Red tape or accountability? Matthew Sweet is joined by Lord Robin Butler, former head of the home Civil Service, writer and lecturer Eliane Glaser and Professor André Spicer whose recent book looks at meaningless management speak. Deborah McAndrew talks about her stage adaptation of Charles Dickens' Hard Times which examines the results of purely utilitarian education. And journalist Richard Lloyd Parry's new book is an account of the tsunami of 2011 - Japan's biggest loss of life since the bombing of Nagasaki.

Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster is out now

Business Bullshit by André Spicer is available now

Hard Times is at The Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, until 24 February, then The Dukes, Lancaster, from 27 February until 3 March - check the Northern Broadsides website for further dates.