Episodes

  • The Great Political Fictions: The Years

    The Great Political Fictions: The Years
    Jun 14 2026
    The penultimate great political fiction in this series is not strictly a fiction: it’s Annie Ernaux’s retelling of her own life in The Years (2008), thereby recapturing the story of France in the second half of the twentieth century. How can one woman’s story stand in for all the others? What does this book tell us about the passing of political time? Why do the years 1968 and 1981 mark the end of idealism? What comes next? Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time in Great Political Fictions: HHhH Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    56 mins
  • The Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor

    The Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor
    Jun 10 2026
    Today’s political fiction is a spy novel, a Cold War comedy and a meditation on the nature of good and evil: Graham Greene’s The Human Factor. Why has Greene so fallen out of fashion? What made the South African secret police his idea of pure evil? Was this book shaped by Greene’s own experiences with ‘the third man’ Kim Philby? And how did Greene prefigure the world of Slow Horses? Out now on PPF+: our latest bonus episode in which David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about whether and how Ursula Le Guin’s vision of a stateless world matches up to his own. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time in Great Political Fictions: The Years Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr
  • The Great Political Fictions: The Dispossessed

    The Great Political Fictions: The Dispossessed
    Jun 7 2026
    Today’s great political fiction is a path-breaking work of science fiction: David explores Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (1974), which imagines a world without the need for government or coercive authority. What makes this the most realistic of all utopias? How was Le Guin’s vision of anarchism shaped by nineteenth-century Russia and twentieth-century Israel? Why was her imagined version of political freedom so coloured by the Cold War? And where does Oppenheimer fit in? Out tomorrow on PPF+: a bonus episode in which David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about whether and how Le Guin’s vision of a stateless world matches his own. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time in Great Political Fictions: The Human Factor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor

    The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor
    Jun 3 2026
    In the second of two episodes about Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, David talks to critic and memoirist Catherine Taylor about the novel’s place in the history of feminism. Is its idea of ‘free women’ meant to be ironic? Why are the things that shocked its original readers not the things that shock its readers today? What makes Lessing so much more angry about male hypocrisy than she is about male brutality? And what else by Lessing should we all read? Read more by Catherine on Doris Lessing in this recent essay published in Aeon https://aeon.co/essays/what-we-can-learn-from-doris-lessings-experiments-in-living Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time in Great Political Fictions: The Dispossessed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook

    The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook
    May 31 2026
    In today’s episode David explores Doris Lessing’s bold and brilliant The Golden Notebook (1962), a book about female emancipation, political disillusionment and much, much more. Why did Lessing insist that the novel’s original critics misunderstood what the book was about? What makes her description of joining and then leaving the Communist Party in 1950s London different from any other account? How did a book about mental disintegration capture the essence of the age? Out now on PPF+: a bonus episode about George Orwell’s 1984. Why does a book that is out of date and out of time still haunt everyone who reads it today? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Join us at the Cheltenham Science Festival this Wednesday 3rd June for a live recording of the podcast with David in conversation with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, to talk about trust, democracy and knowledge in a divided world. There are a few tickets still available: book now https://www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/the-politics-of-trust-lessons-from-wikipedia You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next time in The Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Part 2 w/Catherine Taylor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • The Great Political Fictions: Brave New World

    The Great Political Fictions: Brave New World
    May 27 2026
    For the first in a new set of episodes about some of the great political fictions of the past hundred years David explores Aldous Huxley’s much misunderstood dystopian masterpiece Brave New World (1932). How did Huxley imagine that a future society could be both horribly regimented and crazily libertarian? Why is it Pavlovian conditioning and not genetic engineering that builds the humans of the future? What makes the book eerily prophetic of 21st-century consumer culture? And where does Shakespeare fit in? Do scroll back in your feed for many more earlier episodes of The Great Political Fictions! Out tomorrow on PPF+: a bonus episode about the other great English-language dystopia of the last century – George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Why does a book that is out of date and out of time still haunt everyone who reads it today? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next time in Great Political Fictions: The Golden Notebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Live Film Special: Good Night, and Good Luck w/Helen Lewis

    Live Film Special: Good Night, and Good Luck w/Helen Lewis
    May 24 2026
    Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis about George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck (2005). A film about the golden age of journalism and the grim years of McCarthyism, it tells the story of Ed Murrow’s attempt to take down scaremongering and conspiracy theories. Where is McCarthyism at work today? What’s happened to cancel culture? How was early TV like podcasting? And is George Clooney a hero for our times? You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time in Great Political Fictions: Brave New World Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • The Starmer Crisis in Historical Perspective – Part 2: What’s Next?

    The Starmer Crisis in Historical Perspective – Part 2: What’s Next?
    May 20 2026
    Today it’s the second of our episodes trying to make sense of what’s happening in British politics with a bit of historical perspective: this time asking what is likely to follow from the current crisis. David talks to historians Robert Saunders and David Klemperer, Hannah White from the Institute for Government and political scientist Rob Ford. Can the current electoral system survive? Are either – or both – of the two main parties about to be replaced? Does Britain need proper devolution? And where do things stand on the prospect of Farage as PM? You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com Next Time: Live Film Special – Good Night, and Good Luck w/Helen Lewis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins