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BBC Radio 4


Programme examining the ideas and forces which shape public policy in Britain and abroad, presented by distinguished writers, journalists and academics.


Analysis

From April, 2.7 million workers will get one of the biggest pay rises in UK history as the National Living Wage rises to £11.44 an hour. But will they feel better off?

It's 25 years since the National Minimum Wage was introduced. During that time it's credited with putting billions of extra pounds in the pockets of low-paid workers. But, despite that, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, two thirds of households living in poverty have at least one adult in work. And, according to the Institute for Fiscal studies, far from cutting the annual benefits bill, the cost of benefits paid to working families has ballooned since 1999 to about 50 billion pounds a year.
 
So what's behind this low pay puzzle? And what can employers, governments and workers do to ensure that work pays? Pauline Mason investigates.

Presenter: Pauline Mason
Producer: Ravi Naik 
Editor: Clare Fordham.

Contributors: 
Kate Bell, TUC Assistant General Secretary and former low pay commissioner
Damian Grimshaw, Professor of Employment Studies, Kings College London and London & South Forum Co-Lead at the Productivity Institute 
Patricia Findlay, Distinguished Professor of Work and Employment Relations, University of Strathclyde, and Director of the Scottish Centre for Employment Research
Matthew Fell, Low Pay Commissioner and Director of Competitiveness at BusinessLDN
Nye Cominetti, Principal Economist, the Resolution Foundation 
James Cockett, Labour Market Economist, CIPD
Margaret Esapa, Managing Director and owner, Cherry Care Services, Oxfordshire
Conor Taylor, Director, Foresso

The low pay puzzle

The existential threat caused by Artificial Intelligence is a popular theme in science fiction. But more recently it’s started to be taken seriously by governments around the world and the companies developing the technology. Where did this idea come from, and why is so much money being spent on it, rather than on the regulation of AI and the real threat it poses to jobs and to copyright?

Presenter: Jack Stilgoe
Producer: Philip Reevell
Editor: Clare Fordham

How real is the existential threat from AI?

It's 2024, and the Manchester extension of HS2 has been cancelled. The leg to Leeds was cancelled in 2021. The remaining line to Birmingham is now less than half the initial planned route, and will cost over double the initial budget. This is not exclusive to HS2; Sprialling costs and missed deadlines have become commonplace in big engineering projects, the UK is now one of the most expensive places in the world to build infrastructure, but Britain has a proud history of engineering, and one name in particular looms large - Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Ruthless, bloody minded and notoriously driven - what could he do about the current state of UK infrastructure?

Presenter: Neil Maggs
Producer: Johnny I'Anson
Editor: Clare Fordham

What would Isambard Kingdom Brunel have done?

It's widely believed that the Conservaives won the Uxbridge by-election because of motorists who were annoyed by the London mayor's ultra low emission zone. With a general election looming, both main english parties want to harness "driver power". But how did the vote of car and van owners become so important? Does the independence driving brings lead to a libertarian attitude? Or is that combative attitude caused by drivers feeling that they have been used as cash-cows by successive governments, which have gladly taken their road tax and fuel duty. But that power balance is also set to change, with the eventual electrification of all UK vehicles. Could road pricing replace fuel duty - and how will motorists respond?

Presenter: Chris Bowlby
Producer: Jim Frank
Editor: Clare Fordham

Power Drive

Middlesbrough, in the north-east, is one of the most deprived towns in England. Once a steel and shipbuilding powerhouse, its fortunes changed when those industries closed down. Today, the town that Gladstone described as “an infant Hercules” faces a precarious future. David Baker, who grew up in Middlesbrough in the 1970s, returns to his hometown to ask what can be done to revive its fortunes and what Middlesbrough can teach us about regenerating small, postindustrial towns elsewhere in the UK.

Presenter: David Baker
Producer: Dan Hardoon
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors:
Natasha Vall, Professor of Urban and Cultural History, Teesside University
Rob Nichols, Editor, Middlesbrough FC fanzine Fly Me To The Moon
Sally Rodgers, DJ, producer, and vocalist
Steve Dugan, Head of Enterprise, Teesside University
Oliver Lloyd, co-founder and COO, Dink
Chris Cooke, Mayor of Middlesbrough
Gary Hamilton, managing director, Community Leisure Management
Lord Michael Heseltine, former Secretary of State for the Environment
With thanks to the students of Teesside University and Reverend Kath Dean of the Genesis Project.

How to cure the small town blues

Democracies do not die in military coups. They are dismantled slowly, by libel laws, through tax audits, and procedure. Democracies are dismantled by bureaucrats and judges, not by soldiers and heavy-handed policing. It has always been thus, from ancient Rome to present-day Tunisia. The program outlines the tricks of the trade that imperceptibly kill democracies – and how examples in Mexico, Turkey, India and Poland illustrate that the autocratic playbook is nearly always the same. With Anne Applebaum, historian and staff writer at The Atlantic, Amy Slipowitz, research manager at Freedom House, Greta Rios, co-executive director, People Power, David Runciman, professor of politics at the University of Cambridge, Professor Larry Diamond, Stanford University, Jennifer Gandhi, professor of political science and global affairs, Yale University, Renata Uitz, professor of law and government at Royal Holloway, The University of London.

Presenter: Matt Qvortrup
Producer: Bob Howard
Editor: Clare Fordham

How to Dismantle a Democracy

'What is "British Culture?” I was born in the UK and have lived here for 40 years, and yet, as a British Asian person, I am constantly told “we are not integrating”. Not integrating into what culture exactly?' 

Bushra Shaikh runs a charity, is a business-owner and is also a writer and commentator. When she posted this question on social media, two million people viewed it, she received thousands of replies, but no clear definition of British Culture. Some respondents mentioned the food, while others defined it by quoting literature or history. But those answers were often just lists; of meals. books, names and dates. 

Is "culture" a synonym for race? How can British people of colour integrate, and what does that mean? 

Americans put their hands on their hearts, gaze at the stars and stripes and identify with freedom, while the French look to liberty, equality, and fraternity, but is there a British equivalent? Bushra speaks to Historians, cultural commentators, as well as both the UK's newest citizens, and people who can trace their British family roots back hundreds of years, to try to find out what British culture means to them. 

Presenter: Bushra Shaikh 
Producers: Ravi Naik and Sean Johnson
Editor: Clare Fordham.

Contributors: 
Robert Colls, emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University 
Lionel Shriver, novelist and journalist
Pen Vogler, food historian and writer
Dr Bernard Trafford, retired headteacher and former member of the citizenship advisory group
Anton Dani, Conservative councillor and former mayor of Boston
Robert Owen, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside 
Professor Alice Foucart, Principal Investigator, Psycholinguistics, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid
Dr Tessa Dunlop, historian and broadcaster
Keith Richardson, Author

What is 'British culture'?

British politicians love to invoke the family, from John Major's "Back to Basics" campaign, to New Labour's "hardworking families" - and now a prominent strain of the Conservative right says parents sticking together for the sake of the children is "the only possible basis for a safe and successful society". 

By turning family values into a political football, are they in denial about the way society has developed this century? For decades, single-person households have been the fastest-growing demographic and younger generations are re-defining romantic commitments and their purpose.

Is the erosion of traditional structure around marriage and family a destructive thing for society, or does it offer the kind of freedom and individual choice denied to previous generations? 

Presenter: Zoe Strimpel 
Producer: David Reid 
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors: 
Danny Kruger, Conservative Member of Parliament for Devizes and Co-Chair of the New Conservatives: Committing to a Better Politics. 
Dr. Ruth Beecher, Historian of Modern Britain and the United States, Birkbeck, University of London
Prof. Deborah Cohen, Richard W. Leopold Professor of History at Northwestern University. 
Prof. Sasha Roseneil, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sussex. 
Prof. Sylvie Fogelj-Bijaoui, sociologist specialising in gender, human rights, the family and the kibbutz. 
Daisy Lees, resident of Old Hall
Chris Lees, resident of Old Hall
Rob Connigale, resident of Old Hall

Has the family had its day?

The term nudge has become a byword for the application of behavioural science in public policy, changing how governments the world over create policies designed to encourage, or nudge, people to make choices that better benefit themselves and society as a whole. 
 
Over the last fifteen years much has been learned about what works, as well as what doesn’t, when it comes to this way of supporting us in making decisions about our health, our money and how we lead our lives. 

Magda Osman is Principal Research Associate at the Cambridge Judge Business School, The University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at Leeds University Business School. Through her work she has examined the problems, and the opportunities, with this way of creating policy. She talks to those working in the field of behavioural change and examines what has been discovered over the last fifteen years, what concerns remain around this way of doing things and what the future is for the behavioural change methods known as nudge.

Presenter: Professor Magda Osman 
Producer: Steven Hobson 
Editor: Clare Fordham 

Contributors: 
Dr Michael Hallsworth, Managing Director, Behavioural Insights Team Americas 
Colin Strong, Head of Behavioural Science, Ipsos and Professor of Consumer and Behavioural Psychology, Nottingham University Business School
Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy
Laura Dodsworth, author and journalist 
Professor Neil Levy, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Katy Milkman, James G. Dinan Professor, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

What's the future of nudge?

Most educational research now suggests that reading for pleasure is strongly linked to a child’s future outcome, educational success, and even wellbeing. But the latest studies also show that reading for pleasure is at its lowest level for twenty years. 

Why has this happened in a country that's produced more successful children's books than any other? From Paddington, to Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia to Alice in Wonderland, and of course, the Gruffalo, the list is vast. Is a lack of access to school and local libraries the problem, too few books at home or the rise of phones, tablets and game consoles? 

What can schools, government, the media and parents do to help foster a love of reading that could help children throughout their lives? Author and former Children's Laureate Julia Donaldson investigates.

Presenter: Julia Donaldson 
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors: 
Frank Cottrell-Boyce, author and screenwriter 
Joseph Coelho, 2022-24 Children’s Laureate, author and poet 
Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education (Literacy), the Open University
Joanna Prior CEO Pan Macmillan Publishing, and Chair of Trustees at the National Literacy Trust
Laura Patel, head of literacy, Sandhill View Academy school, Sunderland 
Leia Sands, librarian and committee member, the Great School Libraries campaign 
Ben Lawrence, arts and culture editor, The Daily Telegraph 
Sonia Thompson, headteacher, St Matthews C of E primary school, Birmingham

Can reading really improve your life?

Fuzzy logic and baldness: what's the connection? According to the Sorites' Paradox, it's impossible to go bald. If you lose one hair you don't move from being hirsute to being bald: one hair can't make any difference - and the same must be true if you lose a second hair, then a third... So it seems that nobody can ever go bald. That's the paradox addressed, with the help of some fuzzy logic, in this edition of The Philosopher's Arms.

The Philosopher's Arms: Sorites' Heap

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