Each week Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing get to grips with one issue that impacts our lives. It could be economic, social, technological or geopolitical. Whatever the subject, they'll talk to the experts who can give help explain what's really going on. And Phil and Roger back it up with their own research and opinions. It's half an hour to get across one of the key issues of the time, and they promise, it'll never be boring.
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The UK government has racked up a record deficit in December. Should it be worried? Financial writer Frances Coppola talks about how modern monetary theory should be key to the government’s approach right now.
Placards, donkey jackets and pickets gathered round braziers. The unions are back in the news. But is there a better path to effective industrial relations?
Is the party over for the Tory party? Is the problem deeper than a succession of poor leaders?
Whatever happened to cyber-wars? Wasn’t the future of fighting supposed to be keyboard warriors and hacks of government systems? Yet, in Europe’s first major war since 1945, we’re back to trenches and tanks, missiles and mine...
Co-host
Phil has been podcasting for two decades, long before it was fashionable. As well as the Why? Curve he hosts The NAB Morning Call, a daily finance podcast in Australia, all from a studio in Surrey. He's also the host of Debunking Economics, a weekly podcast with economics contrarian Steve Keen. He does bits of radio here and there, just to check he can still do it, which he can (just). Phil's ambition in life is for somebody to write a Wikipedia entry about him. Or world peace. Whichever is easier.
Co-host
Roger is not quite as old as the BBC, but then the BBC is very very old. He joined the BBC World Service in 1987, who sent him all over the world, then stuck him in the studio to present The World Today and Newshour. He's spent most of his working life at the beeb , except for a diversion to Bloomberg in recent years. Roger's aim in life has always been to co-host a podcast with someone marginally younger and slightly more talented, who he can depend on to write his biography on the website.