Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Guy Anker, Leaf Arbuthnot and Arion McNicoll.
In this week’s episode, we discuss:
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Streaming court case
Five people who had been convicted of illegally streaming Premier League games were sent to prison this week, one of them for 11 years, after they allegedly made £7 million from their piracy operation. What does this case tell us about football rights, the power of streaming companies, the financial pressures on viewers – and, given that this case was only brought because the Premier League pursued a private prosecution – the priorities of the police?
Racism at the post office
It emerged this week that the victims of a long-running scandal at the Post Office, in which sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft and fraud, were classified in 2008 by officials using outdated and offensive racial terms, including “negroid” and “dark-skinned European types”. The revelation is seen as emblematic of the high-handed behaviour of the Post Office throughout its 13-year campaign against its own employees, some of whom took their own lives before their names were cleared.
Animal sentience
A flood of new research is overturning our old understanding about what animal minds are capable of. Some recent studies seem to suggest that animals really aren’t as inferior to us as we have long liked to tell ourselves. Is there a hierarchy of intelligence or just different types of intelligence? For example, dogs and elephants are able to respond to scent in a far more sophisticated way than humans, as are bees with magnetism.
-
Should Labour break manifesto pledge and raise taxes?Today's Big Question There are ‘powerful’ fiscal arguments for an income tax rise but it could mean ‘game over’ for the government
-
Nigerian Modernism: an ‘entrancing, enlightening exhibition’The Week Recommends Tate Modern’s ‘revelatory’ show includes 250 works examining Nigerian art pre- and post independence
-
To the point: the gender divide over exclamation marksTalking Point 'Men harbouring urges to be more exclamative' can finally take a breath – this is what using the punctuation really conveys
-
The Week Unwrapped: Will Grace Wales Bonner change Hermès for the better?Podcast Plus will nuclear fusion deliver us from climate change? Is humour the best way to take on Trump?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Can bullfighting win over young SpaniardsPodcast Plus, is online fandom inherently unhealthy? And is Putin’s economy running out of gas?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Who had the last laugh in Riyadh?Podcast Plus are imported eggs undermining animal welfare? And what can we do about AI deepfakes?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Was life sent to Earth by aliens?Podcast Plus why did Nepali voters use a gaming app to pick their next PM? And will a new national park boost the case for Welsh independence?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Why is horse-racing going on strike?Podcast Plus, will the South Korean women who worked in state-run brothels set up for US soldiers succeed? And what’s behind a surge in leg-lengthening surgery?
-
The Week Unwrapped: What does Bake Off say about Channel 4?Podcast Plus, why are Scottish drug deaths so stubbornly high? And are women in their 30s too anxious about their eggs?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Could robotic dogs help clear landmines?Podcast Plus, what can we learn from a new approach to urban renewal? And how much power rests with political spouses?
-
The Week Unwrapped: Is it time for a new world map?Podcast Plus, why is the pope getting flatmates? And why are seagull 'muggings' on the rise?
