Simon Hix is the Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics. Vincent Chow chats with him about the UK's relationship with the EU post-Brexit, the life of Harold Laski, being a public intellectual and the state of the political centre in Britain today.

Professor Hix is also Director of the LSE Institute of Public Affairs and Fellow of the British Academy as well as Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has written several books on EU and comparative politics, including "What's Wrong With the EU and How to Fix It" (Polity, 2008). In 2008 he won the prestigious Fenno Prize from the American Political Science Association for his book (co-authored with Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland) "Democratic Politics in the European Parliament" (Cambridge, 2007).

Note: this was recorded before last Sunday's London Marathon, which Simon completed. His fundraising page is still live and can be found here: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=SimonHixHeadsTogether&pageUrl=1

Vincent Chow chats with Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, about the ongoing conflict, Trump's Jerusalem declaration, Hamas and the possible role of Europe in bringing an end to the hostilities.

Born in Jerusalem, Ambassador Hassassian is a Palestinian-Armenian professor who has been the Palestinian Authority's diplomatic representative to the United Kingdom since late 2005, after being appointed to the position by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Professor Oriana Bandiera is the Sir Anthony Atkinson Chair in Economics and Director of STICERD at the London School of Economics (LSE). She specialises in development economics, international trade and the public sector.

Vincent Chow chats with the professor about her research on policies helping ultra-poor women in Bangladesh, the limitations of microfinance, ethical implications of foreign policy interventions, and common misconceptions about what economists do.

Oriana's Recommendations:

https://ourworldindata.org

https://www.gapminder.org/tools/

http://wid.world

Her co-authored response to a Guardian piece attacking the discipline of Economics:

https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/10282

Our chief editor Vincent Chow speaks with Dr Brian Klaas about his travels to authoritarian regimes around the world, the global democratic decline, and how and why democracy should be promoted both at home and abroad.

Brian Klaas is a fellow in LSE's Government Department specialising in democracy, political violence and authoritarian regimes. He is also a former US campaign adviser and author of two books, "The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy" and "The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy".

Recommendations:

"How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future" by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Democracies-Die-History-Reveals/dp/0241317983

"How to Save Democracy | Brian Klaas | TEDxWandsworth"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWJ4hn0b240

András Fekete-Győr is a Hungarian politician and chairman of the Momentum Movement, an opposition political party founded in 2015. Only 28 years old, he led the NOlimpia campaign last year that successfully campaigned against the Budapest bid to host the Olympic games in 2024.

Our chief editor Vincent Chow caught up with him before a party meetup in London and discussed the situation in Hungary, the media landscape, and how the party aims to wrest power from the hands of PM Viktor Orbán and the ruling Fidesz party who have transformed Hungary into a so-called "illiberal democracy".

(Apologies for the bad audio quality - a lot background noise in the coffee shop where episode was recorded)

In the first episode of the Office Hours podcast, chief editor Vincent Chow speaks to Dr Kai Spiekermann about the Non-Identity Problem, one of the most interesting and trickiest problems in philosophy, and its relevance for the climate change debate.

Dr Spiekermann is Associate Professor of Political Philosophy and the Doctoral Programme Director in the Department of Government at the LSE. Among his research interests are normative and positive political theory, philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and environmental change.

Recommendations:

"Reasons and Persons" by Derek Parfit

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reasons-Persons-Oxford-Paperbacks-Parfit/dp/019824908X

"The Non-Identity Problem | Derek Parfit | EAGxOxford 2016"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtU0pah4R8Q&t=1617s