Analysis

Jeremy Corbyn's opposition to the renewal of Britain's nuclear deterrent has opened up divisions within the Labour Party that run very deep. The issue will come to a head when Parliament votes on whether to replace the Trident weapons system, following a recommendation from the Government. While Labour formally reviews its position, will Corbyn be able avoid a damaging split that beset the party in the 1980s?

It was a Labour government which decided to make Britain a nuclear power. "We've got to have this thing, whatever it costs. We've got to have a bloody Union Jack on top of it," declared Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary in the postwar Labour government. Ever since that decision in 1946, the question of whether to keep 'the bomb' has divided the party between those who believe it is the cornerstone of Britain's defence policy within NATO and others who have long campaigned to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Twice before in Opposition the party has opted for unilateral disarmament, only for the policy to be reversed after a period of acrimonious debate and electoral defeat.

In this programme, the veteran political reporter John Sergeant examines Labour's troubled relationship with the bomb. Former party leader Neil Kinnock and other senior figures reflect on how the party discarded unilateralism in the late 1980s and offer advice on what lessons can be learned. Can Jeremy Corbyn overcome opposition with the Parliamentary Labour Party to changing the official policy of multilateral disarmament? Does his recent suggestion of maintaining submarines without nuclear missiles satisfy those who want Britain to disarm come what may?

Producer: Peter Snowdon.

How are councils in two of the UK's most multicultural places managing diversity? Back in the 1970s, the Labour party developed a model of working with ethnic minority and faith community groups to help new immigrants to Britain settle in. Presenter Sonia Sodha, a British Asian journalist, explores how this has worked in Leicester, a city often held up as a beacon of diversity. Has it led to more integration - or less? And does a radical new approach being trialled in Newham - the most diverse place in Britain - offer any lessons?

Sonia Sodha is chief leader writer of The Observer and a former Labour party aide.

Why does inheritance arouse such powerful emotions? Family, death and money make for gripping stories - just ask Tolstoy, Austen or Dickens - but our attitudes also reflect the way we feel about society, the state, and even ourselves.

Discussions tend to dissolve into rows about levels of tax but in this programme Jo Fidgen explores the values and intuitions that underpin our strength of feeling.

Producer: Joe Kent.

If the UK leaves the EU, what happens on the island of Ireland? Its people would be living on either side of an EU border. In this edition of Analysis, Edward Stourton explores an aspect of the Brexit debate that few elsewhere in the UK may have thought about, but which raises urgent questions. Would there be a new opportunities, with a new version of the old Anglo-Irish special relationship? Or could a divisive border and economic harm revive dangerous tensions?

Producer: Chris Bowlby

Chris Bowlby explores the shifting balance between two visions of outer space - as a place of harmony and as a zone of growing international tension. We may think war in space is a scenario dreamed up by Hollywood. But the world's top military minds now believe future wars will be fought both on Earth - and above it. Chris visits an arms sales fair, and hears how space now affects everything from how armies move, to how nuclear deterrence works. Could crucial satellites he hacked in an act of aggression, might space debris trigger a war? Why is China taking space security so seriously? And can the international cooperation which put astronaut Tim Peake into space survive?

Producer: Chris Bowlby

What have the Book of Genesis and the movie Fight Club got to do with GDP? According to the radical Czech economist, Tomas Sedlacek, quite a lot. He believes notions of sin and belief recorded in ancient texts should influence our thinking about the contemporary economy - and he describes the biblical story of the 7 fat cows and 7 lean cows as "the first macro-economic forecast". He argues passionately that we need to make the economy work for us, rather than us working for the state of the economy. And he condemns the way most nations have got themselves hooked on debt, in a never-ending cycle.

Evan Davis interviewed Sedlacek,at University College London as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations for the School of Slavonic and East European Studies.

Producer: Hugh Levinson.

Who and what will be making the global headlines in 2016? Owen Bennett-Jones and leading BBC correspondents discuss and give their predictions about what will shape the world in the year ahead and assess its likely impact on the United Kingdom.

Owen is joined by Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet who has spent the year reporting from across the globe. North America Editor Jon Sopel looks ahead to next year's US Presidential election. Who does he think will win the race for the White House? Joining them are the BBC's most experienced diplomatic correspondents, James Robbins and Bridget Kendall. Last year she predicted that 2015 would be a year of shocking terrorist activities in Europe and a big year for the Pope. What will she and the other correspondents predict for 2016?

Producer: Jim Frank

The Middle East conflict and other long-running international disputes have so far proved incapable of resolution by war or traditional diplomacy. So are the parties fated always to hate each other? Or might there be another approach that could be worth trying?

David Edmonds explores new ideas that psychologists are testing which could offer a way of tackling seemingly intractable disputes. These include understanding the real importance of sacred sites and how to negotiate about them, how to achieve empathy with opponents and the importance of how different sides understand historical events and how these then lastingly shape how different groups view each other.

The programme also hears from those with direct experience of conflict resolution and negotiation to understand how they react to what the latest research has to say. These include Senator George Mitchell, who was famously involved in talks over both Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell, author of "Talking with Terrorists".

Producer Simon Coates.

Looking at the UK, reunified Germany and the European Union, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister John Redwood MP asks how successful a currency union can be without political union behind it.

Producer: Simon Coates.

Carnivore and steak-lover Jo Fidgen attempts to work out whether killing cows for food can be morally justified

Many meat eaters believe animal suffering should be avoided. They buy higher welfare products or free range eggs and hope the animal they plan to eat has had a good life and a painless death. But if animal suffering matters, surely animal death does too?

Omnivorous Jo Fidgen explores the ethics of killing cows for food. She discusses cow psychology, fart spray and cannibalism with leading philosophers like Peter Singer and Jeff MacMahan. And she tests her own intuitions about meat eating as she looks a bullock in the eye before picking up some of his his minced and butchered body a few weeks later. And eating it.

While on this ethical journey Jo confronts big questions about where morals come from, what is bad about killing humans and how we decide what beings are worthy of our moral attention.

Producer: Lucy Proctor.