Free Thinking Folgen

Are public enquiries good government? At the end of a year where we have seen the Hillsborough and Chilcot reports are these the best way of calling to account? Margaret Hodge and Bronwen Maddox join Anne McElvoy to discuss. Plus, Matthew Parris considers the concept of scorn and those who are best at pouring it. Matthew Parris has written an updated version of Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History Margaret Hodge has written Called To Account: How Corporate Bad Behaviour and Government Waste Combine to Cost Us Millions. Bronwen Maddox is Director of the Institute for Government Producer: Craig Smith.

John Simpson joins Philip Dodd to discuss fifty years of reporting from around the world for the BBC and what the future holds for foreign correspondents. Once our news came from three primary sources: newspapers, radio and TV. But in a digital world which offers a proliferation of 'news' how do we separate fact from opinion or even fakery? Former director general of the BBC and current CEO of The New York Times Company, Mark Thompson, journalist Susie Boniface (aka Fleet Street Fox), author and TV producer, Peter Pomerantsev, and academic, Martin Moore, consider what we mean by news in 2016. We Chose to Speak of War and Strife: The World of the Foreign Correspondent is by John Simpson.Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia is by Peter PomerantsevEnough Said: What's gone wrong with the language of politics? is by Mark Thompson. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Classicist Professor Edith Hall, New Generation Thinker Chris Kissane, novelist Elif Shafak, and Dr Alan Mendoza from the Henry Jackson Society join Matthew Sweet to consider what might be on a reading list to prepare for a post Brexit world.Reading List: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Moniza Alvi, Europa Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart Voltaire, Candide Sun Tzu, The Art Of War Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, Barbarians At The Gate Ali Smith, Autumn Hannah Arendt, Men In Dark TimesProducer: Luke Mulhall