Today it’s the first episode in a new series asking why contemporary political philosophy struggles to make sense of the deepest problems of politics and exploring how the history of ideas might help. David talks to political theorist Paul Sagar about why looking for justice might be the wrong place to start. Instead, Paul suggests we start with Aristotle, for whom the search for justice was the problem not the solution. So what should we do instead?

To keep up with what’s coming next and for more news about the podcast do follow us on Bluesky: @ppfideas.bsky.social

Next time: Learning from Adam Smith

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Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with Helen Thompson about what makes living in a world dominated by the United States so strange. What has changed about American power in the twenty-first century? Is Trump a deviation from the norm or is he simply an extension of it? Why does Greenland matter? And what is at stake as the contest between the US and China ramps up to the next level?

Next Time: What’s Wrong with Political Philosophy? 

Incogni Special Offer for PPF listeners: https://incogni.com/pastpresentfuture (then use code PPF for 60% off annual plans)

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The first of a two-part conversation in which David talks to Helen Thompson about how to understand the extraordinary and unlikely power of the United States, from its origins to its current incarnation. How strange would it once have seemed to live in a world dominated by a state from the Western hemisphere? When did the US overcome its natural disadvantages to achieve superpower potential? What does the rest of the world get wrong about how American power actually operates? And what might come next?

A reminder that the second part of David’s conversation with Glen Rangwala about the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein is available now on PPF+. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ today https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Next Time: The Weirdness of American Power Part 2 – Trump and the Future

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For the final episode in this series David talks to historian and political scientist Glen Rangwala about the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein in 2006. What plans did the Americans have for Saddam before the Iraq war began? How was it decided what to charge him with once he had been captured? Did his trial exacerbate rather than overcome the sectarian divisions tearing Iraq apart? Was justice served?

Part 2 of this conversation, in which David and Glen discuss the circumstances of Saddam’s execution and the legacy of his fate for the politics of Iraq and the wider world, is available tomorrow on PPF+. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Next time: Talking Geopolitics with Helen Thompson – The Weirdness of American Power

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For the penultimate episode in this series David examines the criminal trial of O. J. Simpson in 1995 to ask what it reveals about how power really works in America. How did the prosecution fail to grasp what was really happening in the courtroom? Did jury selection decide the outcome of the case before it had even begun? Why was the massive volume of evidence against Simpson something that worked in his favour? And how does the legacy of the Simpson trial help explain the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House?

Next time: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein

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In today’s episode David explores the trial that gripped China at the end of 1980: the case against the three men and one woman accused of being responsible for the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). How did the court try to hold Mao’s followers responsible for the catastrophe while exculpating Mao himself? How did Mao’s widow Jiang Qing fight back? Who were the others in the dock and what were they doing there? And what made the trial emblematic of the new direction China was taking?

Next time in Politics on Trial: O. J. Simpson vs the Evidence 

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Today’s episode is about the epic battle between Muhammad Ali and the US government over its attempt to draft him during the Vietnam war and what happened when that fight reached the US Supreme Court. What were Ali’s grounds for claiming to be a conscientious objector? How did that argument cut across wider questions of race, religion and power? Why did the Supreme Court change its original decision against Ali to find unanimously in his favour? And who won and who lost as a result?

Out now on PPF+: Part two of David’s conversation with Robert Saunders about the fight over Irish Home Rule: how close did Britain get to an actual civil war in 1914 before another war intervened? To hear this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Next time in Politics on Trial: The Gang of Four

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Today’s episode in our occasional series with historian Robert Saunders on significant political anniversaries looks at the event that blew British politics apart at the start of 1886. The ‘Hawarden Kite’ – when William Gladstone’s son Herbert floated the idea that his father had committed to Irish Home Rule – split the Liberal party, upended political allegiances and set the country on the path to potential civil war. How did it happen? Why were passions running so high on the question of Ireland? And how does it all compare to Brexit?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Robert in which they take the story of the fight over Irish Home Rule up to the crisis of 1912-1914. How close did Britain come to an actual civil war? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Next time in Politics on Trial: Muhammad Ali vs. the Draft

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An extra episode to accompany our Films of Ideas series: David explores The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn, the writer and co-star of My Dinner with Andre. How did a play first performed in 1996 turn into a prophetic text for our times? How was it shaped by Shawn’s experiences in Central America and his view of Reagan’s America? What makes it one of the greatest of all contemporary political fictions?

Next time – Now & Then with Robert Saunders: Home Rule for Ireland!

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Today it’s the last in our series of live episodes recorded at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to film director and campaigner Beeban Kidron about Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), a much-loved film that’s also chock full of interesting ideas. Is memory the same as identity? Are all relationships founded on manipulation? What happens when we try to curate our mental distress? How should we resist the tech panacea of a painless existence? Who gets to choose what we remember and what we forget?

Next time: The Designated Mourner

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The fourth episode in our season of live recordings from the Regent Street Cinema is about another film that explores the relationship between biography and philosophy: Derek Jarman’s Wittgenstein (1993), which tells the story of an extraordinary life in a way that is both light and profound. David talks to writer and philosopher Nikhil Krishnan about Ludwig Wittengenstein’s ideas of war, science, truth, freedom, sexuality, language, loyalty and communism and how they are portrayed on screen. Does the life explain the ideas or do the ideas explain the life?

Next time: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind w/Beeban Kidron

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Today’s episode in our season of live recordings from the Regent Street Cinema looks at the biopic of a revolutionary: Margaretha von Trotta’s Rosa Luxemburg (1986), which explores the deeply unstable relationship between the personal and the political. David talks to writer and philosopher Lea Ypi (Free, Indignity) about where biography ends and philosophy begins and whether revolutionary politics requires the leading of a revolutionary life. What was Rosa Luxemburg’s true cause? Who or what betrayed her and her ideas? And how does her legacy live on?

Out now on PPF+: a bonus episode to accompany this series in which David and film historian Harrison Whitaker discuss the greatest Christmas film of ideas: Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which is much more than just a seasonal tearjerker. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

Next time: Wittgenstein w/Nikhil Krishnan

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The second episode in our live series from the Regent Street Cinema explores Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre (1981), in which two men discuss the meaning of theatre, capitalism, love, science, faith and freedom over a meal. David talks to playwright and screenwriter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Rocketman) about how a great film can be made out of a single conversation. Who was the real Andre? How scripted was the dialogue? Who won the argument? And why has this film had such an extraordinary afterlife?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: a bonus episode to accompany this series in which David and film historian Harrison Whitaker discuss the greatest Christmas film of ideas: Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life, which is much more than just a seasonal tearjerker. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

If you are looking for last minute Christmas presents we have 6- and 12-month gift subscriptions to PPF+ giving access to all our bonus episodes, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – which can be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day! ⁠https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts⁠

Next time: Rosa Luxemburg w/Lea Ypi

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Today it’s the first in our series of live episodes recorded at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the crime writers Nicci Gerrard and Sean French (aka Nicci French) about Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), based on Patrick Hamilton’s play of the same name, itself based on the real-life case of Leopold and Loeb. What is the true subject of this film: murder, sex, morality or something else? Why is James Stewart so hopelessly miscast? And how does all this connect to Nietzsche?

If you are still looking for Christmas presents we have 6- and 12-month gift subscriptions to PPF+ giving access to all our bonus episodes, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – which can be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day! ⁠https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts⁠

Next time: My Dinner with Andre w/Lee Hall

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Today’s episode explores the trials of Nelson Mandela, variously charged by South Africa’s apartheid state with treason, incitement, illegal foreign travel, sabotage and conspiracy across a decade that saw him more often in court than out. How did Mandela defend himself? What changed from his first trial to his last? Could any justice be found in a system of blatant oppression? And what happens when the line between lawyer, defendant and prisoner becomes impossibly blurred?

The final film in our season at the Regent Street Cinema in London is coming up on Friday 19th December: a screening of David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method followed by a live recording of PPF with writer, psychoanalyst and feminist Susie Orbach. Do join us – tickets are still available https://bit.ly/3KHBp3g

Next time we start our season of Films of Ideas: Hitchcock’s Rope w/Nicci Gerrard and Sean French

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Today’s episode is about a momentous trial and the incendiary book that followed: the trial was of Adolf Eichmann, convicted by an Israeli court in 1961 of orchestrating the Holocaust, and the book was Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), which questioned the grounds on which he was prosecuted. What did Arendt mean by ‘the banality of evil’? Why was she convinced that the case against Eichmann was badly misjudged? Was the trial really intended to serve as a history lesson? And if it was, what was it designed to teach?

Next time in Politics on Trial: Nelson Mandela vs Apartheid

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Today we return to our series about epoch-making trials with the case of the book they tried and failed to ban. In 1960 Penguin Books was prosecuted at the Old Bailey under the new Obscene Publications Act (1959) over its plans to produce a cheap, unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. How did the prosecution try to persuade the jury that the book was a menace to public morals? Who were the expert witnesses called in its defence? What were the decisive arguments? And why was the judge’s summing-up such a mistake?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: David discusses the book at the heart of the case. Was Lady Chatterley’s Lover really all about sex? Or was it all about class? Or was it in fact about something else entirely? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

If you are looking for Christmas presents we have 6- and 12-month gift subscriptions to PPF+ giving access to all our bonus episodes, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – which can be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day! https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts

Plus we have gorgeous PPF canvas tote bags and bone china PPF mugs, all available now https://www.ppfideas.com/merch

Next time in Politics on Trial: Eichmann in Jerusalem

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David talks to novelist Ian McEwan, who was our first ever guest on PPF, about how the future will view our present once the disasters we are brewing come to pass. How might humanity scrape through the rest of the century? Will future generations see us as intellectually vibrant or essentially trivial? If we turn out to be unknowable to those who follow us, does that mean we are unknowable to ourselves? A wide-ranging conversation about how past, present and future co-exist in time.

Ian McEwan’s latest novel is What We Can Know https://bit.ly/4ogYN5u

If you are looking for Christmas presents we have 6- and 12-month gift subscriptions to PPF+ giving access to all our bonus episodes, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – which can be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day! https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts

Plus we have gorgeous PPF canvas tote bags and bone china PPF mugs, all available now https://www.ppfideas.com/merch

Next time in Politics on Trial: Lady Chatterley’s Lover 

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Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian Robert Saunders about the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. What is the meaning of Thatcherism in the twenty-first century? Why is she still such a polarising figure? Was she a distinctively British political phenomenon? Which politicians can plausibly claim to be channelling her example today?

If you are looking for Christmas presents, how about a gift subscription to PPF+? You can choose between 6- and 12-months subscriptions – giving access to our entire archive of bonus episodes, plus two new bonuses every month, ad-free listening and automatic sign-up to our fortnightly newsletter – to be delivered to the recipient of your choice on Christmas Day. All the details you need are here https://ppf.supportingcast.fm/gifts

Next Time: Novelist Ian McEwan on imagining the present as a future past  

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Today’s episode in our occasional series about momentous political anniversaries with historian Robert Saunders looks at the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher one hundred years on from her birth. What made Thatcher such a distinctive politician? What did she believe in before she became prime minister? How did her time is power alter her political outlook? And did she succumb to her own myth in the end?

Out now on PPF+: Part 2 of David’s conversation with Henry Gee about the rise and fall of Homo sapiens – how near are we to the end? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

We would love to hear from anyone who uses this podcast in an educational setting –  teachers, lecturers or students – to help us understand what other educational resources we can add and what would be helpful. Do get in touch with your comments, ideas and suggestions https://www.ppfideas.com/contact 

Next time: Thatcher@100 – Her Legacy

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