An absolute treasure trove of a thread from Robert for this week's eps ✨ 👇

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode in our occasional series with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social on significant political anniversaries looks at the event that blew British politics apart at the start of 1886. The ‘Hawarden Kite’. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode in our occasional series with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social on significant political anniversaries looks at the event that blew British politics apart at the start of 1886. The ‘Hawarden Kite’. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Also, I find that since this Maduro stuff started I keep on thinking about @ppfideas.bsky.social's ongoing Politics on Trial series

The @criterionchannl.bsky.social has a very interesting documentary from director Noah Baumbach interview both André Gregory and Wallace Shawn about My Dinner with André. Recommended for anyone who appreciates the film.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! An extra episode to accompany our Films of Ideas series: David explores The Designated Mourner by Wallace Shawn, the writer and co-star of My Dinner with Andre. How did a play first performed in 1996 turn into a prophetic text for our times? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today it’s the last in our series of live film episodes: David talks to film director & campaigner Beeban Kidron about Michel Gondry’s 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (2004), a much-loved film that’s also chock full of interesting ideas. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

“If you arrive in a new town and you want to find the worst behaved people, go to the Philosophy Department and look for the ethicists.” Fascinating conversation about Jarman’s ‘Wittgenstein’ - which, I admit, is a film I never made through to the end. Now I want to go back and try again.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! The fourth episode in our season of live recordings is about Derek Jarman’s 'Wittgenstein' (1993), which tells the story of an extraordinary life in a way that is both light and profound. David talks to writer and philosopher Nikhil Krishnan. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Merry Christmas from Rosa, @ppfideas.bsky.social team & me 😍! In the latest episode of the podcast, David & I discuss von Trotta's film "Rosa Luxemburg" & the life and politics of “the most brilliant intellect of all the scientific heirs of Marx and Engels Marx and Engels", as Franz Mehring put it.

What could be more Christmassy than @leaypi.bsky.social on Rosa Luxemburg?! 🎁

My non-fiction Book of 2025 I binge-read it - it's shockingly readable while dealing with heavy stuff. (philosophy etc). #books #ideas #philosophy

What could be more Christmassy than @leaypi.bsky.social on Rosa Luxemburg?! 🎁

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today in our season of live recordings David and @leaypi.bsky.social. look at the biopic of a revolutionary: Margaretha von Trotta’s 'Rosa Luxemburg' (1986), which explores the deeply unstable relationship between the personal and the political. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

This is a wonderful discussion of an incredible film - the kind of film that’s basically a play - which, if you haven’t seen it will make you want to, and if you have will make you reflect on it anew.

BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW! David talks to film historian Harrison Whitaker about Frank Capra’s 'It’s A Wonderful Life' (1946), a Xmas tearjerker that also manages to be an exploration of personal identity, social justice, moral individualism & free will. Join PPF+ now: www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! The 2nd episode in our live series explores Louis Malle’s 'My Dinner with Andre' (1981), in which two men discuss the meaning of theatre, capitalism, love, science, faith and freedom over a meal. David talks to playwright and screenwriter Lee Hall. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Hitchcock made some strange films but Rope is one of the very strangest. We tried to make sense of it in a conversation with David Runciman

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today is the 1st in our series of live eps recorded at the Regent St Cinema in London: David talks to crime writers Nicci Gerrard & Sean French (aka @niccifrench.bsky.social) about Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), based on Patrick Hamilton’s play. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode explores the trials of Nelson Mandela, variously charged by South Africa’s apartheid state with treason, incitement, illegal foreign travel, sabotage and conspiracy across a decade. How did Mandela defend himself? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork

Spotted on Southwold pier: “He who controls the Past controls the Future. He who controls the Present controls the Past.” George Orwell

@ppfideas.bsky.social Hey For the second year running my most listened to podcast is PPF. Merry Christmas and here's to a (hopefully but unlikely) more peaceful 2026.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode is about a momentous trial and the incendiary book that followed: the trial was of Adolf Eichmann, convicted by an Israeli court in 1961 of orchestrating the Holocaust, and the book was Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963). Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

I studied Bentham (philosopher) back in a uni course on Victorian Culture. Bentham the Dickensian Gradgrind. Here's Runciman and suddenly there's so much more to Bentham! Fascinating and he tells it all like unraveling a mystery novel. 😎 "Blatant idiocy"! 🙆

David Runciman, Helen Thompson, and I reassembled what once would have been a FiveThirtyEight x Talking Politics podcast crossover while I was in London. Call it the ghosts of two podcasts past! It'll be in the GD POLITICS podcast feed later today!

🎶 "Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby: rereading Lady Chatterley." 🎶😉 - Tom Lehrer, "Smut" In all seriousness though, this is a very enlightening podcast episode. Well done once again, Mr. Runciman!

Fascinating listen here - a study of class, misogyny, denial, all the old British chestnuts which still hang around so much today.

BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW! In this PPF+ bonus to accompany our episode on the Lady Chatterley’s Lover trial, David explores the book at the heart of the case. Does the focus on sex miss the central themes of the book? And what is it with the red trousers? Join PPF+ now: www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

I had heard of the trial of Lady Chatterley's Lover but had no idea of the details. The whole case is so strange it's amazing it took place during my parents' lifetime- today DH Lawrence would not be considered even edgy let alone obscene. Fascinating episode.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today we return to our series about epoch-making trials with the case of the book they tried & failed to ban. In 1960 Penguin Books was prosecuted over its plans to produce a cheap, unexpurgated edition of DH Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover.' Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Wonderful discussion with Ian McEwan on the @ppfideas.bsky.social podcast. I would’ve loved to listen to another hour of this. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/ian...

Hey, thank YOU Rebecca!! More tickling to come in 2026...

Apart from a nerdy film podcast I like, this was my most listened to podcast of the year. This is episode is emblematic of why.

This was mesmerizing to listen to. Oddly comforting too

As someone fascinated by hauntology and the idea of the ghosts of lost futures shaping ideas about where we go from here, this sounds absolutely fascinating. Subscribed.

there is a great deal of ruin in a planet … everyone is astonished by the resilience and dynamism of the natural world anyone who's worked in a university knows just how stupid very clever people can be is the thing that's gripping us pessimism or fatalism? I valued the conversation around that…

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! David talks to novelist Ian McEwan, who was our first ever guest on PPF, about how the future will view our present once the disasters we are brewing come to pass. A wide-ranging conversation about how past, present and future co-exist in time. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Rather depressing subject material this — the extinction of all humankind — but nevertheless a delightful read by David Runciman. Three cheers for us, a doomed race of alpha apes who reproduce at replacement rates only when nothing better is on the menu. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social about the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. What is the meaning of Thatcherism in the twenty-first century? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s episode is the second part of David’s conversation with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social about the life and legacy of Margaret Thatcher. What is the meaning of Thatcherism in the twenty-first century? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

A full house for last night’s screening of ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ with Beeban Kidron. One more to go in the current series. ‘A Dangerous Method’ with Susie Orbach. Fancy joining us? All coming out as PPF episodes over Christmas. 🎟️ Info & tickets here: www.ppfideas.com/events

🚨 New PPF Newsletter out now! Test your cringe tolerance with the 'Yes Minister' sketch that Margaret Thatcher wrote and appeared in herself. 🫣 Plus David writes on the political allure of The Power of Three. You can sign up right here: it's fortnightly & free! ⬇️ www.ppfideas.com/newsletters

On this day in 1990, Margaret Thatcher left office, ending the longest continuous premiership since 1827. In this week's @ppfideas.bsky.social, David & I explored the making & breaking of Britain's first female prime minister, & the "ism" to which she gave her name. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/now...

🚨 New PPF Newsletter out now! Test your cringe tolerance with the 'Yes Minister' sketch that Margaret Thatcher wrote and appeared in herself. 🫣 Plus David writes on the political allure of The Power of Three. You can sign up right here: it's fortnightly & free! ⬇️ www.ppfideas.com/newsletters

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s ep in our occasional series about momentous political anniversaries with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social looks at the life & legacy of Margaret Thatcher 100 years on from her birth. What made Thatcher such a distinctive politician? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

Could there have been "Thatcherism" without Thatcher? Why was she such a polarising figure? What was the impact of the Falklands War and the Miners' Strike? Why did she fall in 1990? Join David Runciman & me to explore "Thatcher at 100", on @ppfideas.bsky.social. www.ppfideas.com/episodes/now...

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s ep in our occasional series about momentous political anniversaries with historian @robertsaunders.bsky.social looks at the life & legacy of Margaret Thatcher 100 years on from her birth. What made Thatcher such a distinctive politician? Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

BONUS EPISODE OUT NOW! Today’s PPF+ bonus is the 2nd part of David’s conversation with palaeontologist and science writer @endofthepier.bsky.social. Can we continue to exist as a species if we carry on having fewer and fewer children? Join PPF+ now: www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus