The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy sits down with the Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees. As well as being the nation's foremost stargazer, he is the founder of the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, which means he spends a great deal of time thinking about how humanity might face its doom. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, to discuss cancel culture, free speech, etc. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with an intellectual hero of his and nobel winner, Amartya Sen, to discuss welfare economics, colonialism, higher education, and the compensations of age. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with the Mayor of Greater Manchester and one of Labour's current success stories, Andy Burnham, to talk about devolution to the North. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Jed Mercurio, writer of Line of Duty and other hit dramas, to talk TV, police, conspiracies, and writing. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Michael Burleigh, a distinguished historian who has recently turned his hand to the subject of political assassination in his book 'Day of the Assassins. It's a blood-spattered thriller of a read, and the conversation covers assassinations of all stripes and from all angles, including the murderers of Trotsky, JFK, Martin Luther King, Caesar, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Salman Rushdie, celebrated novelist. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence. He has dived all over the world and campaigns to create marine protected areas. They talk fish, conservation, the Hebrides, Galapagos, Mediterranean, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Andrew Hunter Murray, co-host of the podcast juggernaut, 'No Such Thing As A Fish'. He also indulges in Jane Austen improv comedy, and, more recently, thriller writing. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with former Downing Street head of communications Alastair Campbell, the real-life Malcolm Tucker and most prolific diarist since Samuel Pepys. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has a 'drink' with Conn Iggulden, one of the country's foremost writers of historical fiction. On the menu: history, Kent, time machines, the Queen, Pericles, Thermopylae, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Jeremy is with Sam Lee, folk singer and Nightingale obsessive. On the menu, everything and anything to do with the greatest avian singer of all. Why do they sing so well? What do they sound like? Why are they so mythologised? Where can you hear them? Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has another virtual pint with Justin Maciejewski, director of the National Army Museum, former soldier and former McKinsey consultant, and a deeply thoughtful commentator on the military, one of Jeremy's fondest subjects. On the menu: the role and size of the army, military history, the army's pandemic response, poetry, recruiting, outsourcing, and all sorts. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has another virtual pint with Armando Iannucci, creator of a litany of comedy hits such In the Loop, The Thick of It, Veep, Alan Partridge, etc. On the menu: comedy, writing, Milton, Boris Johnson, much more. Alas, no beer. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with the conservation legend Jake Fiennes, scion of one of England's most overachieving families. On the menu: birdsong, nightingales, partridges, sward, the future of the countryside, the glories of Holkham, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week it's the Director General of the National Trust, one of Britain's biggest heritage organisations and the custodian of hundreds of our finest castles, great houses and beaches, along with vast swathes of our treasured countryside. They discuss recent controversies over the Trust's vision for the future, its focus on the history of slavery, as well as the plummeting revenues and job losses of the pandemic. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West and one of the least typical members of Parliament he has ever met. On the menu: Naz's unusual route into Parliament; authenticity in politics; her favourite Tories; empowerment of women; race; generosity of spirit; Hajj; Ramadan; climbing the greasy pole and the Bradford renaissance. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Rowan Hooper of the New Scientist, author of 'How To Spend a Trillion Dollars'. On the menu is a hard headed look at how humanity might come by such a sum, and the best ways to blow it in order to better our global state. High on the list of topics: climate change. AI, alien life, curing illness. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with one of his heroes, Eliot Higgins, founder of the citizen spy agency, Bellingcat. From his desk in Leicester, Higgins has embarrassed spy agencies around the world, and unmasked some of Russia's most dangerous professional assassins. He has scooped global news organisations and taken on some of the world's most savage dictatorships. Jeremy asks him how he did it all, and what happens next for Bellingcat? Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Another virtual pint. Jeremy sits down with the writer Tony Parsons, author of many novels, most famously 'Man and Boy'. On the menu, writing, lockdown, getting away with it, resilience, adversity, funeral arrangements, Bowie, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Sir William Atkinson, the superhead who came to Britain from Jamaica at the age of seven, and in a stellar career earned a knighthood, and some fame, for turning round some of the country's toughest schools. On the agenda: teaching, rugby, racism, history, ambition, pubs Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has a pint with David Runciman, host of the Talking Politics podcast, author, and Cambridge Professor. They discuss the waning public faith in democracy and how it might be fixed. Should we let children vote? Should we make people pass a test to vote? Should we at least try something to arrest the alarming trend of people turning away from the system of government meant to be the worst except for all the others? Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has a 'pint' with Sir David Omand, former head of the government's listening, GCHQ, and thus one of our top spies. Topics include the power of rational thinking, how an intelligence analyst would go about buying a house, the need for a devil's advocate, how to keep kids safe on the internet, and how Edward Snowden should have gone about his historic leak. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy talks to Dr Rachel Clarke, specialist in palliative care, about the meaning of a good death and her experience of the pandemic. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has another imaginary pint with Helen Pluckrose, co-author of 'Cynical Theories' and participant in the infamous 'grievance studies affair'. Helen unpicks the intellectual history of 'woke' thought, Jeremy is baffled. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

With pubs still closed, Jeremy has yet another virtual pint with Andrew Dole, creator of Twitter sensation, Titania McGrath. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Tom Holland, one of Britain's best-known historians, to discuss no less a subject than the making of the modern world. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy enjoys another notional pint with Ben Macintyre, a man who knows more about spies than is healthy for anyone. They discuss Agent Sonya, the woman who stole Britain's nuclear secrets for the Soviet Union and almost assassinated Hitler. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Clare Balding broadcaster, rambler, scion of a racing dynasty, and now the author of a book about 'heroic animals'. Topics include racing, dogs, donkeys, anthropomorphisation. Jeremy makes a tabloid confession. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy enjoys an actual pint with Matt Parr, a former nuclear submarine commander and Rear Admiral, Submarines. They discuss the merits of life in "an expanded cigarette tube, underwater". Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Isabella Tree, rewilder of the Knepp Estate and author of 'Wilding - the return of nature to a British farm'. They discuss the decision to turn a 2000 acre farm into a haven for wild animals, the first storks to nest in England since Agincourt, and the prospects for beavers, lynxes, wolves, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path and Wild Silence, to talk about her extraordinary story of loss and redemption on the South West Coast Path. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy sits down with mental health professionals to discuss a subject close to his heart: the state of the nation's mental health. They discuss how it has fared in the pandemic, and what hope there is, and isn't, for the near future.Participants include Daisy Fancourt, who leads the 'COVID-19 Social Study', a longitudinal study into the psychological and social impact of the pandemic involving over 95,000 adults in the UK; Paul Farmer, CEO of the mental health charity, Mind; Professor Miranda Wolpert, Head of Mental Health Priority Area at the Wellcome Trust, and Marjorie Wallace, CEO of the mental health charity, SANE.Resources:The study Daisy Fancourt is leading into the mental health impacts of covid and covid responses is at www.covidsocialstudy.orgInformation about the work Miranda Wolpert is doing at Wellcome is here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/active-ingredients-youth-mental-health-story-so-far-nov-wolpert/?trackingId=IgN74vP1TXGolBHc3Ikkew%3D%3DMarjorie's mental health charity, SANE, is here: http://www.sane.org.uk/Paul's mental health charity, Mind, is here: https://www.mind.org.uk/ Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy has a pint with Mark Criddle, coxswain of the RNLI Torbay lifeboat, who has saved hundreds of lives over many decades putting to sea with the RNLI. They discuss volunteering and bravery on the high seas. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy talks to Professor Sunetra Gupta, a University of Oxford epidemiologist who has been pilloried for daring to suggest that there could be an alternative response to covid than putting the entire country under house arrest.Yes this is meant to be a pub lock in rather than a podcast about the news, but these are extraordinary times we're living through and it's perverse to ignore that fact, so this is one of a handful of 'off-script' episodes we'll be putting out alongside our regular chats. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy talks to Lord Sumption, a senior judge and former member of the Supreme Court who has suggested that in its covid response the government has overstepped its legal authority and that the public needs to resist its totalitarian instincts.Note: this is meant to be a pub lock in rather than a podcast about the news, but these are extraordinary times we're living through and it's perverse to ignore that fact, so this is one of a handful of 'off-script' episodes we'll be putting out alongside our regular chats. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy talks to the actor Brian Cox about reading lines, nationalisation, interment, and more. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy talks to the High Priest of atheism, Richard Dawkins, about the Tooth Fairy and other higher powers. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy chats to Katharine Birbalsingh, the much-maligned (and loved) 'strictest headmistress in Britain', about her controversial Michaela Community School, Black Lives Matter, identity, discipline, and teaching. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy enjoys a robust encounter with the farmer and writer James Rebanks (who puts up with no bull) about the coming revolution in the English countryside. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paxo sits down in the Haverstock Tavern for a pint with the former Python and inveterate globetrotter, to talk about such comedic subjects as churches, mortality, and the Northwest Passage. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paxo has a pint with Lee Child, creator of Jack Reacher. Topics include getting high, Granada TV, casting Jack Reacher, and the seductive power of vigilante justice. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Paxman embarks on a podcast. With technical difficulties. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.