Reasons to be Cheerful with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd

Should you fight for your right to party?

Hello! This week on Reasons to be Cheerful Ed and Geoff are Going Out Out and talking about the night-time economy: generally everything that happens between 6pm and 6am. At the end of 2022, iconic Manchester venue ‘Night & Day’ was threatened…

Is this the future of humanity?

Hello! This week we’re talking about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence language model that’s taken the world by storm. But is the hype justified? And what can it do beyond writing poems about your favourite podcast? We speak to Rory Cellan-Jone…

How to talk to a climate denier

Hello! This week we’re talking about climate misinformation and how we tackle it. Mis- and disinformation about the climate crisis is not new: since the 1970s industry players and fossil fuel giants have been denying the reality of climate change …

How to fix our education system

Hello! New year, new term and this week Ed and Geoff are going back to school. Too little has changed about our education system since the Victorian times, and for too many young people it can seem an outdated and rigid system - geared simply…

Owning the future

Hello and happy 2023! Normal service will resume next Monday but in the meantime we’ve got a cracking interview with co-authors Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence for you. Their new book ‘Owning the Future: Power and Property in an Age of Crisis’…

The Reasons to be Cheerful Top 10 of 2022

It’s been another calm year for the history books: four Chancellors, three prime ministers, two monarchs and the hottest day in UK history. Through the tumult, we’ve been providing you a steady stream of reasons to be cheerful. Having applied a ri…

2022 Christmas Crackers with Ed and Geoff

Hello! We’ve decked the loft with boughs of holly and after two years, Ed and Geoff are finally reunited for some Christmas fun and frolics. Traditional board game proceedings have been temporarily suspended, as we ask some friends of the pod to t…

Social workers for social justice

Hello! When we hear about social workers it's usually because something terrible has happened. Social work is rightly subject to scrutiny, but why do we never hear about any of the good stuff? Despite operating in an under-resourced and bureaucrat…

How do we fix our broken economy?

Hello! This week Ed and Geoff are on location to chat with two big brains who have been part of two important commissions about the state of the UK economy. What are the deep roots of the economic crisis facing our country? And what's the solution…

Nothing about us without us

Hello! This week we're talking about disability activism: its past, present and future. Disabled people are routinely excluded from society, despite making up 15% of the population. How has disability activism shifted people's …