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David Runciman

Past Present Future is a bi-weekly History of Ideas podcast with David Runciman, host and creator of Talking Politics, exploring the history of ideas from politics to philosophy, culture to technology. David talks to historians, novelists, scientists and many others about where the most interesting ideas come from, what they mean, and why they matter.

Ideas from the past, questions about the present, shaping the future.

New episodes every Wednesday and Sunday.

Take back your personal data with Incogni! Use code ppf at the link below and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/ppf

Past Present Future

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 Misha Glenny about Carol Reed’s 1949 masterpiece The Third Man, written by Graham Greene and featuring a notorious film-stealing performance from Orson Welles. It’s a film about friendship and betrayal, double-crosses and double lives, divided loyalties and dubious moralities. It is also all about Vienna, a city with a double life of its own. Everyone involved in this film had something to hide: the question is, what?

Join us on Wednesday 20th May at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the next film in our spring and summer season: a screening of George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck followed by a live podcast recording with David and writer and broadcaster Helen Lewis. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4wfM5tb 

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: Where Are We Going? The Future of Work
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Live Film Special: The Third Man w/Misha Glenny

Today it’s the second part of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about the meaning of the 1926 General Strike on its hundredth anniversary. How did the strike end and was its outcome a foregone conclusion? Why did the government’s political victory turn so quickly into electoral defeat? How close did Britain come to another general strike in the miners’ disputes of the 1970s and 1980s? And what are the prospects for a general strike today?

Join us at the Cheltenham Science Festival on 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. Tickets available 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: Live Film Special – Misha Glenny on The Third Man
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Now & Then with Robert Saunders: The General Strike @100 Part 2

In today’s episode David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the meaning of Britain’s one and (so far) only general strike on its hundredth anniversary. Was the strike a revolutionary event or an industrial dispute gone wrong? Who won and who lost the battle of ideas? Did it reveal something distinctive about Britain and its politics? Was this a divided nation or one that had more in common than it realised?

Join us at the Cheltenham Science Festival on 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. Tickets available 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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next time: The General Strike @100 Part Two - The Legacy
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Now & Then with Robert Saunders: The General Strike @100

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to film director and campaigner Beeban Kidron about the 1999 film-length version of South Park. In among all the swearing and stupidity is a serious satire of censorship, moral panics and political manipulation. How did a film from the 20th century see so sharply what was coming in the 21st? And how does the satire look now in the age of big tech and social media madness? Plus philosopher Paul Sagar gives us his grand theory of South Park.

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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next time: Now & Then with Robert Saunders – The General Strike @100
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Live Film Special: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut w/Beeban Kidron

In today’s episode David and Helen Thompson explore the tortured relationship between Peter Mandelson and the New Labour project that he helped to create and now seems finally to have destroyed. How has the whole history of New Labour been shaped by its origin in ideas of betrayal? Why did Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both end up depending on Mandelson while despairing of each other? What held their relationships together and what caused them to fall apart?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: the second part of this conversation in which David and Helen bring the story up to the present: how does the drama ultimately end? 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 Wednesday 6th May at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the third film in our new season: a screening of The Third Man followed by a live podcast recording with writer and broadcaster Misha Glenny. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/3O5rSEY

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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time: South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut w/Beeban Kidron
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Talking … Peter Mandelson and New Labour w/Helen Thompson

In today’s extra episode some more highlights from the PPF+ archive in another selection we first put out last summer: here are a few more excerpts we think you might enjoy.

In this episode you’ll hear David talking about In the Loop and the question of why politicians do and don’t resign; Robert Saunders on the legacy of Brexit for politics today; Shannon Vallor on why AI is a vision not of the future but of the past; David on the appeal of High Noon for American presidents; and Alec Ryrie on the relationship between Calvinism, Puritanism and the rise and fall of apartheid South Africa.

To get these and all of our bonus episodes plus all future bonuses and ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now. It’s £5 per month or £50 for the year and you will be helping this podcast to keep going and growing. You can also gift a 6-month or a 12-month PPF+ subscription: 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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time: Helen Thompson on Peter Mandelson and New Labour
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PPF+: A Taste Of What You’ve Been Missing (Taster 2)

In today’s extra episode some more highlights from the PPF+ archive in a selection we first put out last summer: here are a few more excerpts we think you might enjoy.

In this episode you’ll hear David talking to Helen Thompson about Apocalypse Now, David exploring Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, unpicking the relationship between The Futurist Manifesto and fascism, reflecting on Claude Lanzmann’s epic Holocaust documentary Shoah and in conversation with historian Chris Clark about 1848 and the future of liberal politics. 

To get these and all of our bonus episodes plus all future bonuses and ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now. It’s £5 per month or £50 for the year and you will be helping this podcast to keep going and growing. You can also gift a 6-month or a 12-month PPF+ subscription: 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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Tomorrow: Some More Of What You’ve Been Missing
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PPF+: A Taste Of What You’ve Been Missing (Taster 1)

Today’s episode features some recent highlights from PPF+ where we have just released our 50th bonus episode. In this selection you’ll hear philosopher Paul Sagar talking about his personal experiences of good and back luck; David talking about what changed for Hiroshima and the world in the moments after the bomb fell; historian of film Harrison Whittaker on the link between It’s A Wonderful Life and Sartrean existentialism; Hannah White from the Institute for Government on why British government doesn’t work at the centre; and historian of Russia Edward Acton on how to understand the confessions at the Moscow Show Trials.

Bonus #50 on PPF+ is the fourth and final part of Orwell’s War, looking at why George Orwell feared that the end of WW2 would lead to war without end. 

To get access to our full archive of 50 PPF+ bonus episodes plus two future bonuses every month and ad-free listening, sign up to PPF+ now. It’s £5 per month or £50 for the year and you will be helping this podcast to keep going and growing 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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time: Helen Thompson on Peter Mandelson and New Labour
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PPF+: A Taste Of What You’ve Been Missing (Taster 3)

Today’s episode in our series about how George Orwell tried – and failed – to make sense of WW2 looks at his response to the vast lurches of fortune from 1942-43 as Hitler’s plans for world domination started to fall apart. Why was Orwell convinced that the summer of 1942 was the last chance for revolution? What persuaded him that Stafford Cripps was the man of the hour? How did his hopes fall apart in 1943? And where did the ideas for 1984 first come from?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: the final episode in this series exploring how Orwell tried to make sense of the end of the war, from a Labour election victory he didn’t see coming to a new ‘cold war’ that he anticipated before anyone else. 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 and PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next time – PPF+: Some Of What You’ve Been Missing (Taster 3)
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Orwell’s War: Frozen In Time (1942-43)

Today’s episode in our new series about how George Orwell tried – and failed – to make sense of WW2 as it was happening looks at the events of 1940 and 1941, from the collapse of France to Hitler’s invasion of Russia. Why did Orwell write in March 1940 that there is something ‘deeply appealing’ about Hitler? What convinced him that Churchill ‘must go’? How close did Britain get to revolution in the summer of 1940? Where did the revolution go?

You can listen to David’s earlier episode about Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn from our Great Political Essays series on our website here ⁠⁠https://www.ppfideas.com/episodes/history-of-ideas%3A-george-orwell⁠⁠. Or scroll down in your podcast app to find it, originally broadcast on 3rd August 2023.

To hear David’s conversation with Alec Ryrie about The Age of Hitler subscribe to PPF+ to get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening ⁠https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus⁠. We put that one out as a PPF+ bonus on 5th July 2025.

Next time in Orwell’s War: Frozen In Time (1942-43)
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Live Film Special: The Third Man w/Misha Glenny

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