If You Don't Already . . .

You really should subscribe to Laurie Taylor's weekly Thinking Allowed podcast from Radio Four. This week:

Research has shown that health and social problems become more acute in an unequal society, where the gap between the richest and poorest is greatest. For most of us, respect is measured in money, and lack of it or low pay tells us that we are worth very little. But given the chance, would we as a society be prepared to rebalance? Laurie Taylor discusses these issues with Professor Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of "The Spirit Level: Why Equal Societies Almost Always So Better", and Sunder Katwala from The Fabian Society on a new paper on underlying motivation. Also teddy bears - how did a real hunting story became a political myth which left Theodore Roosevelt forever credited as the namesake of the teddy bear, symbolic of childhood innocence- Donna Varga, from Mount St Vincent University in Canada explains her research.

Download here.


Also well worth a listen to is the World Service's Forum, with Bridget Kendall. All your favourites are on here: Slavoj Žižek, Clive James, Arundhati Roy. Teeth-grindingly interesting.