Seriously...

The public had a chance to find out the truth about the Libor scandal in 2012 – but somehow they didn’t. Andy finds secrets kept from MPs and even the juries in the rate rigging trials. Can he find out where the instructions to lowball really came from?

Presenter: Andy Verity

Who was responsible for Libor? It was hailed as the world’s most important number but who was looking after it and were the custodians behaving with integrity? While traders went to prison for rigging interest rates were there orchestrated manipulations of Libor by far bigger players?

Presenter: Andy Verity

Pressure is put on a reluctant trader to manipulate interest rates. But where are his instructions coming from?

As Libor begins to feel like a lie, Andy is given a flash drive with some incendiary audio recordings.

Presenter: Andy Verity

Andy Verity investigates the secret history of Libor, asking did the right people go to jail? Were the rate rigging trials about law and the evidence, or were they show trials to appease public anger towards banks?

Producer: Sarah Bowen

The secret tapes the authorities, on both sides of the Atlantic, wouldn’t want you to hear. Andy Verity, the BBC’s Economics Correspondent has audio recordings, kept secret for years, which reveal evidence that could upend the received version of the biggest scandal since the financial crash. We might have thought that the rate-rigging bankers, ‘the LIBOR manipulators’ were justly jailed in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but over 5 episodes, Andy questions the traditional narrative. The Lowball Tapes exposes evidence, much of it kept out of the trials, to show how they were instructed to give a falsely low LIBOR rate, ‘to lowball.’ Outraged, some of the traders turn whistle-blowers; but rather than stopping the deception, the whistle-blowers find themselves pursued. In interviews with convicted traders, including one on the run, Andy hears how it appears blame for manipulating LIBOR was shifted onto junior traders, while those higher up escaped prosecution. Did the world fail to see the truth at the time? We’ve acquired a huge cache of exclusive evidence - recorded phone calls, confidential internal emails and witness statements - which suggest maybe it wasn’t just the market that was rigged. Can he find out who was pulling the strings and where the instructions ultimately came from? Producer: Sarah Bowen Music: Oskar Jones

Kevin Harman is an Edinburgh artist best known for creating 'situations', such as borrowing all his neighbours’ doormats to create an installation, smashing the window of an art gallery and transforming rubbish in skips into sculptures. In this programme he explores what happens when public art and people clash and gets a sense of what it's like when 'art comes in the night'. Whilst working on his own installation in Govan, he ponders what success and failure really mean in the sometimes controversial world of public art. Some public art is loved, some even defended from packs of roving art dealers, some is brushed off with indifference, or grumbling about wasted tax money. But when art comes out of the galleries and is splashed on the wall of someone's house or stuck outside on a shared stretch of grass the community can't help but be changed by its presence, and the art is at the mercy of those surrounding it. Kevin meets architect Lee Ivett who, in 2017, embarked on a new project in Govan, a huge sculptural installation constructed from ropes taken from the former shipyards. Within 48 hours it had been burned to ashes by local teens. Although always intended as a temporary installation, community anger at large pots of money being given to artists erupted, stoked by articles in the press. But was this destruction simply vandalism or a sign that some important local needs weren't being met? Artist Nicola Atkinson has created public art all over the world, including recently in Dunfermline. She talks to Kevin about different ways she's found to engage with communities and cautions against the scandalisation of public art which can disempower artists and undermine the idea that art should be for everybody.

What makes us feel in love? And can we make ourselves feel it? Biomedic Sophie Ward sets herself the deluded task of making a scientifically-accredited love potion, with the help of neuroscientists, evolutionary anthropologists, aphrodisiac historians, and a smell scientist who really likes pumpkin pie. Ingredients: a neurochemical cocktail of oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin and beta endorphin, a metaphorical "good egg", a splash of kindness, a cup of communication, five figs, an entire tiramisu, a punnet of stewed plums and a stick of liquorice. Prescribed by the following doctors of various disciplines: Dr Anna Machin, Dr Helen Fisher, Dr Viren Swami, Dr Kate Lister and Dr Alan Hirsch. Produced by Becky Ripley

Negotiations between the UK and Iran to settle an old debt and allow Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe to return to her family in the UK take a new turn. But the United States creates a fresh obstacle to her release.

Presenter: Ceri Thomas

Richard Ratcliffe, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband, begins his public campaign to win her freedom. And the British government explores some creative solutions for paying off a debt it owes to Iran. Finally, in 2019 the UK and Iran head to the table to negotiate a deal for Nazanin’s release.

Presenter: Ceri Thomas

In early 2016, the United States secured the release of some of its citizens imprisoned in Iran. Months later, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was taken hostage, caught up in the backdraft of the US deal. Her fate and the decades-old issue of an unpaid debt finally collide.

Presenter: Ceri Thomas