40 episodes

Politics on the Couch looks at the way our minds respond to politics and the way politicians mess with our minds. In each episode award-winning political columnist Rafael Behr is joined by a distinguished expert drawn from the world of politics, psychology or philosophy. The show will appeal to any listener interested in taking a deep dive into how psychology drives everyone's political thought and behaviour.For more information about host Rafael Behr - www.rafaelbehr.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Politics on the Couch Larchmont Productions

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    • 4.9 • 158 Ratings

Politics on the Couch looks at the way our minds respond to politics and the way politicians mess with our minds. In each episode award-winning political columnist Rafael Behr is joined by a distinguished expert drawn from the world of politics, psychology or philosophy. The show will appeal to any listener interested in taking a deep dive into how psychology drives everyone's political thought and behaviour.For more information about host Rafael Behr - www.rafaelbehr.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Moving the needle - Tom Gray of Gomez on swapping the recording studio for the campaign trail, and what being in a band teaches you about politics.

    Moving the needle - Tom Gray of Gomez on swapping the recording studio for the campaign trail, and what being in a band teaches you about politics.

    Rafael Behr talks to Tom Gray from Gomez about his bid to become a Brighton MP.
    Tom's had a hugely successful career in music with Gomez rocketing to fame in 1998, beating Pulp and Massive Attack, among others, to the Mercury Prize.
    More recently he launched the Broken Record campaign, calling for a fairer deal for musicians from streaming services, among other industry reforms.
    And now, having banged on the doors to demand political change from the outside, Tom wants to get on the inside.
    He's on the shortlist to be selected as Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for the Brighton Pavilion constituency
    That's the only seat in the country with a green MP right now, Caroline Lucas, although she's standing down at the next election.
    Raf asks Tom what makes someone want to swap what looks like the perfect job, recording and performing music for eager fans, for the grim, and potentially thankless life of a politician where I think it's safe to say the audiences are less than adoring.
    https://twitter.com/MrTomGray
    https://twitter.com/TG4Pavilion


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 1 hr 4 min
    'Bonus Couch Chat'

    'Bonus Couch Chat'

    In a departure from our normal format Rafael Behr (host) and Philip Berman (the show's producer) agreed to press record when they met yesterday (Thursday 28 September) to discuss a new series idea for Politics on the Couch.
    And this podcast is the end result, instead of a meta-cast talking about what we could talk about this Autumn, it's more of a casual ramble around Phil's break from Twitter, his despair about the state of political discourse and Raf's one-stop solution for all.
    Topics covered (in no order of importance):
    Twitter
    Laurence Fox
    GB News
    Sunak's postion on net zero
    The mood in Westminster
    State capture
    Democratic back-sliding
    The preface to the paperback version of Rafael's new book.
    https://rafaelbehr.com


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    • 41 min
    'Beyond the Red Wall'

    'Beyond the Red Wall'

    Raf Behr talks to journalist, author and broadcaster David Aaronovitch about his recent visit to the National Conservatives conference, and what it taught him about state of the Tory party.
    They discuss:
    Was there really a re-alignment in British politics post-Brexit?
    What do the Nat Cons have to offer us Brits apart from hardline anti-immigration vibes?
    Why do some parts of the commentariat spend so much time talking about 'culture wars' when there are so many other issues to cover?
    If, as expected, the next government is Labour and inherits an economic mess, will it be possible for them to make all the necessary hard decisions about taxation and spending, and stay in power?
    David Aaronvitch's substack - https://davidaaronovitch.substack.com
    Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts and Political Science Podcasts on the web.
    https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts
    https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 1 hr 4 min
    'Beyond parody' - a conversation with Rob Hutton about political journalism and its complex relationship with power

    'Beyond parody' - a conversation with Rob Hutton about political journalism and its complex relationship with power

    Rafael Behr talks to Rob Hutton, parliamentary sketch writer at the Critic, about the uneasy relationship between Westminster lobby journalists and MPs.
    Often political journalists cultivate close relationships with politicians to find out what's really happening in the corridors of power.
    But does a journalist's 'insider status' cloud their judgement when working out how to write about political stories or policy ssues, or whether to cover them at all?
    Does it inevitably become a trade-off between, a steady stream of 'exclusives', and a fair and objective approach to reporting?
    If so, what does this mean for democracy?
    Rob Hutton is an author and freelance journalist. He spent 16 years covering the British government for Bloomberg, taking in five prime ministers, as many elections, and the odd referendum. Before that, he worked for the Mirror and the Financial Times. He now has a regular spot as sketchwriter for The Critic. His career has been a mix of seriousness and satire. While he was a reporter for Bloomberg, unquestionably The Global News Organisation Least Likely To Tell A Joke, he wrote Romps, Tots & Boffins, a satirical book about the words only journalists use. He followed that up with Would They Lie to You?, about the way politicians got around reality without actually uttering untruths (it was a more innocent age). According to Rob, his most recent book, Agent Jack, doesn’t have quite so many laughs, although he says there’s an incident with a jar of marmalade and a blueprint for a Vickers tank. 'Oh, and there’s a naked German in a wardrobe.' 
    Here's a link to his Podcast - A Pod Too Far
    Rafael Behr's first book was released in May, 2023
    **'Politics, A Survivor’s Guide,'** is all about the infuriating toxicity of politics, how it got that way and how to resist the slide into cynicism and pessimism that are so corrosive of democracy. It’s about the challenge of staying engaged without getting enraged; the need to empathise with people whose views we cannot share and how that is different to appeasement of politics we believe to be dangerous.
    Available from Waterstones:
    https://www.waterstones.com/book/politics-a-survivors-guide/rafael-behr/9781838955045
    Or, for those who are interested in signed copies, from City Books in Hove:
    https://www.city-books.co.uk
    Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts and Political Science Podcasts on the web.
    https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts
    https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 59 min
    Trapped! Democracy's struggle to cope with modern life and what we can do to help – a conversation with Professor Ben Ansell.

    Trapped! Democracy's struggle to cope with modern life and what we can do to help – a conversation with Professor Ben Ansell.

    On this edition Rafael Behr talks to Professor Ben Ansell about his new book Why Politics Fails: The Five Traps of the Modern World & How to Escape Them
    Ben Ansell is Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. He was made Fellow of the British Academy in 2018, among the youngest fellows at that time. His work has been widely covered in the media, including in the World Bank's World Development Report, The New York Times, The Economist, The Times and on BBC Radio 4's 'Start the Week'. He was the Principal Investigator of the multi-million-pound ERC project 'The Politics of Wealth Inequality', is co-editor of the most-cited journal in comparative politics, and has written three award-winning academic books. Why Politics Fail is his latest book and his first for a wider audience.
    Link to buy Ben's new book
    https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/284663/ben-ansell
    Link to Ben's substack
    https://benansell.substack.com
    Rafael Behr's first book was released Thursday 4 May, 2023
    **'Politics, A Survivor’s Guide,'** is all about the infuriating toxicity of politics, how it got that way and how to resist the slide into cynicism and pessimism that are so corrosive of democracy. It’s about the challenge of staying engaged without getting enraged; the need to empathise with people whose views we cannot share and how that is different to appeasement of politics we believe to be dangerous.
    Available from Waterstones:
    https://www.waterstones.com/book/politics-a-survivors-guide/rafael-behr/9781838955045
    Or, for those who are interested in signed copies, from City Books in Hove:
    https://www.city-books.co.uk
    Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology Podcasts, and Top 25 Political Science Podcasts on the web.
    https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts
    https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 1 hr 18 min
    Kindness - a conversation about political empathy, its power and its limits, with Claudia Hammond

    Kindness - a conversation about political empathy, its power and its limits, with Claudia Hammond

    Host Rafael Behr talks to Claudia Hammond about political empathy, its power and its limits.
    Claudia is probably best known as the presenter of BBC Radio 4's long-running show, 'All in the Mind' which covers psychology, neuroscience & mental health.
    She is also the Visiting Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Sussex.
    Her latest book, 'The Keys to Kindness,' looks at what constitutes kindness, effective strategies to build more of it into our lives and the benefits of being kind.
    She draws on the latest research from psychology and neuroscience, and her work in collaboration with the University of Sussex and the BBC, including the largest global survey ever undertaken into attitudes to kindness.
    Links
    https://claudiahammond.com/the-keys-to-kindness
    https://claudiahammond.com/the-kindness-test
    https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/kindness/index
    https://www.sussex.ac.uk/schools/psychology
    Rafael Behr's first book is released today - Thursday 4 May, 2023
    'Politics, A Survivor’s Guide,' is all about the infuriating toxicity of politics, how it got that way and how to resist the slide into cynicism and pessimism that are so corrosive of democracy. It’s about the challenge of staying engaged without getting enraged; the need to empathise with people whose views we cannot share and how that is different to appeasement of politics we believe to be dangerous.
    The themes include migration, nationalism, family, identity, culture wars, technology, ideology, Europe, Brexit and a little bit of cardiology.
    Available from Waterstones:
    https://www.waterstones.com/book/politics-a-survivors-guide/rafael-behr/9781838955045
    Or, for those who are interested in signed copies, from City Books in Hove:
    https://www.city-books.co.uk
    Raf will be speaking at literary festivals, theatres, pubs all around the UK. Often he will be in conversation with fellow journalists and authors, hopefully also in conversation with you in the audience. Below is a list of places and times. Click on date for tickets. There may be more to come...
    10 May Brighton Festival
    17 May Bath Festival
    21 May Aye Write, Glasgow Book Festival
    23 May 1000 Trades, Birmingham
    25 May Hay Festival
    7 June The Elephant and Castle Pub, Lewes (no link yet)
    12 June Guardian Live, Kings Cross, London
    Politics on the Couch has been chosen by Feedspot as both one of the Top 25 UK Psychology, and Political Science podcasts.
    https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_psychology_podcasts
    https://blog.feedspot.com/political_science_podcasts


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    • 50 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
158 Ratings

158 Ratings

helen m smith ,

Brilliant podcast!

My partner and I love this podcast. Raphael Behr is an excellent interviewer - thoughtful and hugely insightful both personally and politically. He creates a space for his interviewee to present their views and they remain the focus of the interview, unlike many other more ego driven interviewers. He always picks interesting people and clearly has done his homework beforehand. Every episode has been fascinating and thought provoking.

J Kellow Pye ,

Ursa Major

This podcast is terrific. The last one for instance with James Graham is revelatory. Listen to it and you'll understand a good deal more about the state of politics in this country, just from being invited to overhear a fascinating conversation between one of the best political commentators and a brilliant dramatist.

Saoifre ,

One of the best.

It’s always an engaging and interesting listen. Good range if guests and plenty of time to delve into ideas.

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