UnHerd Radio

Neil MacGregor’s Living with the Gods was an award-winning Radio 4 series, and has now been made into a book of the same title. To bring things full circle, I sat down with him to turn the written word back into the spoken one; we talked about the relationship between art and religion, how religion is a more a way of creating meaning than explaining the universe, and what MacGregor liked to look at in the British Museum when the doors were closed and he was on his own with the keys.

After a Calvinist upbringing, where objects are often thought to be a threat to religious faith, MacGregor has come to be the foremost expositor of the rich cultural material produced by religious belief. In our conversation, he ranged widely: from the Cyrus Cylinder to the 40,000 year old Lion Man to the Mummies of Peru, to the decorative pointer, the Yad, with which Plymouth Jews used to read the Torah. It was a real joy to chat with him. Here is the podcast.

In this week's podcast, Ayesha Hazarika is joined by Jamie Bartlett, author of The People Vs Tech, The Dark Net and Radicals, and Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland, to discuss stories they think are under-reported by the mainstream media.

Jamie highlights how social media is making us all adopt a fascist style of politics, and Oliver looks at the history of offshoring and how London became an enabler of global corruption.

The panel nominate Serena Williams as their hero of the week, and Jacob Rees Mogg and the European Research Group as their villains. Listen here to find out why.

Ayesha Hazarika is joined by Gavin Haynes, Editor at Large for Vice, and Carl Miller, author of the new book The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab, to discuss their under-reported stories of the week.

Carl raises the issue of the changing nature of crime as it moves online, and Gavin highlights the myth of white genocide in South Africa and asks how it became a talking point of the far right, all the way up to the White House.

The panel also discuss their hero, the anonymous writer of the New York Times op-ed, and villain, the Labour Party.

In this week’s podcast, Charlotte Pickles is joined by Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, to discuss the role the tax system may be playing in people's loss of faith in capitalism. Why do we treat unearned income more generously that earned income? How does the bank CEO get to pay a lower rate of tax than the branch manager? And is the tax system incentivising poor business behaviour?

In this week’s podcast, Charlotte Pickles is joined by journalist James Ball and UnHerd’s Peter Franklin, to discuss James’ new book Bluffocracy. As self-confessed members of the so-called bluffocracy, the panellists ask: is Britain really governed by an elite bunch of bluffers, and if so, what is the cost?

In this week’s podcast, Charlotte Pickles is joined by political scientist Matthew Goodwin and Times columnist David Aaronovitch, to discuss the political categorisation “Open versus Closed”. Is it a useful way of capturing the political realignment we are witnessing, or does it simply reinforce division?

The podcast discussion follows the recent UnHerd series on the subject.

The future of the family by UnHerd

In this week's podcast, Ayesha Hazarika is joined by science writer and author, Tom Chivers, and political journalist Jane Merrick, to discuss under-reported stories from across the week.

Tom highlights the subject of his recent piece for UnHerd: the risk posed by AI becoming competent. Jane raises the issue of sugar and asks, are we worrying about it too much?

The panel also discuss their hero of the week, Margret Hodge MP and their villain, Julian Smith MP.

Ayesha Hazarika is joined by UnHerd columnist and author, James Bloodworth, and Polly Mackenzie, Director of Demos think tank.

This week, the panel discuss UnHerd's latest audio documentary, presented by James Bloodworth: 'How dead-end jobs killed small-town pride'. The documentary looks at the old industrial town of Rugeley and explores what can be done to help Rugeley and similar forgotten towns.

The panel also discuss their heroes of the week, the Thai cave rescue team and their villain, Boris Johnson.

Ayesha Hazarika is joined by Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, and Phillip Blond, Director of ResPublica, to discuss the week's under–reported stories.

Sunder highlights the diversity of the England World Cup squad and what it says about modern England. Phillip raises the issue of class in Britain and how it is still the biggest barrier to social mobility.

The panel also discuss, their hero of the week, Gareth Southgate, and their villain, Russian assassins.