Transforming Society podcast

When you think of people in debt, what do you imagine? Irresponsible people who leave telephones ringing and hide from debt collectors, or people faced with an impossible situation?   In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Ryan Davey, author of ‘The Personal Life of Debt’, about the true, everyday lives of indebted

We often hear that working-class boys in education are misogynistic, aggressive and unwilling to learn. But how true is this?  In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Alex Blower, author of ‘Lost Boys: How Education is Failing Young Working-Class Men’, about how the education system often fails these boys.  They disc

The goal of drug policy is clear, according to the United Nations, whose convention on narcotic drugs largely sets the framework for what individual states do. The aim, the UN says, is to end the ‘serious evil’ of addiction. This, it adds, is to be achieved by preventing public access to dangerous substances, while at

In many ways neoliberalism is an extreme ideology, much like fascism and communism, but we very rarely recognise it as such. It hides behind the free-market, deregulation and privatisation, but in reality it’s quietly increasing isolation, inequality, poverty, disease and environmental threat. In this episode, Richard

Despite claims that we now live in a post-racial society, race continues to disadvantage those from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds. In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Kalwant Bhopal, author of the second edition of ‘White Privilege: The myth of a post-racial society’, about why those from black and minori

The welfare state is often talked about as a universal safety net, a system designed to catch anyone who falls. But does that image really capture how different countries understand and organise welfare around the world? In this episode, George Miller talks to Professor Paul Spicker, author of What Is the Welfare State