Politics on the Couch Larchmont Productions

In the wake of October 7th and Trump's bid to become US President again, Rafael Behr sits down with fellow Guardian columnist and friend - Jonathan Freedland - to discuss the current state of geopolitics, liberal politics, Israel and Jewish identity.
Events featuring Rafael Behr
Shoreham, West Sussex, Wed 24 April
An evening with Guardian columnist Rafael Behr and television producer Rob Burley in conversation with Ayesha Hazarika MBE, political commentator and broadcaster, and former special adviser to Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband.
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Central London, Thursday 25th April
What Everyone Knows About Britain* Except The British: Michael Peel in conversation with Rafael Behr
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J Freeland links
Award-winning edition of Unholy podcast
The latest edition of the Guardian's weekly US politics podcast
Jonathan Freeland and Israeli author Amos Oz
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman

 

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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


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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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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

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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.

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.