Shows
Meeting PeopleShoaib Akhtar: The Battle for Britain's Financial SoulIt took the humiliation of enemy ships raiding the Medway River in Kent to shake the political establishment into urgency in June 1667. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Britain* realised that in order stand a chance against its enemy it had to replicate the Dutch ability to source low cost financing. Ship building was expensive and time consuming after all. Thus the City of London was born.Do we need another Medway humiliation to shake us out of our stupor or can that be avoided? For my latest episode, I sat down with Shoaib Ak...2025-07-1753 minMeeting PeopleThe Revd Prebendary Dr Isabelle Hamley - Spirituality, meaning, justice, and the Church of EnglandIsabelle was previously chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and now serves as Principal at Ridley Hall a theological college in Cambridge. We discuss the meaning of justice and mercy, the pursuit of purpose for mental health, and what can be learned from old stories such as the Book of Judges and the Book of Ruth.We also touch on some of the potential failings of the Anglican church but also a tentative Gen-Z revival in Sunday attendance.Isabelle has worked as a probation officer and is an ambassador for Sanctuary Mental Health U...2025-06-161h 18Meeting PeopleKristian Niemitz: Free markets, NIMBYs, British stagnation, colonialism and the NHSDr Kristian Niemitz is Head of Political Economy at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Our conversation covered his many works including "Socialism: the failed idea that never dies", "Imperial Measurement: a cost-benefit analysis of western colonialism" and "Universal Healthcare without the NHS". We discussed his journey from "teenage Commie" to classical liberal, why Britain is stagnating and what to do about it, the battle of ideas more broadly, religious influences on economics, socialism's cultural dominance, the failure of politicians to implement good policy, and whether Javier Milei is an exception to this.Like many good G...2025-05-092h 00Meeting PeopleHealth Beyond Medicine: Professor Paul Crawford's Interdisciplinary RevolutionPaul Crawford is the pioneer and world's first professor of Health Humanities. Our conversation covered his years of work on how creative practices can enhance well-being in and out of the clinic. Alongside his academic work, he's also an entertaining fiction writer. His second novel, The Wonders of Doctor Bent is out this week. Without wishing to sound dramatic, I was inspired to learn about his writing practices and was moved by the impact this field has made in the health and wellbeing of patients in recent years. The scope for further impact is great an...2025-03-261h 38Meeting PeopleRobert Tombs: Learning from history, greatness, academic inertia and moreProfessor Robert Tombs is one of the world’s most accomplished historians. Our conversation covered questions not just relevant to today but of concern to prior and future generations. Winston Churchill’s advice is to “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft” but can we truly learn from history? What is the role of academia and professional historians in informing policy makers and voters? Does greatness play a role or are we all a product of our environment, geography, ideology and culture?From Marxism to the French Revolution and the Ph...2025-03-051h 57Meeting PeopleMargaret Evison: Rising to challenges, coping with death, empowering adolescentsIn 2009 Mark Evison was shot whilst leading a patrol in Helmand Province. Having been flown back to England, his mother Margaret was faced with no choice but to turn off his life support machine. She now runs the Mark Evison Foundation which enables adolescents from state schools to undertake challenges. In one of my most difficult conversations yet, we talk about Mark’s life, coping with the grief of losing a child, and the example he continues to set. The Foundation, named in his honour empowers hundreds of children to take on the spirit of adventure.A...2025-02-121h 17Meeting PeopleBen Kumar: London walks, taking risks, financial freedom, human strengths and foiblesBen is a smart and thoughtful investor who frequently gives thousands of people valuable insights on financial markets through his social media channels and radio appearances. The conversation started with a walking tour of Ben’s favourite spots in London (to avoid sitting in meeting rooms) and then opened out to a range of topics. We discussed his take on the experience economy, VR headsets, corporate authenticity, Amazon’s decline and much more. I questioned him on multiple unconnected topics and he always had something interesting to say in response. I hope you enjoy listening as much as we did i...2025-01-211h 49Meeting PeopleEugene Malthouse: Wellbeing, ham sandwiches and the Evolved NestMy latest guest Eugene Malthouse has done cutting edge work in behavioural science for the likes of Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler. MOUTHFUL ALERT: He is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics. Eugene also founded the Collective Decision-Making and Culture Lab (CDMCL) – an interdisciplinary group of 71 researchers based in 38 countries worldwide – which aims to bring global perspectives to the study of global collective action problems.We discuss many things from the ham sandwich fallacy, to GDP vs happiness and his PHD thesis on the Tragedy of the Commo...2024-12-051h 37Meeting PeopleAkhil Patel: The Secret Wealth AdvantageI confess coming to this conversation as a sceptic. An 18.6 year property cycle feels too deterministic and over-reliant on backfitting data to support a fallacious narrative. Even if it’s true, how actionable is it? However, having sat down with Akhil Patel to discuss his book “The Secret Wealth Advantage: How you can Profit from the Economy’s Hidden Cycle”, I left more open-minded. He explained, through first principles how Land behaves differently to Capital as a factor of production as per Ricardo’s Law of Rent. Perhaps it’s not exuberant credit expansion leading to excess leverage that...2024-11-131h 21Meeting PeopleNigel McGilchrist: Living with the ancients, the importance of beauty, and the birth of the modern worldAs people who have been kind enough to follow the pod know, I seek to converse with adventurous, rebellious (and sometimes courteous) free spirits. Not only does my latest guest, Nigel McGilchrist fit this endeavour, but so does the subject of his new book – a biography of ancient Greek polymath Pythagoras*. Nigel has dedicated his life to understanding and teaching the ancient world having lived in Italy for over thirty years before moving to Greece in 2008. His twenty-volume travel, art and history guide to seventy Greek islands has morphed my visits from what would have been pleasant hol...2024-10-171h 28Meeting PeopleFred Harrison: Georgism, rent-seeking, avoiding anarchy and unleashing our economic potentialWhat do The Queen's Gambit, L.A. Confidential, The Wire, and Chinatown have in common? The baddies are attempting to free ride on other people's hard work through buying land. For my latest episode, I interviewed Fred Harrison who is an economist of the Georgist School. On a long journey to understanding why living standards are falling in the developed world, to date I've misidentified symptoms as root causes. Such symptoms include overregulation, too much tax and spend, monetary incontinence, and a cultural attitude shifting from frontier-spirited risk taking to declinism. In my conversation with...2024-08-211h 10Meeting PeopleSasha Papadin: A Renaissance ManIt's not often one gets to sit down with a bona fide Renaissance Man. When not restoring vintage furniture in Northern California, Sasha Papadin is a singer, songwriter, DJ, producer, and instrumentalist. He also is one of the most erudite people I know. We start our conversation with Sasha's origins, recounting how his father, a poet, evaded national service in the Soviet Union during the 1960's by studying and emulating Schizophrenia. This was followed by learning about Sasha's musical journey (it started by writing a song for a film he produced as a teenager) and a discussion o...2024-06-261h 25Meeting PeopleSophie Beeley: autism, parenting, Raising Daisy, and the waggle dance.The more reductive amongst us have bucketed autism as a disability and drag on resources. The reality is that it is much more. In one of the most challenging but fulfilling conversations I’ve had since starting the podcast I sat down with Sophie Beeley, author of Raising Daisy, a Substack that draws on her experience as mother to a wonderful girl that was diagnosed with “autism spectrum disorder” at the age of five.We discussed the numerous battles that the family faced with their local government and educational establishment as well as the broader stigma...2024-06-051h 17Meeting PeoplePeter Botting: political campaigning, storytelling, career building - from Malawi to WestminsterPeter Botting has been an indispensable ally of politicians, c-suite executives, and founders over many years. As the CEO of a FTSE 250 company put it "When it's a big gig. When it really matters, you call for Peter." It was great that he answered my call to come on the podcast as I learned a lot from a career that informed a fascinating discussion on how to make change in the world possible. Whether it's for your next job interview, a fundraising campaign for your charity, for a speech to Parliament, or to win colleagues around to a new...2024-05-221h 38Meeting PeopleMedha Wilson: Giving hope not handouts to female entrepreneurs in Southern AfricaIn 2012, Mrs Mkonde borrowed £13 from the MicroLoan Foundation to expand her business (a single tomato stall) to help feed her eight children and pay for their education. She received training and business skills. Today she is an employer with a maize mill and ambitions to fulfil larger orders through warehousing and transportation.This is one example of over 450,000 female borrowers who have been empowered to reach a family base of 2.3 million people. I sat down to talk to the MicroLoan Foundation's CEO, Medha Wilson, to learn more about microfinance, its scalability and some of its challenges as w...2024-04-3056 minMeeting PeopleAlex Martin: Crime fiction, decadence, Monty Python, Shakespeare, The Bible and creativityFrom researching for Monty Python to writing crime fiction, Alex Martin’s life has been rich with creativity, adventure, and learning. His experiences frame our discussion which includes how to tackle Shakespeare, the importance of beauty and the soul diminishing impact of ugliness.Creative writing is a dwindling endeavour. The tik-tokification of entertainment has distracted the focus of many would-be readers. In response or in parallel, the publishing industry has become dominated by accountants obsessed over ROI, leading to consolidation and a formula and scale driven mindset to choosing who to promote and who to ignore. We un...2024-03-251h 29Meeting PeopleFranklin Shillingford: Role models, youthwork, gentrification, Hackney's futureIn my first episode, Simon Evan-Cook made a prediction that the effects of cuts to social services made years ago will start to manifest themselves with higher crime rates in the coming decade. This latest conversation with Franklin Shillingford gave me faith that there are people on the front line working tirelessly to address this. Frank is Club Leader at Crown & Manor which is situated in Hackney. His team provides much needed mentorship, stability, safety, and real-world skills to the borough’s youth most in need of positive role models. I’ve been reading Henry George of late...2024-03-111h 41