould is the vicar for the Church in Wales in the parish of Glen Ely in Cardiff. It's a poor neighbourhood and the church is still an important part of the community. In normal times, there's a natural balance between births, deaths and marriages. But the coronavirus has disrupted that balance. These days, Jan is dealing with a sea of funerals and coping with the restrictions of lockdown that make the job of a parish priest more difficult. We mention Befrienders , an organisation of voluntee...
Apr 23, 2020•29 min•Ep 26•Transcript available on Metacast This week on the slow news podcast, we’re looking at the messy conspiracy theory of 5G and Covid-19. What has been going on? And why are these ideas spreading? We’ve had the investigative reporter James Ball looking for answers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 16, 2020•28 min•Ep 25•Transcript available on Metacast 
