Best Ed Straw And Philip Tottenham Podcasts (2024)

1
Special Episode - Old Tory 36:08

21d ago36:08

36:08

"There's a class war alright," chirruped Investor Warren Buffet recently, "But it's our class making war on yours. And we're winning." It reminded me of the Lao Tsu, where he says that the Way of Heaven is to take from those with excess, and give to those who do not have enough. "The way of man is different," the sage quips. "He takes from those wh…

1
Special Episode: Democratic Yorkshire 52:33

8M ago52:33

52:33

In this special edition of The Hidden Power podcast for Democratic Yorkshire, Philip Tottenham talks with Ed Straw, and Professor Malcolm Prowle on the subject of the day and panacea England's ills - Regionalisation. Talking Points: - The experience of government: consultancy, Thatcher, Blair, powerlessness at the centre of power - Problems with ce…

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 6 - Sense-Making 32:49

2y ago32:49

32:49

Philosophy, famously, will not get the washing up done. And it will not fix the crises of climate and biodiversity. So what can I do? An individual amongst Billions? In economics, a basic unit is - The Household. And while economics tracks the flows of goods and services, it is striking that both goods and services require energy and other resource…

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 5 - Superstition 26:21

2y ago26:21

26:21

It is no secret that the various tribes and bubbles of our world have wildly differing beliefs about things. Why can't people just accept the truth? But the truth is so contentious. And framing is so contentious. And all these people seem to have the most outlandish superstitions. An abiding feature of these podcasts, as we've highlighted many time…

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 4 - Rituals 33:39

2y ago33:39

33:39

The late Ken Robinson, in one of his TED talks, tells the story of a child who was drawing with wild strokes. The teacher asked - What are you drawing? And the child replied "God". The teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the child said, "Well. They will in a minute." Badum Tshhhh. Last week we explored what people are talking …

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 3 - The Nature and Meaning of God 25:02

2y ago25:02

25:02

What are we talking about, when we talk about God? There's no doubt that something has been lost with the pervasive decline of religion in the modern world. Society is fractured. We lack a shared framework. We're tired of trying to work everything out. It's easier just to avoid thinking at all. Which is in some ways the point of religion - to avoid…

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 2 - The Power of Nature 30:42

2y ago30:42

30:42

We left off at the end of the last episode wondering what might make the Biosphere a compelling object for our attention; this in the context of the all-too-human reality of our challenges - the tragedy of the commons, the addiction system, the psychological imperative of avoidance. In listening back over this episode, I'm reminded of two things: o…

1
Is God the Biosphere? - 1 - Avoidance And The Addiction System 37:00

2+ y ago37:00

37:00

When we finished series 2 - Preflight Checklist - one thing was clear, any governance for Spaceship Earth going forward must put the Biosphere at the centre. Governance models from households, up through companies and countries, to international bodies must include the Biosphere as their central partner. So far, perhaps, so obvious. We know we need…

1
Check 26 - Companies - The Transition 40:25

2+ y ago40:25

40:25

26. In transitioning from polluting to non-polluting activities, communities and companies shall be supported fairly. We have finally arrived to this episode, and this crucial check in our pre-flight checklist, as if through layers of an onion to its core, and yet - its as though we have arrived back where we started. It’s about the people. A good …

1
Check 25 - Companies - Systems Thinking 31:16

2+ y ago31:16

31:16

25. Systemic inquiry shall accompany investment commitments in the technosphere; thereafter, end-to-end producer responsibility applies. Throughout Preflight Checklist, and our previous series Proof of Concept we have placed great hope on Systems Thinking. What is that, again? Yes, trying to see systems in their totality - but also: humility with r…

1
Check 24 - Companies - Information 26:06

3y ago26:06

26:06

24. Company duty to inform: For each product or service, consumers shall be informed of the biosphere and human impact of its sourcing, manufacture, distribution, and post-use treatment. As consumers, we have more power than we might think. We not only vote with our wallets, but our consumption is conspicuous, and contributes to setting a tone acro…

1
Check 23 - Companies - The Circularity 24:22

3y ago24:22

24:22

End-to-end producer responsibility: Producers are responsible for all impacts of their activities and products, from raw material extraction to product recycling/disposal. There's no doubt that a single company can create and inspire change. But if all producers up and down the supply chain, and indeed across the economy, are holding each other acc…

1
Check 22 - Companies - Purpose 27:34

3y ago27:34

27:34

Companies shall act in the interests of people, and the biosphere. As we've mentioned in recent episodes, from the standpoint of the biosphere, humanity's existence is felt primarily through industrialisation. Resource extraction, pollution, as well as much monoculture in agriculture have taken their toll on both the biosphere and many of the peopl…

1
Special Episode - September 2021 - Autumnal Thinking 41:50

3y ago41:50

41:50

The start of a new season is a good time to take stock, and as we look forward to the next series, on companies, we reflect on where we are now, nearly a year after the launch of The Hidden Power Podcast, on October 11th, 2020. But who has time to reflect? These turbulent years have been eclipsed by another Summer of wild fires and wilder floods, a…

1
Thought for the Summer 1:54

3y ago1:54

1:54

We're off for the Summer! But - I found a great quote on the great _nitch instagram this morning, by the writer James Baldwin, who seems to be almost uniquely articulate when it comes to things that really matter. So I thought I'd read it out. We've finished the Governments section of our Preflight Checklist series - basically, a constitution to sa…

1
Check 21 - Governments - Tax 35:29

3y ago35:29

35:29

Check 21 - Governments - Tax: Too much is never enough Everyone pays their taxes. The deceptive simplicity of this principle belies the fact that, obviously enough, not everyone pays their taxes - quite the contrary, and the leaders of the G7 group of the world's richest nations are attempting to address this by imposing a global corporation tax of…

1
Check 20 - Governments - Vetting 43:07

3y ago43:07

43:07

Technocratic democracy: Government designs for action shall be disciplined through their vetting. We often hear that politicians are essentially sales staff - but there are implications of this, if we extend the metaphor. They are not the engineers. They don't really understand what they are selling, they're just playing for the team. And if we wer…

1
Check 19 - Governments - Systems Thinking 36:40

3y ago36:40

36:40

Beneficial change most often results from working with the affected population through the medium of STiP. Systems Thinking in Practice - or STiP, as we sometimes call it - is, frankly, one of the great hopes of our time. It has the endorsement of the UN, the WHO and the OECD and has proved effective in alleviating difficulties of bewildering compl…

1
Check 18 - Government - Evolution 41:21

3y ago41:21

41:21

Designs for action shall be put into practice in the knowledge and positive acceptance that feedback may result in their amendment. Decisions, decisions: as we saw in the last episode, 150 per week per ministry, each spouting its share of paperwork like a photocopier out of control, swamping its surroundings with verbiage, utterly lacking in practi…

1
Check 17 - Governments - Experiment 30:07

3y ago30:07

30:07

Recognise that most ‘decisions’ by government are political experiments. ...except that with normal experiments - the scientific kind - measurements are taken, changes are monitored, conclusions drawn, theory is adjusted. Oddly, this is not the case with government decisions: debate is held, rehearsing the full repertoire of grimace, flush, sound a…

1
Check 16 - Governments - Purpose 27:20

3y ago27:20

27:20

The purpose of government is to produce beneficial change One of our central concerns in this podcast is why government is so ineffective - why don't governments work? And while many roads have led to preferential lobbying, there is arguably a deeper, darker reason even than that: aimlessness. The result? Bureaucracy, shiftlessness, the famous trea…

1
Check 15 - Governments - The Character of Good Government 31:36

3y ago31:36

31:36

Governments shall serve democracy, and be effective, stable, adaptable, accountable, and open. What is government for? What to we want from it? We can hazard a guess at what we don't want: uselessness, volatility, inflexibility, opaqueness and inaccessibility may seem like familiar themes - and we know we don't want them. And a government that does…

1
Check 14 - 4th Separation of Powers - Institutionalised Bribery 33:48

3y ago33:48

33:48

Eliminate institutionalised bribery: No one shall benefit financially or electorally, directly or indirectly, now or later, from a decision in which they are involved or have influenced. There is a Grey Area. Not a clearly defined circle of criminality, but a vast zone of stasis and obfuscation which represents an almost impenetrable sea wall to bu…

1
Check 13 - 4th Separation of Powers - Public Speech 36:30

3y ago36:30

36:30

We each have a duty to think before we speak. What does the world look like if people don't take the time to think before they speak? Oh wait, that's the world we live in already. And the results are bemoaned, debated and endured. But what is duty, really? And what does "thinking" actually entail? And what are we really doing, when we speak? In man…

1
Special Episode - Preferential Lobbying 48:47

3y ago48:47

48:47

Why should we care about political lobbying? Isn't business all about making connections? What's the problem? You hear phrases like "systemic" and "endemic" - but what does that actually amount to? Unfortunately it amounts to a vast global problem that creates the illusion of democratic process, but with out much actual democracy. Instead, all kind…

1
Check 12 - 4th Separation of Powers - The Press 39:45

3y ago39:45

39:45

The first statutory duty of straight speak for politicians and officials shall apply also to the media. With photography and news stories, it's hard not to view what one is seeing - as reality. And yet these stories and images are mostly taken out of context, and elements are suppressed and magnified, and if reality remains in the final image - it …

1
Check 11 - 4th Separation of Powers - Statutory Duties 28:33

3+ y ago28:33

28:33

Statutory duties for the behaviour of politicians and officials at work, including the duty of straight speak, shall be set. If you stopped, for even a second, to wonder what might increase trust in government, or any governance, you might start with Being Trustworthy. This week (mid April 2021)in the UK, a Welsh MP - Hywel Williams - referenced a …

1
Check 10 - 4th Separation of Powers - Feedback 35:48

3+ y ago35:48

35:48

"A fourth separation of powers shall be incorporated in every system of government for the independent feedback of results through a Resulture or Feedback Branch of Government." You might imagine that for all the debate at the heart of government, there might be some function to check up on the outcomes of these debates. And in some cases there is.…

1
Check 9 - Democracy and Subsidiarity: Subsidiarity 30:29

3+ y ago30:29

30:29

Central government only undertakes tasks or makes decisions which localities cannot or which require uniform regulation. The gravitational pull of power to the centre is one of the things designers of the German constitution had in mind at the end of the Second World War. Germany had a certain fundamental and rather paradoxical advantage the UK lac…

1
Check 8 - Democracy and Subsidiarity: Deliberative Democracy 32:43

3+ y ago32:43

32:43

A right to deliberative referenda shall exist; specific issues shall be resolved through Engage–Deliberate–Decide. How are decisions made? If we cast our minds back, not just to Priti Patel's "Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts" Bill, but to numerous policies including Grenfell Tower fire cladding and the Poll Tax - we see a pattern: Decide, Anno…

1
Check 7 - Democracy and Subsidiarity: Elections 33:20

3+ y ago33:20

33:20

It may seem like a trivial point, that elections should be representative - are they not already? Well they may appear to be - but they're not, really, in the UK. Boris Johnson's government took power with less than one third of the electorate. So two-thirds of voters would have preferred not to have the Conservatives in power. But this is nothing …

1
Check 6 - Biosphere and People: The Commons 32:22

3+ y ago32:22

32:22

...as to what is in and what is out of the Commons, ie - what is commonly held. Is this about property, or value generation? These simplifications mask the vastness and complexity of human life, and in this episode we explore where common ownership might be effective, and what it takes to make it work. List of Talking Points: What is the commons? T…

1
Check 5 - Biosphere and People: Diversity 24:28

3+ y ago24:28

24:28

All lifestyles are accepted – within the constraint of not harming others or the biosphere. Rather than restate what we have been hearing, our focus here is on the logic of diversity from a governance standpoint - why blind-spots are self-destructive and the embrace of diversity is so enriching. Talking points: Pluralism and truth Neoliberalism and…

1
Check 4 - Biosphere and People: A Constitutional Court 32:03

3+ y ago32:03

32:03

Its decisions are binding. Just because we don't live in a perfect world doesn't mean we can't improve things. If events surrounding the death of Ruth Bader Gainsburg in September 2020 left you despairing at the US Supreme Court, perhaps the Supreme Court of the UK's blocking of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings' attempted prorogation of parliamen…

1
Check 3 - Biosphere and People: The Rule of Law 24:32

3+ y ago24:32

24:32

Anyone following current affairs will see how the rule of law is often stretched to its limit by autocratic leaders seeking to either evade it or bend it to their will - and while this has come to the foreground in the US and UK since 2016, it is a long-running theme in many parts of the world. However the rule of law is not only about holding the …

1
Check 2 - Biosphere and People: People and Constitutional Sovereignty 31:04

3+ y ago31:04

31:04

Not all players convey links - find us on Acast if this text is not clear. Sovereignty - we've heard a lot in the UK about both sovereignty, and "taking back control" - but this taking back of control in the context of leaving the EU has so far barely extended to us as citizens. Why and how is the current UK system so paternalistic? What are the ro…

1
Check 1 - Biosphere and People: The Biophysical World 21:38

3+ y ago21:38

21:38

The first and fundamental principle of this series - and indeed this entire way of looking at things - reflects the unseen, creeping processes causing catastrophic climate change. Why do we need this? How are we to think about it? What can we do? Talking points: industrialisation limits on human behaviour secondary effects of climate change our per…

1
Series 2 Preflight Checklist - Introduction 21:53

3+ y ago21:53

21:53

Welcome to The Hidden Power Podcast, Series 2 - Pre-flight Checklist, where we - Ed Straw, and Philip Tottenham - examine conditions necessary for a comfortable and flourishing life on Spaceship Earth, on the far side of the current climate emergency. In this nice, concise episode we revisit and draw some of the connections from series one - govern…

1
Special Episode: The Doomed Career of Dominic 28:34

3+ y ago28:34

28:34

Special episode on the Doomed Career of Dominic Cummings. Dominic Cummings has been seen as a controversial and divisive figure, but as with so many people at the political extremes, significant parts of his analysis can be agreed upon by disparate factions across the political spectrum. In this special episode we unpick the good and the less good …

1
Post-Crash Analysis and Preflight Checklist 25:05

3+ y ago25:05

25:05

For this final episode of series 1, I wanted to build on Buckminster Fuller's idea of our planet - our habitat and life-support system - as being like a spaceship - Spaceship Earth, as he calls it - and building on this idea to use two related models for our discussion: the post-crash analysis and the preflight checklist First we look at the global…

1
The Sense of Powerlessness at the Heart of Leadership with Dr. Piret Toñurist 35:31

3+ y ago35:31

35:31

Dr Piret Toñurist, Systems Thinking lead at the OECD's Observatory for Public Sector Innovation talks about the sense of powerlessness at the heart of leadership. She discusses how the pandemic has offered an opportunity for change, and what transformation looks like. She characterises systems thinking as a neutral zone where the ideology of what h…

1
Governance and Cyberspace 30:16

3+ y ago30:16

30:16

John Naughton, tech columnist at The Observer Newspaper, talks about that great Wild West of our time - Cyberspace. From its roots in “permissionless innovation” to the staggering dominance of a very small number of companies over most aspects of our lives, he surveys the absence of governance, and how two effective sovereigns - Apple and Google - …

1
Authorising Change at Ground Level with Julian Corner 27:10

3+ y ago27:10

27:10

Where is the power? Julian Corner used a process of local ‘action enquiry' to bring about effective social change. This in places where, as he puts it, a system of ‘care' is effectively a system of oppression - siloed, systematised, and more focussed on privileging its own rules than on the value of human care. In this episode he talks about these …

1
Progress in the Field of Child Protection with Eileen Munro 17:28

4y ago17:28

17:28

Professor Eileen Munro turned decades of inadequate child protection on its head with one simple question: are we helping or hindering the front line? In this episode, she reflects on the successes - and revealing failures - of her review into child protection. Eileen covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. It is fascinating. Talking point…

1
Where is the Power? With Ed Straw 41:24

4y ago41:24

41:24

This episode introduces the experience and current thinking of my co-presenter, Ed Straw. We talk about his journey from being an engineering graduate to consulting at the heart of Westminster, how he encountered power and the confusion surrounding it. Then we get into his current thinking - he’s now a research fellow at the Open University’s Appli…

1
New Podcast: The Hidden Power 3:14

4y ago3:14

3:14

New release date - Saturday October 10th - Episode 1, Ed Straw on the Hidden Power. We live in confusing times - and a lot of that confusion is about where power lies. With Ed Straw, former chair of Demos and consultant to government, & Philip Tottenham. In 2017 the UN, the WHO and the OECD all called for the use of Systems Thinking to deal with hi…

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