Keith Joseph

Thursday

Kate Andrews

Impeccable history of the free market – and from the BBC too

The launch of Radio 4’s Invisible Hands series has been both blessed and cursed by timing. It tells the story of Britain’s ‘free market revolution’, just as President Donald Trump overhauls the free trade consensus of the past 40 years and world leaders grapple with how to respond. The problem is the hypotheticals posed at the start of the first episode – that free market capitalism ‘might be in crisis’; that ‘the global free market might be under threat’ – are already out of date. It’s settled. Free trade is out, tariffs are in. Welcome to the trade wars. The world could do worse than look to the ‘Invisible Hands’

Tuesday

Chris Mullin

Six politicians who shaped modern Britain

‘All political careers end in failure,’ said Enoch Powell. Maybe. But just occasionally our imperfect political system throws up someone whose impact on our way of life, for good or ill, outlives them. In a series of elegant essays, Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, examines the careers of six politicians – three from left of centre, three from the right – who, in his view, changed the political weather of modern Britain. Only one, Nigel Farage, is still alive.  First up is Aneurin Bevan, the left-wing firebrand who, in the teeth of fierce opposition from the mighty, vested-interested British Medical Association, presided over the creation of