Rethink

Is the UK destined to be an economy that only provides services and no longer makes things? Whether you agree with that statement or not, it's a narrative that's stuck with the UK for decades.

There are now far fewer large homegrown manufacturing firms than there were 60 years ago, which contribute far less as a percentage of national income. In the 1960s, a third of the UK workforce was employed in manufacturing, but now that's down to less than 10 percent.

But not all of those workers in the 1960s were on the production line; many were in-house cleaners, cooks, drivers and even barbers. Those roles were contracted out decades ago, and are now counted as service jobs.

So there's always been a blurring between these two parts of the economy, and now, increasingly, companies are finding ways to hold on to customers by adding value, such as car mechanics offering a free courtesy vehicle, or a laser printer company telling you when the ink is running low in your machine.

This called servitization, and because of advanced data analysis, manufacturers are now even able to provide an outcome, rather than just a product.

It's the difference between selling jet engines and instead providing guaranteed thrust for airliners.

It's a business strategy that has risks, but it can make a customer's life easier. It can lead to higher profits, less waste and greater productivity. But despite its benefits, the value of servitization to the UK economy isn't being measured. So is it time to rethink the relationship between manufacturing and services?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

Elon Musk’s Space X is planning for a satellite constellation 1 million strong. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is planning for two constellations of tens of thousands of satellites; and Chinese companies are thought to be planning to launch thousands more. Other commercial companies are beginning to think about the advantages of working in space - manufacturers, energy companies- all are planning to put more objects and more metal into space.

So is low Earth orbit - at around 2000 kilometres or less from the ground about to become dangerously congested?

This picture is further complicated by the presence of objects that we cannot control and never intended to have circling around the planet. Space debris - bits of old rockets that have been jettisoned, old satellites that no longer function, fragments of metal- even a glove that was lost during a space walk.

What happens if some of this space junk hits one of the thousands of satellites orbiting the earth? Could this set off a terrifying chain reaction that could hinder future space missions and make satellite communication vastly more difficult? Could our ability to track the weather, climate change, use satellite navigation and even access the internet be set back decades?

Do we also as a species need to start thinking about the implications for all that metallic pollution we are sending into space? Should we be thinking of space in the same way we think about our oceans and rainforests? Is space the next environmental frontier?

Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell

Contributors:

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21st Century wars aren't turning out quite as planned.

Russia expected to defeat Ukraine within days of the start of its "special military operation" in February 2022, but the conflict has now dragged on longer than the First World War, with more than an estimated 1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded in battle.

In the Middle East, when operation Epic Fury began in February 2026, Donald Trump stated that the US and Israel would topple the Iranian regime within six weeks. Months later, the regime in Tehran has withstood the huge bombing campaign, and there's no current end in sight to the conflict.

Both Ukraine and Iran have been able to resist a much bigger, better-armed enemy, using unconventional means. So has this changed the shape of modern war?

And is that modern war heading in our direction?

Senior figures with NATO, and even our previous Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, have warned that we should prepare for Russia attacking our allies by the end of the decade. So what can we learn from current conflicts to adapt UK military strategy and tactics for the future?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

In June, the US technology firm Anthropic blocked access to its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos, because the White House wanted to stop foreign nationals from accessing them, citing security concerns.

These actions highlighted the heavy reliance many countries and industries have on american-owned technology, and raised fears the US government could activate a political or literal "kill-switch", shutting down essential services and infrastructure.

In the weeks following this incident, Open AI, Anthropic and Meta all admitted that AI models they were testing had also gone rogue, hacking into other systems without being asked to.

So is it time for a Tech-xit - a move away from the technology provided by Silicon Valley?

The UK, the EU and other middling powers around the world are now seeking digital sovereignty as an active policy goal. But in this interconnected world dominated by US and Chinese big tech, is it possible to take back control?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

The United Nations estimates that nearly half of mankind will live in cities by 2050.

And as those cities have grown, the number of people living in slums has also increased. The UN estimates that 1.2 billion people reside in so-called “informal settlements”, mostly in low and middle income countries.

But what if you could build brand-new cities, offering economic opportunity for migrants? What if those cities were built by attracting foreign investment and entrepreneurs, and importing "better" laws, making it easier to operate a business and generate wealth?

That's the idea behind Charter Cities, the brainchild of the Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Romer. He was inspired by the massive growth of Hong Kong and Shenzhen in China. Both cities raised living standards in just two generations, by adopting market-led reforms.

He described it as a global win-win situation. So are these new cities potential utopias of opportunity and innovation? Or are they budding dystopias, where democracy means nothing, and the poor toil at the whim of the ultra-rich?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

The US dollar is the backbone of global trade and held by governments around the world as a safe haven in times of crisis.

It's so powerful that countries like Ecuador and Panama have adopted the dollar as their official currency, while Argentina for many years has tried to "dollarize" its economy.

But what happens if nations and private institutions were to lose trust in the dollar?

How did we get here? Well, after WWII the world order was re-established in part by tying the monetary systems to the value of the dollar, backed by gold. But since 1971 President Nixon cut that link to gold and the entire exchange system has since been tied directly to the dollar itself, its historic success and access to its financial markets.

That success gave America what was dubbed an "exorbitant privilege" to print money without fear of inflation and to build up national debt without consequence.

It also enables the US to flex its muscles on the international stage by imposing sanctions on countries and cutting off access to their all-important currency. That has led some countries, most notably China, to call for the dollar to be replaced as the world's reserve currency.

How difficult would it be to untangle the dollar from global trade, can any other nations offer the same conditions which has allowed the US currency to thrive, and what would happen if the dollar's role was replaced by newer digital currencies which operate outside traditional government control?

Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell

Contributors:

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Should we rethink who our city streets are for? It can often feel like there is a hierarchy on the roads, with cars needing to get from A to B as fast as they can, taking priority over people cycling or walking. But what if we flipped it on its head and put pedestrians at the top? Or, what if we saw our streets in a totally new light and instead decided they were places for meeting friends, playing or resting under a tree? Ben Ansell finds the people designing new streets, and he hears one radical idea that requires an entirely new language.

Ben visits a new kind of street where pedestrians have priority, not cars. It has been designed by traffic engineer Keith Firth at NRP. Campaigner Martin Cassini argues we could get rid of traffic lights to encourage drivers to pay better attention to pedestrians and to help ease traffic jams. But would all road users feel confident crossing without a dedicated beep or time to cross? Sohanna Srinivasan, head of Urban Planning Design at North Hertfordshire council, sets out her plan for how streets can have space built-in for people to fully enjoy their neighbourhoods while Dutch author Marco te Brömmelstroet says we need to rethink the language we use about cities. Change the language, change the mind set. Is it that simple?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Have you ever wondered why some people age better than others?

We all know someone who looks great for their age, and is also in robust health. And yet someone else who is exactly the same age might look older, and may be living with an age-related illness.

Chronological age is not always be a good indicator of how well someone is maturing. So, if our skin - which is our largest organ - suggests how well, or badly, we're aging, then the state of our other organs and the systems that keep them running may also indicate how old we are.

This measure is called your biological age.

And there are many ways of measuring biological age, from the simple - the strength of your hand grip, to the detailed - looking at the changes in chemical markers attached to your DNA, called epigenetic markers.

They lie "on top of" the DNA, without changing it - much like an instruction written on a post-it note attached to a piece of sheet music. The instruction means the music can be expressed differently, without changing the tune. Epigenetics explains why the DNA in every one of our cells is the same, and yet the cells can look very different from one another. They can be heart cells, blood cells, hair cells and so on, because the markers cause different genes on the same DNA to be expressed.

Epigenetics has allowed scientists to create clocks to tell you your biological age: the latest one can even tell you how fast you're aging. Advances in epigenetics have led to the new science of cellular regeneration.

And the world's first clinical trials are underway in the USA for a treatment that transforms old, dysfunctional and damaged cells into young healthy ones - treating aging itself.

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

Of the 195 widely-recognized sovereign countries in the world, only a quarter are monarchies.

And of those 43 monarchies, 15 of those have the same King. That’s Charles III, who’s head of state for Commonwealth territories as large as Australia and Canada, and as far apart as the UK and Tuvalu in the South Pacific.

In the other 28, the ruling monarchs can be called Kings, Emirs, Sultans, and there’s an Emperor on the Chrysanthemum throne in Japan.

Of course, there are also Queens - but some modern monarchies such as Japan and Lichtenstein still don’t allow female succession. In others, eldest daughters are passed over for their younger brothers - and this still happens in Spain and Monaco.

If this all seems a bit medieval, that's because it is! Monarchy is a system of governance that developed hundreds - or in the case of Japan - more than 1000 years ago, so it can look outdated through a 21st century lens.

But it's enduring, and opinion polls suggest it can be popular. So what does monarchy mean in the modern age? Which royal families are not only surviving, but are expanding their spheres of power and influence, and why the newest "monarchies" in the USA, Russia and China are not even royal at all.

Presenter: Professor Ben Ansell

Contributors:

As generative AI and Deepfake technology has progressed over the last decade, you could be forgiven for thinking that it's never been more difficult to try to work out what is authentic and what is fake.

The search for authenticity is not new. It's a task that's challenged humanity for hundreds of years. Forgers have always tried to pass off copies as great artworks, but it's not always clear when an artist was responsible for an entire painting or farmed out parts of the job to apprentices. A few well-known modern artists outsource all of the construction and manufacture of some of their works to skilled craftsmen and women.

Although the idea is theirs, does that make the final product somehow less than the genuine article?

Idiosyncrasies, perceived flaws or personal flourishes are often key indicators that show an image is authentic. We use those same tell-tale signs to judge the authenticity of another type of image: the one that politicians want to portray.

How important is it to be a politician who is seen as authentic by voters? How can we measure political authenticity? If someone is carefully crafting their image on social media, how real is it? And even if it is fake, do voters care, if they have been seduced by the illusion?

Presenter: Ben Ansell

Contributors:

Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University.