Jam Tomorrow

By PodmastersNews Politics History

Jam Tomorrow episodes

February 20, 2023 Choice: The buck stops with you
Season finale: Since the War, Britons experienced an explosion of choice in food, services, work, utilities, even belief and sexuality. But did ever-increasing choices really lead us to the promised land? Why are we lost in a maze of competing phone contracts, train fares, and “options” from schools and hospitals – where choice is bewildering and meaningless?
In the last episode of this season, Ros Taylor finds out how choice and competition shaped the post-privatisation world from rail to energy to education – and where it let us down. Does more choice make people more empowered or just more fearful? And how do you run a society when you can choose your own truth?

• “Choice has liberated people and made life worth living. But in public services, it hasn’t worked so well…” – Ros Taylor
• “Parents who looked at more schools were more likely to find the whole thing stressful – and worry if they’d made the right choice.” – Aveek Bhattacharya
• “How do you incentivise a public service to do the best it can? The idea was to introduce some fake competition.” – John Appleby
• “When people feel fearful and insecure, their appetite for choice shrinks.” – Ros Taylor

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

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38 min
February 13, 2023 Belief: Heaven up here
The post-war dream was anchored in ideas of Britain as a Christian nation. Now we’re a polyglot country of different faiths and none. Can religious belief still tie Britain together? Should we want it to? Ros Taylor looks at the Church of England’s journey from its unifying role in the Second World War to its search for a new identity in a world of charismatic evangelicals, shifting sexualities and new ethnic communities. Does the CofE have to change or disappear?
• “Donating to the church collection isn’t enough. Some of us want a side of social justice with our sermon.” – Ros Taylor
• “The Church of England is essentially about the feeling of being English… and that’s been squandered by the clergy.” – Linda Woodhead
• “We think of London as the most socially liberal city in the country – but it’s actually the most socially conservative. And a major part of that is the type of Christianity and Islam followed by migrants.” – Tomiwa Owolade

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
38 min
February 06, 2023Class: The old school ties that bind
Britain’s class system is rigid and incomprehensible – and education keeps it that way. Why do so many of us think we’re working class when we’re not? Why do we still believe in making it through hard work, yet hate social climbers?
After the War, we told ourselves we were on the way towards a classless society. Ros Taylor talks to people as diverse as campaigner and educationalist Melissa Benn and class commentator Peter York to find that decades of meddling with education and work only entrenched class power. How do we get out of the class trap?
“The top universities say that anyone can get in if you’re good enough… The problem is, you might not realise it unless you’ve been to the right kind of schools.” – Ros Taylor
“There’s British plutocracy and British poshocracy… but in Belgravia you will find precious few British achievers.” – Peter York
“The freedoms that academies were promised don’t really exist now… the whole thing was a hugely expensive time and energy trap.” – Fiona Millar
“Should we stop talking about the Upper Classes at all and be honest about who really holds wealth and power in Britain?” – Ros Taylor

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
42 min
January 30, 2023Housing: Haven’t you got homes to go to?
How the housing dream was betrayed, and how to fix it. Council houses fit for the wartime generation gave way to a “home-owning democracy”, but we priced the young out of home ownership and refused to build the properties they need. How did Britain screw up housing so badly?
From prefabs to Poulson to Thatcher’s Right to Buy and NIMBYism, Ros Taylor finds out how Britain’s approach to housing went so very wrong. Along the way, Neil Kinnock remembers the cockroaches that infested his childhood home and what it meant to finally be treated with dignity. And Ros discovers what could be the future of housing.
“Through benefits, taxpayers are paying the mortgages of hundreds of thousands of private landlords who can jack up rent at will.” – Ros Taylor
“The revenue from Right To Buy went to the Treasury, not towards building new houses. It made about £47bn from Right To Buy.” – Jules Birch
“My mother would say, Come in Neil, your dinner’s on the table and it’s getting dirty.” – Neil Kinnock
“Council housing was irredeemably tainted by what happened in the 60s and 70s.” – Lynsey Hanley
“The average Englishman and Englishwoman dreams of his or her own home and garden.” – Mass Observation
“Council housing was no longer something to aspire to… it was now a place of last resort.” – Ros Taylor

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
37 min
January 21, 2023The NHS: From the Cradle to the Gravy Train
How Britain’s postwar dreams were stolen… and how to win them back. This time: The NHS was the prize for all the pain and sacrifice of the Second World War. When did we accept that it would be a service in perpetual decline? Ros Taylor talks to experts from senior policy planners to Casualty scriptwriters to discover how the NHS became a huge entity in permanent crisis – why it holds such a grip on our collective imagination – and how to rescue it.
“I have never seen NHS morale lower than it is now.” – Camilla Cavendish
“It’s only when you really need the ΝΗS and experience it that you realise something terrible is going on within our society.” – Rachel Clarke
“The NHS has pockets of world-class excellence and also, sadly, pockets of disaster and despair.” – Camilla Cavendish
“We wouldn’t fund paediatrics from jumble sales or sponsored abseils… But that’s what we do with end of life care.” – Rachel Clarke

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Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
51 min
January 16, 2023 World War II: Every Day is Like D-Day
How did Britain’s dreams of a new postwar world go unfulfilled? And what does that mean for us today? In the first of a new documentary series from the makers of Oh God, What Now?, Ros Taylor looks at the legacy of the War itself. Ιdeals of the Blitz Spirit and dreams of wartime heroism still shape everything from pop culture and entertainment to the Brexit debate. But the truth of the War is more complex and less comforting. What will it take for us to see the Second World War – and ourselves – clearly?

•  “If you’re going to have a foundation myth it might as well be one where you destroy Nazism.” – Al Murray
•  “If the response to air raid wasn’t stoicism, there was a fear that morale would break down.” – Lucy Noakes
•  “The Keep Calm And Carry On poster was designed for a type of war that never arrived.” – Henry Irvine
•  “Britain went into the war not alone but at the head of the world’s biggest empire… When Britain went to war, so did vast part of the world.” – Lucy Noakes

Follow Jam Tomorrow on Twitter

Written and presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Jade Bailey. Voiceovers by Imogen Robertson. Original music by Dubstar. Lead producer: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Jam Tomorrow is a Podmasters production.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
57 min
January 13, 2023 Jam Tomorrow: Trailer
Out of the ruins of the Second World War, the British people were promised a better world of free healthcare, quality housing and good schools. What happened to these promises of Jam Tomorrow? In a new series from the makers of Oh God, What Now?, Ros Taylor explores how the postwar dream was betrayed – and how we can win it back.

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4 min

About Jam Tomorrow

From the publisher's feed

You probably think you know what life was like in Britain after the war. But what myths do we tell ourselves about the pre-digital world? From coal to contraception and ID cards to school beatings, Ros Taylor delves into the truth about British postwar life in Jam Tomorrow. From the makes of Oh God, What Now?