Best Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins Podcasts (2025)

1
The Spiders That Ate Ebbsfleet 24:48

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4h ago24:48

24:48

The government wants to build new towns on disused railway land to tackle the UK's housing crisis. A cracking idea, but will it be able to? Not just the planners but Natural England lie in wait. Neil and Jonathan are joined by Michael Dnes to investigate the murky tale of a new town on disused railway land in Kent that was eaten by a colony of jump…

1
Talking War-onomics 32:14

3M ago32:14

32:14

Neil and Jonathan talk to Duncan Weldon about his new book Blood and Treasure about the interplay between war, society and economics from the violent larceny of the Vikings to the GDP-chomping total wars of the 20th century. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Duncan Weldon. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. Hosted on Acas…

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Making Plans for British Steel 33:29

4M ago33:29

33:29

Britain's steel industry has all but vanished, and the government has intervened to save the last blast furnaces. But how did the country that invented the steel industry reach this pass and does it even matter? We talk to historian Ewan Gibbs about steel, the state, and the importance of ownership and production in an uncertain world. Presented by…

1
The Rearmament Pod: Lessons From Hard Times in the 1930s 30:46

4M ago30:46

30:46

Generals and politicians calling for rearmament often talk about the UK facing a "1937 moment" of rising threats and a deteriorating international situation. But what actually happened in the late 1930s, and how was an indebted and cash-strapped Britain able to mobilise its industry and spend so much more on armaments? Are there similarities to tod…

1
Iraq, Minerals and the Art of the Deal 30:51

6M ago30:51

30:51

In the wake of Donald Trump's demand for a juicy minerals deal in Ukraine, Neil and Jonathan join author James Barr to look at the history of possibly the greatest minerals carve-up of all time - in the post First World War Middle East - and ask the key question: "How did that all work out?" Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With James B…

1
1976: The Year Britain Went Bust 26:55

7M ago26:55

26:55

In 1976, the Labour government went "cap in hand" to the IMF for a loan to tide it through deteriorating economic conditions. The price was large cuts in public spending. Neil and Jonathan talk to economist and author Duncan Weldon about the "bailout", what caused it, the changes it brought, and whether there are any parallels to the predicament fa…

1
Why Germans Don't Do it Better 26:02

8M ago26:02

26:02

Until recently, Germany seemed to be going through a second wirtschaftswunder, as the country's mighty industry pumped out capital exports to China, powered by cheap Russian gas. Then everything blew up in the 2020s. Neil and Jonathan talk to Wolfgang Munchau about the wishful thinking, political misjudgments, and structural failings that led Europ…

1
The Bretton Woods System 25:09

9M ago25:09

25:09

In the summer of 1944, as Allied armies fought through Normandy, 44 nations gathered at a run-down hotel in New Hampshire to discuss the economic future of the world. What followed was the only ever formal attempt to reorder the international monetary system; one that seemed for a time successful until it collapsed unmourned in 1971. Together with …

1
The John Stonehouse Affair 23:12

9M ago23:12

23:12

On 21 November 1974, an obscure backbench MP, John Stonehouse, went for a swim off Miami Beach and disappeared. So began an extraordinary tale of banking fraud, money laundering, spying and identity theft, which unravelled over the following month, ending in Stonehouse's exposure and arrest and making him one of the most famous MPs in the world. To…

1
The Mystery of Dame Linda Dobbs 27:11

11M ago27:11

27:11

Employees of a High Street bank rip off its customers for years. The bank refuses to admit that anything illegal happened. Yet when the fraud is finally exposed, it not only gets to decide what compensation to pay; it gets to investigate its own wrongdoing. Sound strange? We talk to the Ian Fraser about Lloyds Bank and the HBOS Reading Affair, its …

1
Living in a Material World 26:53

11M ago26:53

26:53

Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. These materials built the world we live in, and they will transform our future. Neil and Jonathan talk to writer and broadcaster Ed Conway about raw materials that drive our economies, who controls them, and how that affects Britain's place in the world Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Ed …

1
Ashes to Ashes: The Decline And Fall of Coal-Fired Electricity 27:33

12M ago27:33

27:33

Coal once powered the Industrial Revolution and made Britain the richest country on earth. Now with the closure of the country's last coal-fired power station, it will cease to play any meaningful part in the economic life of the nation. Aside from welcoming a cleaner, greener future, what are we to make of this momentous departure? Together with E…

1
Overpaid and Unaccountable 27:18

1y ago27:18

27:18

That's how the public increasingly sees today's managerial elite. Bosses enjoy vast rewards without seeming to be accountable for their decisions - at least the ones that go wrong. The economist (and old friend of Altif) Dan Davies has an answer: they've created what he calls an "unaccountability sink" which is delivering terrible business outcomes…

1
An Audience With The Bond Market's Wyatt Earp 28:03

1y ago28:03

28:03

One of Britain's best known bond fund managers, and also founder of the "Bond Vigilante" blog, Jim Leaviss is leaving the City after 32 years to train as an art historian. Neil and Jonathan caught up with him to look back on his City career, the huge bull market in bonds of recent decades, and the threats that lie in store from international instab…

1
Libor and the Law 34:27

1y ago34:27

34:27

When banks were found to have manipulated the Libor rate during the financial crisis, they paid a whopping $8bn in fines but only a few junior traders went to prison. In a joint episode with Law & Disorder podcast, we look at the recently appealed cases of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palumbo, and ask whether justice has been served. Presented by Jonathan F…

1
The Great Online Money Laundry 27:42

1y ago27:42

27:42

One of the more striking crime statistics is that burglary is down 90% in England and Wales since the 1990s. That doesn't reflect more upright behaviour. Nope, it's just that villains are increasingly moving their operations online. We talk to author Geoff White about how Silicon Valley is helping the bad guys go digital by making it easier for the…

1
From The Corset to Help To Buy: A British Housing Story (Part 2) 25:53

1y ago25:53

25:53

How did housing in Britain go from somewhere to live to being everyone's favourite financial asset? In the second of our two part series, we look at housing policy since 1970; and ask whether there has ever been a coherent approach. Also is there a natural level of home ownership and should we be encouraging everyone to buy? With Cambridge Universi…

1
From The Corset to Help To Buy: A British Housing Story (Part 1) 26:49

1+ y ago26:49

26:49

How did housing in Britain go from somewhere to live to everyone's favourite financial asset? In the first of a two part series, we look at the mortgage market since 1970; and ask whether the high prices and low supply we endure today are a financial phenomenon. With former building societies supremo Mark Boleat. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil…

1
The Amazon Octopus 27:31

1+ y ago27:31

27:31

When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, it was an online bookshop. Now its tentacles are everywhere: it's a marketplace for third party goods from around the world, a huge cloud computing business and America's largest parcel delivery group. But is this a good thing or a bad one? We talk to Dana Mattioli of the Wall Street Journal about whether Ama…

1
Michael Jensen: High Priest of Greed 23:42

1+ y ago23:42

23:42

The economist Michael Jensen, who died this month, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism. To his detractors, he was the High Priest of Greed who justified stratospheric CEO pay and predatory private equity. His admirers believe he revived Anglo Saxon capitalism. We discuss his ideas and legacy with the independent r…

1
Fallen Angels: Thames Water Circles the Plughole 24:16

1+ y ago24:16

24:16

A natural monopoly delivering an essential service, Thames Water was privatised in 1989 with no debt. Now it's on its knees, crushed by more than £15bn of borrowings. Neil and Jonathan talk to Feargal Sharkey about what this says about Mrs Thatcher's most controversial privatisation, whether incentive regulation works, and whether we should just sc…

1
Fallen Angels: GEC/Marconi - From Bellwether to Basket Case 23:42

1+ y ago23:42

23:42

GEC was a British manufacturing titan; a cash-rich producer of everything from washing machines to railway trains. Then in a few years, it rebranded and restructured, shedding most of the old industrial bits to focus on telecoms. The result? By 2005, shiny new Marconi was no more. In the second of our Fallen Angel series, we talk to industrial hist…

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Fallen Angels: The Fall of the House of ICI 23:55

1+ y ago23:55

23:55

For decades ICI was Britain's largest manufacturing company - a giant fixed point around which the rest of industry orbited. Then, in little more than a decade, it split itself up, sold many of its traditional businesses, and ran up big debts buying fancy but not very profitable fragrance companies. In 2006, the end came when it sold itself to a Du…

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The Internet, AI, And the Madness of Crowds 26:40

1+ y ago26:40

26:40

Remember Pets.com? Or Ask Jeeves? The dot com bubble of 25 years ago might have been a seismic event in markets. But was it just a collective moment of madness, or a deeper transformational moment? Or both? As AI stocks shoot towards the stratosphere, we talk to internet historian Brian McCullough, host of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, about what…

1
The Economic Consequences of Roger Bootle 24:12

1+ y ago24:12

24:12

One of Britain's better-known economic forecasters, Roger Bootle, set up his consultancy Capital Economics 25 years ago. He made his name predicting the "death of inflation" on which he wrote an influential book in the 1990s. We discuss the importance of economic history, favourite writers, monetarism, bright spots in the world economy, and Britain…

1
BP, Black Monday and Nigel Lawson's Big Bet 23:15

1+ y ago23:15

23:15

In the second of our series on Privatisation and Popular Capitalism, we look at the biggest and riskiest privatisation of all - the 1987 sale of the UK's 31% stake in BP. How the Chancellor Nigel Lawson gambled that the markets were good for a quick £7bn. Prepare for the world's shortest pricing meeting, diplomatic rows with Kuwaitis and lots of lo…

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Tell Sid: Popular Capitalism and the Thatcher Revolution 25:59

1+ y ago25:59

25:59

Along with the sale of council houses, privatisation was a signature theme of Mrs Thatcher's government. Its aim was not just more efficient businesses, but a "share owning democracy" that would purge Britain of the "corrosive effect of socialism". With its "Tell Sid" campaign, British Gas was the high water mark of privatisation. Neil and Jonathan…

1
The Price Is Wrong: Why Free Markets And Climate Don't Mix 30:16

1+ y ago30:16

30:16

What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to green energy is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable. This is the conundrum at the heart of economist Brett Christophers' provocative new book. Neil and Jonathan joined him to discuss why lower w…

1
Zen And The Art of Motor Car Maintenance 22:56

1+ y ago22:56

22:56

Unipart, once an unloved division of British Leyland, has grown steadily since its buyout 37 years ago, eschewing the stock market and building a "Mittelstand" like relationship with employees, customers and suppliers. Neil and Jonathan talk to John Neill, its long standing boss, about car parts, purpose versus City short-termism and why more compa…

1
The Weird World of The Barclay Twins 25:54

1+ y ago25:54

25:54

To some it might seem like the plot of a Jeffrey Archer novel: identical twins born to hardship who graft their way up together and ultimately get to own the Ritz Hotel, the Daily Telegraph and a socking great castle in the Channel Islands. But the story of Frederick and David Barclay is much stranger than that. With the Barclays back in the news a…

1
The Ups and Downs of Bill Gross, Bond King 26:28

1+ y ago26:28

26:28

Bill Gross was the "Master of the Universe" who got the world's attention when he declared in 2010 that UK government debt was sitting "on a bed of nitroglycerine". The man who built the modern bond markets, Gross seemed to have it all. But then he blew up his career just a few short years later with some very strange behaviour. We talk to Mary Chi…

1
How to Get Big Things Done 25:59

1+ y ago25:59

25:59

What links the iconic Sydney Opera House, Monsters Inc and the mess that is HS2? Well, they involve all giant projects and most conform to the "iron law" that schemes costing $1bn or more always end up over time and budget. According to the data, a piddling 0.5% get delivered on time, for the right price, and produce the forecast benefits. So with …

1
An Atomic Awakening? Or Another Big Zzzzz? 28:50

1+ y ago28:50

28:50

At the recent COP conference, the UK, along with 21 other countries, promised to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. But what does that mean, and how can these plants be built without the delays and cost overruns that marked nuclear projects in the 1970s and 1980s - the last time Britain had a nuclear programme? Neil and Jonathan talk to Tim Stone, he…

1
The Strange Non Death of Crypto 26:57

1+ y ago26:57

26:57

Crypto's demise seems to have been exaggerated, a bit like Mark Twain's. After the collapse of FTX, multiple coin failures and the arrest of various coinigarchs at airports, Neil and Jonathan talk to bitcoin expert Matthew Pines about the digital, bankless currencies strange ability to shrug off these disasters and what the future may hodl. Present…

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Legal Bullying and the War on Truth 28:53

1+ y ago28:53

28:53

It's got a long history going back to Robert Maxwell and Sir James Goldsmith's long-running battle to bankrupt Private Eye, but in recent years so-called "lawfare" has become a veritable industry. We talk to David Hooper, solicitor and author of Buying Silence about the ways in which companies have used libel and privacy laws to squash their critic…

1
The Problem of The Twelve 29:55

1+ y ago29:55

29:55

No, it's not a novel by GK Chesterton; it's the takeover of the world's investment markets by a sinister posse of giant passive fund managers and private equity firms. These now possess the sort of political and economic power that would have made John Rockefeller green with envy. We talk to John Coates, professor at Harvard Law School and author o…

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Carbon Offsets: Dude, Where's My Trees? 33:59

2y ago33:59

33:59

Carbon offsets seemed a neat idea: pay poor people in the Global South not to cut down trees, and then use that "avoided" carbon to sell credits to polluters in developed countries. Bish bosh, your Delta Airlines flight or VW SUV is carbon neutral. What could possibly go wrong? Neil and Jonathan pick through the rubble of the South Pole scandal wit…

1
The Great Private Equity Tax Swindle 24:14

2y ago24:14

24:14

In 1987, the emerging private equity industry successfully lobbied the government to slip them a tax break. It allows private equiteers to take huge bonuses from the appreciation of client funds they invest in buyouts (a wedge called "carried interest"), and pay a preferentially low rate of tax on these earnings. Now HMRC may be thinking again. We …

1
As Good As Gold? 23:26

2y ago23:26

23:26

It's more than a decade since an American investor described the UK's gilts market as resting "on a bed of nitroglycerine". But with government bonds facing a plethora of troubles right now, from surging issuance driven both by current deficits and monetary policy, to persistent inflation, it's time to turn again to UK investor and self styled "bon…

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Shortspiracy: The Apes v Wall Street 22:59

2y ago22:59

22:59

The recently released film, Dumb Money, recounts the tumultuous events of 2021 when a group of internet-enabled sans culottes took on Wall Street's finest in a battle over the future of Gamestop, an obscure electronic games retailer. But was it a financial revolution or an amusing (if tech enabled) throwback to the great stock market corners of the…

1
The Trussquake - One Year Later 24:51

2y ago24:51

24:51

Liz Truss is the Lady Jane Grey of British politics, lasting just 49 days as PM before swirling economic chaos swept her from office. But a year on, has Britain dusted itself off and rebuilt - or are we still picking through the ruins? Neil and Jonathan talk to economic historian Duncan Weldon about Truss's economic and political legacy, Sunak's pr…

1
Nutrient Neutrality 22:36

2y ago22:36

22:36

The government is embroiled in a row about environmental protection. Should it apply pollution rules inherited from the EU in the way its own environmental advisers interpret them, or should it change the rules to help housebuilders construct more homes? Neil and Jonathan discuss the trade-offs with Robert Colvile, a self confessed housing nut who …

1
The Nine Lives of Credit Suisse: Part Two 35:10

2y ago35:10

35:10

In the concluding episode of our two part series, Jonathan and Neil look back on the dramatic events of March in the company of Josef Ackermann, who ran the Swiss bank in the 1990s, financial historian Philip Augar and banking analyst Frances Coppola. They consider the macro background to the bank's collapse, and ask whether things could have turne…

1
The Nine Lives of Credit Suisse: Part One 45:34

2y ago45:34

45:34

In March 2023 the unthinkable happened: Credit Suisse, that giant of Swiss banking, collapsed. Like the proverbial cat, it had run through its nine lives. From the Chiasso saga to unprecedented corporate fines, via troubled times on Wall Street, Credit Suisse had always lived dangerously. And finally, in 2023, the financial winds caught up with the…

1
Renewables: Bad for Your Wealth? 24:43

2y ago24:43

24:43

With net zero targets in mind, countries like the UK have ambitious targets for renewable energy. But do these make any sense? None at all, according to Doomberg, the US energy analyst. In conversation with Neil and Jonathan, he explains why he's deeply bearish about wind power, why renewables make no sense at all in Western Europe, and how there's…

1
Car Trouble 24:21

2y ago24:21

24:21

The car in front? These days it's likely to be a Tesla - or Chinese. Britain's car industry built just 775,000 motors last year, the lowest figure since 1956. Dwindling investment means we increasingly lack the wherewithal to take part in the unfolding electric revolution. Amid a picture of unremitting gloom, Neil and Jonathan talk to Peter Wells, …

1
The Practicalities of Net Zero 25:56

2y ago25:56

25:56

Since 2019, Britain has put itself under a legal obligation to decarbonise its economy by 2050. But do people have any idea what that means, how practical it is and how much it might cost? To get an idea, Neil and Jonathan talked to Richard Halsey, innovation director at the Energy Supply Catapult about how the country is faring on its great decarb…

1
Rolling the Dice on British Pensions 24:44

2y ago24:44

24:44

Jeremy Hunt says that by taking more risk, UK pension funds can make their members £1,000 a year better off. Sounds interesting, but is it really plausible? And should the government even try to interfere in pension markets? Neil and Jonathan talk to pensions expert John Ralfe about what he really said and didn't say, whether the proposals will mak…

1
Not Waving But Drowning (in Debt) 23:47

2y ago23:47

23:47

"You could be an H20 Owner." That was the slogan when the water companies were sold off in 1989. But while we glugged the share sale down, the public didn't stay owners for long, and most of the companies were later flushed into the hands of international private equity firms. All we own now is the financial and ecological mess they left behind - o…

1
Power to the People! 20:13

2y ago20:13

20:13

Energy policy has been one of Britain's great political failures over the past two decades. World leaders in climate pledges, we've failed to create the means to deliver them. And we barely build any green kit. This week's guest, energy expert Nick Butler has an idea for a fresh start. Create a state owned company to drive and fund investments in e…

Jonathan Ford And Neil Collins Podcasts