How To Fix...

Leaving the EU, despite what the Leave campaign claimed last year, is turning out to be rather complicated. We were supposed to save money—£350m a week—but now it seems we’re paying tens of billions first. We were supposed to quickly sign a trade deal with the rest of the EU—the German car manufacturer would insist on it, remember—but we haven’t even started talks about talks yet. And all those concerns about what this meant for Northern Ireland and the border were pretty straight-forward to...

How do you fix Brexit? Well, for a start it depends on whether you want us to leave or remain. Next week we’ll work out how to fix leaving. Today, we’re going to see if there’s a way to remain. Despite the vote, is it possible for the UK to remain in the European Union after all? It is, and we’ll explain how. In this week’s show, Steve Bloomfield and Stephanie Boland are joined by: · Alison McGovern, Labour MP · Alex Dean, Prospect’s Brexit expert Get in touch Steve:...

For the tenth episode of How to Fix we decided to hand the reins over to you, dear listener. What do you think needs fixing? We’ve whittled down your suggestions to half a dozen and have parcelled out your queries to a handful of prospect editors, including myself and Steph. So in the next twenty minutes or so you’ll hear Tom Clark discuss the state of the United Kingdom, Sameer Rahim will wax lyrical on English curriculums at universities, Steph will tell us all about children’s health and...

Think of a city with an air pollution problem and, a few years ago, Beijing probably would have sprung to mind. Dense smog, citizens in face masks, this was a problem that cities like London had left behind after the Clean Air Act of 1956 dealt with the problems caused by the great Smog of 1952. But while London and other cities in the UK don’t suffer from a Great Smog today, they are feeling the effects of air pollution in far greater ways than many of us have realised. An estimated 40,000...

Right now, there are 65.6 million people around the world who have been forcibly displaced. That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Britain. Of those, 22.5 million are refugees. Of those, less than 200,000 were resettled last year in another country. So what about the rest? Well, many of them are in camps. We think of the refugee camp as a temporary structure. A place of tents and well-meaning aid workers in white t-shirts handing out food and medicine. And at first, they can be. But...

In the three weeks since the first allegations of sexual harassment and assault were made against Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, the floodgates have opened. From film to journalism, politics to law, women have come forward with horrific stories of assault and everyday harassment. No industry is immune. It feels as if something might have changed, as if we’ve reached—or are reaching towards—a tipping point. But are we? What, if anything, will actually change? What can we do—both men...

Back in May it was Mental Health Awareness week. Newspapers ran stories, MPs dutifully tweeted support, awareness was raised. Fine. But then what? One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem this year. You’ve probably heard that stat before, or something similar. Politicians certainly have. But despite all the awareness, we as a society and as a nation, still struggle to take this seriously. Most companies still don’t understand the idea of a mental health sick day;...

More than 4,000 people were sleeping rough in England in 2016. That figure is higher than it was in 2015; indeed, it’s a figure that’s been rising every year since 2010. And those are the official figures. Research by Crisis puts the real figure at 9,000—and they believe it could grow by three-quarters in the next decade. As the worst form of homelessness, rough sleeping is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s estimated that around a quarter of a million people in the UK are homeless—living in...

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was established in 1949 it had a purpose – to protect North America and western Europe in the face of the emerging threat, as they saw it, from the Soviet Union. But once the Cold war ended in 1989, some began to question whether there was any point to Nato. Over the following three decades it has found a new role – several new roles, in fact – from military interventions in the former Yugoslavia to dealing with piracy off the coast of the Horn of...

Prime Minister’s Questions is the one bit of parliamentary business that most people are dimly aware of. It’s normally guaranteed to make the news in the evening, but it’s not exactly parliament at its best. It’s boorish, it’s petty and it turns the public off. This week, Steve Bloomfield and Stephanie Boland are joined by: Theo Bertram, former advisor to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair Esther Webber, reporter for BBC Politics and BBC Parliament Louise Thompson, lecturer in British politics at...

Newspapers are in crisis. In fact, they’ve been in crisis for a decade and a half. Sales are down. Advertising is down. Jobs have been cut. The Independent shut down its print operation. The Guardian is losing tens of millions of pounds a year. The Telegraph is a shadow of its former self. And that’s before we even begin to look at the dire situation in the regional and local press, where dozens have been forced to close down. This week, Steve Bloomfield and Stephanie Boland are joined by:...

In the first episode of How to Fix, Steve Bloomfield was joined by Andrew Dilnot, Liz Kendall and Daniel Drepper to discuss social care—what's wrong with it, and how we could make it better. Show notes Here’s Andrew Dilnot’s report on Funding of Care and Support. Liz Kendall mentioned the Barker report. Here it is. Here’s Daniel Drepper’s book on Amazon. And if you’d prefer something in English, here’s a piece on Correctiv, the non-profit Daniel co-founded, that dealt with the same issue. In...

What is How to Fix? by Prospect Magazine