Past Present Future

David talks to Mark Ford and Seamus Perry, hosts of the LRB’s Close Readings poetry podcast, about what makes a great political poem. Can great poetry be ideological? How much does context matter? And is it possible to tell political truths in verse? From Yeats’s ‘Easter 1916’ to Owen’s ‘Strange Meeting’ to Auden’s ‘Spain 1937’: a conversation about political conviction and poetic ambiguity.To find out more about Close Readings and how to subscribe, just visit the LRB’s website https://www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-videos/podcasts/close-readingsSign up now to PPF+ to get ad-free listening and all our bonus episodes – including bonuses on the Great Political Fictions www.ppfideas.comNext time: Lea Ypi on Ibsen’s The Wild Duck

This week we check back in with Gary Gerstle to discuss what’s been happening in American politics after a tumultuous week. What does it say about Trump’s electoral strategy that he picked J.D. Vance as his running mate? How would the Republican party have coped if the assassin’s bullet hadn’t missed? Who might replace Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and how? Plus, what fate lies in store for Bidenomics if Trump plasters his name all over it?Our free fortnightly newsletter is out now, including reflections on Biden’s and America’s looming choices – just sign up here https://linktr.ee/ppfideasAnd sign up to PPF+ to get all our bonus episodes along with ad-free listening: available now for PPF+ subscribers, Robert Saunders on his favourite political novel, George Eliot’s Felix HoltNext time: The Great Political Poems

Our series concludes with a musical: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s wildly popular and increasingly controversial Hamilton (2015). What does it get right and what does it get wrong about America’s founding fathers? How fair is it to judge a Broadway musical by the standards of academic history? And why does a product of the Obama era still resonate so powerfully in the age of Trump and Biden?The latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter - which accompanies the last three episodes in this Fictions series including Hamilton - is out tomorrow, with lots of extra info, clips and reflections – just sign up here: https://linktr.ee/ppfideasAnd sign up now to PPF+ to get all our bonus episodes along with ad-free listening: coming very soon for PPF+ subscribers Robert Saunders on his favourite political novel plus a special episode on Evita: www.ppfideas.comNext time: Gary Gerstle on the Republican National Convention

The penultimate episode in our fictions series is about Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife (2008), which re-imagines the life of First Lady Laura Bush. One of the great novels about the intimacy of power and the accidents of politics, it sticks to the historical record while radically retelling it. What does the standard version leave out about the Bush presidency? How does an ordinary life become an extraordinary one? And where is the line between fact and fiction?Sign up now to PPF+ to get all our bonus episodes along with ad-free listening: coming soon for PPF+ subscribers Robert Saunders on his favourite political novel plus a special episode on Evita: www.ppfideas.comNext time: Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton

Our political fictions series returns with Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty (2004), which is set between Thatcher’s two dominant general election victories of 1983 and 1987. A novel about the intersection between gay life and Tory life, high politics and low conduct, beauty and betrayal, it explores the price of power and the risks of liberation. It also contains perhaps the greatest of all fictional portrayals of a real-life prime minster: Thatcher dancing the night away.Sign up now to PPF+ to get all our bonus episodes along with ad-free listening: coming soon for PPF+ subscribers Robert Saunders on his favourite political novel plus a special episode on Evita: www.ppfideas.comNext time: Curtis Sittenfeld re-imagines Laura Bush in American Wife

To wrap up our series David and Robert attempt some instant history on the election result that’s just happened: in some ways predictable, in others utterly remarkable. What does such a big win for Labour on such a relatively small vote mean? What’s happening in Scotland? Where next for the Tories? And is the UK now an outlier in a world of increasing political turmoil, or is the turmoil just under the surface here too?Our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this series is out now, with fact, figures, clips and reflections on all these elections and more – just sign up here: https://linktr.ee/ppfideasTo hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to PPF+ and you’ll get ad-free listening plus all past, present and future bonuses too: www.ppfideas.comComing Up: More Great Political Fictions

For election day, David and Robert discuss the previous general election in December 2019, which saw Boris Johnson win a decisive victory under the slogan ‘Get Brexit Done’. How did he (or Dominic Cummings) do it? Was Corbyn to blame for Labour’s defeat? And how the hell did the Tories get from that resounding victory to their current disarray in just 4½ years?To get our free fortnightly newsletter to accompany this series, with fact, figures, clips and reflections on all these elections and more, just sign up via the Newsletter button here: https://linktr.ee/ppfideasTo hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to PPF+ and you’ll get ad-free listening plus all past, present and future bonuses too: www.ppfideas.comComing next: 2024 – What Happened?

In this extra episode for election week David talks to historian Robert Saunders about the last great Labour landslide of 1997, when Tony Blair won the biggest majority in his party’s history (till now?). Why did the Tories get no credit for a strong economy? How did New Labour change political campaigning? Was this the election that did for the prospects of proportional representation? Plus – the Millennium Dome: totemic or tat?To hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to PPF+ and you’ll get ad-free listening plus all past, present and future bonuses too www.ppfideas.comFor election day tomorrow: the Boris + Brexit election of 2019

Today’s pivotal UK election is the one that brought Margaret Thatcher to Downing Street in 1979. David talks to historian Robert Saunders about how she did it and how it could have turned out very differently. What might have happened if the election had been called the previous year? Did Thatcherism already exist in 1979 or had it still to be invented? And how close did the Labour party come to permanent schism in the years following her victory?To hear our bonus episode on the epochal election of 1924 sign up now to PPF+ and you’ll get ad-free listening plus all past, present and future bonuses: www.ppfideas.comNext time: 1997 and the New Labour landslide