PODCASTS/AUDIOBOOKS

Electoral Dysfunction Various platforms, review by Yvette Huddleston

The public’s trust in politicians is at an all-time low, so this new series feels very timely. Political journalist Beth Rigby joins up with Labour MP Jess Phillips and Tory peer Ruth Davidson to attempt to get past all the spin and try and explain what is actually going on in Westminster and beyond. Each week they will put our political leaders and their policies under the microscope, looking at how manifestos are written and how they are sold to voters. In the run-up to a general election, they offer some interesting insight into leadership, what voters want and which politicians are likely to come out on top and why. Crucially, they also consider what it might all mean for us ordinary folk.

Three Million BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston

In this new five-part series, Kavita Puri explores one of the hidden stories of the 20th century. During the Second World War at least three million Indian people, British subjects, starved to death in the Bengal Famine. Despite it being one of the largest losses of civilian life for the allies, there is no memorial to those who died anywhere in the world and it is a subject that is rarely covered in historical documentaries. For the first time the story is given the treatment it deserves, hearing from those who were there – much of their testimony has never been broadcast before. The series opens in 1942 as Allied soldiers from all over the world start to flood in to Calcutta (now Kolkata).

The Spy Who… Various platforms, review by Yvette Huddleston

Hosts Indira Varma and Raza Jaffrey take a deep dive into the murky world of the international intelligence services and the high stakes existence of the operatives who are often required to risk their lives for their country. In the opening episodes they look at the life of the suave spy who is said to have inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond. In 1940 Serbian playboy Duško Popov is hoping to sit out the war in Belgrade but through his best friend Johnny Jebsen, finds himself drawn into a dangerous game of wartime espionage as a double agent for both Nazi Germany and Britain’s MI6. Soon he is on the way to America with evidence of Japan’s interest in the US Pearl Harbor naval base.

Trumped BBC Sounds , review by Yvette Huddleston

This new series charts the decades-long battle between a small Scottish community and Donald Trump’s plan to build the golf course of his dreams, what he describes (inevitably) as “the world’s greatest”. It is a David and Goliath story of money, power, greed and resistance. Despite high-profile objections and protests from local people, planners and environmentalists, Trump’s controversial golf development in Aberdeenshire was given the go-ahead, with disastrous and sometimes shocking consequences. The series hears from people affected by Trump’s plans and share their first-hand experience of his business methods and his bullish approach to the whole project. None of what we learn about Trump’s behaviour and tactics is a surprise.