282 | Democracy for Sale

We talk to Peter Geoghegan of openDemocracy and Jennifer Cobbe of the Trust and Technology Initiative about Cambridge Analytica, money, power and what is and isn't corrupting our democracy.  How easy is it to buy influence in British politics? Did Cambridge Analytica break the rules, or show just how little difference the rules make anyway? Who has the power to take on Facebook? Plus we discuss why the British government's failure to handle the pandemic tells us a lot about the corrosive effects of cronyism. Order Peter’s book here…

281 | Trump Stress Test

David talks to the historian Sarah Churchwell about how well America's political institutions have withstood the stress of the last four years.  Have we seen the limits of presidential power or have we discovered how easy it is to trash those limits?  Are constitutional checks and balances still intact?  Is it really Mitch McConnell who is putting American democracy under stress?  Plus we talk about what will be needed to restore the social contract and the perils of political humility.

280 | Can Boris Survive Brexit?

This week we come back to Brexit and ask whether Boris Johnson has a good way out of the current negotiations with the EU over a trade deal. First we talk with Kenneth Armstrong, Professor of European Law, about the thinking and the reality behind the government's Internal Market Bill. Then David, Helen and Chris Brooke explore the politics of success and failure in the negotiations. Can the Union survive?  Does the government have a coherent strategy? And how much trouble is Johnson really in?

279 | One-Term Presidents

David talks to Helen Thompson and Gary Gerstle about the historical precedents for US presidents losing office after a single term.  It doesn't happen very often, but it could be about to happen again!  Can Trump use the powers of incumbency to prevent it?  Can Biden use Trump's growing chaos to seal his fate?  Plus we talk about the fall-out from the first presidential debate and we ask how the politics of the Supreme Court might intersect with a contested election result.

277 | Robert Harris and V2

A Sunday extra with the novelist Robert Harris to talk about the V2 campaign of terror against London during WII and the parallels with today.  Plus we discuss the big questions of counterfactual history - could Hitler really have won the war? - and we ask whether Boris Johnson is anything like his political heroes, Cicero and Churchill.