Analysis

The crisis in the eurozone means that fundamental changes to the European Union are on the agenda. Conservative politicians have called for a re-appraisal of the UK's relationship with a more integrated and potentially less democratic EU. Yet Labour's leadership is curiously quiet on the topic.

Edward Stourton talks to leading figures in Labour's policy debate and finds out what rethinking is going on behind the scenes.

Producer: Chris Bowlby.

E.D. Hirsch is a little-known American professor whose radical ideas about what should be taught in schools are set to have a profound effect on English schools. A favoured intellectual of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, Hirsch advocates a curriculum strongly grounded in facts and knowledge. He also believes that there are certain specific ideas, works of literature and scientific concepts which everyone should know so that they can be active participants in society.

Presenter Fran Abrams interviews Hirsch about his ideas. She considers their likely impact on English schools and speaks to the former English schools minister, Nick Gibb MP, who championed Hirsch's ideas when he was in government. He explains the reasons for bringing Hirsch's ideas across the Atlantic and how they could counteract what he describes as a prevailing left-wing ideology among teachers.

Fran also visits London's Pimlico Academy which is pioneering a "Hirsch-style" curriculum in its new primary school. She talks to the young women leading this experiment: Anneliese Briggs and Daisy Christodoulou.

Daisy was once dubbed "Britain's brightest student" after captaining the successful Warwick University team on "University Challenge". She discusses why she finds Hirsch's ideas so compelling. She also explains why, in her view, he stands in a proud left-wing tradition that champions knowledge as power, a view that contrasts with Nick Gibb's more right-of-centre take on Hirsch's ideas.

Fran also talks to Professor Sir Michael Barber, chief education adviser to Pearson and former policy implementation director to Tony Blair in Downing Street, and to a former leading member of the Government's expert panel on the curriculum, Professor Andrew Pollard.

Producer Simon Coates.

Paul Mason interviews renowned sociologist Prof Manuel Castells about the rise of alternative economic cultures since the financial crisis. Recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics on Monday 8th October.

The financial crisis which has unfolded since 2008 marks more than an economic downturn, according to Prof Castells. The problems which caused the crisis are so deep rooted that they have provoked a profound reassessment of our economic beliefs and institutions. They have also given rise to social movements such as Occupy and alternative economic cultures opposed to financial capitalism. These ideas are explored in "Aftermath: The Cultures of the Economic Crisis", a book edited by Prof Castells.

Manuel Castells is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), in Barcelona. He is also University Professor and the Wallis Annenberg Chair Professor of Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

Paul Mason is the Economics Editor of BBC 2's Newsnight programme. His books include Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed; and Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions.

The hashtag for this event is #LSECastells.

The financial crisis has made many on the political right question their faith in free market capitalism. Jamie Whyte is unaffected by such doubts. The financial crisis, he argues, was caused by too much state interference and an unhealthy collusion between government and corporate power.

Interviewees include:

Producer: Helen Grady.

When Barack Obama stood before a 200,000-strong crowd in Berlin in 2008 his declaration that "now is the time to build new bridges across the globe" was met with jubilation by a crowd which believed the future American president would pursue a gentler foreign policy, completely unlike that of George W Bush. This liberal enthusiasm extended to the Nobel Committee, which awarded Obama its Peace Prize in his first year of office. The man himself accepted the Prize, and the warm feelings, but did he ever intend to pursue the sort of foreign policy which his well-wishers in Europe and on the American left expected of him? And what - when set against their expectations, or indeed his own promises - has President Obama actually achieved on the world stage?

Interviewees include:

Bruce Riedel, former adviser on foreign policy to Barack Obama

Presenter: Mukul Devichand

In Britain, the health gap is growing - in the wealthiest parts of the country, people are living on average more than a decade longer than in the poorest parts.

An academic discipline which tries to work out why this health gap exists has also grown.

It's called social epidemiology. You've probably never heard of it, but the science has influenced governments of both the left and right. So what answers has it thrown up?

The most famous comes from the Whitehall II study of civil servants, led by Sir Michael Marmot, which found that people who are in high-pressure jobs, over which they have low control, are at greater risk of heart disease, because of the stress their lowly position causes.

The idea that how much control you have over your work and life affects your health has generated talk in policy-making circles about the need to empower people.

But the evidence is contested. When economists look at the same data, they see something different.

David Aaronovitch hears the arguments.

Contributors:

Producer: Ruth Alexander.

If you think that you are rational and unprejudiced, Michael Blastland hopes you will be open minded enough to listen to the evidence which suggests that you are probably not.

We might think our views about global warming, nanotechnology or the value of IQ tests are based on scientific evidence. But the beliefs we hold about these issues often say more about our ability to screen out the evidence we dislike than it does about the scientific facts.

Michael Blastland investigates the causes of our cognitive biases and our remarkable ability to not let the facts get in the way of a deeply held belief.

Contributors include:

Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia

Producer: Chris Bowlby.

Why obey the law? Is there anything wrong with going through a red light at 3am in the morning if nobody is around? Does the law have any moral force? Questions for this edition of The Philosopher's Arms.

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.

Imagine a perfect art fake. A fake Van Gogh that is completely indistinguishable from the original. Does that mean it’s of equal value to the original? Find out in this edition of The Philosopher’s Arms.