When you think of people in debt, what do you imagine? Irresponsible people who leave telephones ringing and hide from debt collectors, or people faced with an impossible situation?

In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Ryan Davey, author of ‘The Personal Life of Debt’, about the true, everyday lives of indebted people.

They discuss the people Ryan met during his fieldwork on a southern English housing estate, the reality of living on the ‘never-never’, and what changes, to debt itself and society as a whole, are needed to break this vicious cycle.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-personal-life-of-debt

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2025/10/24/podcast-are-people-really-to-blame-for-their-debt/

Timestamps:

1:55 – What was your experience of Woldham during your research?

7:52 – Did you experience any class tension?

10:07 – How can debt be worse now than during the 2008 financial crash?

17:08 – What is ‘living on the never-never’ and what does it mean to different people?

25:46 – Are these communities perfect prey for credit?

32:19 – How does the rescue mindset of child protection manifest in a place like Woldham?

38:35 – What affect did right to buy, and other similar policies, have on working class communities?

44:34 – Why would debt advisors have negative views of debtors?

51:03 – What changes are needed to break this unending cycle of debt?

Intro music:

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We often hear that working-class boys in education are misogynistic, aggressive and unwilling to learn. But how true is this?

In this episode, Richard Kemp speaks with Alex Blower, author of ‘Lost Boys: How Education is Failing Young Working-Class Men’, about how the education system often fails these boys.

They discuss the role of masculinity in the lives of working-class boys and men, Alex’s personal experiences with being working-class and a young carer, and why we need to stop focusing on perceived individual failures and instead turn our attention to the troubled relationship between these boys and the systems in which they reside.

Listen to the episode to get 50% off the paperback and eBook until 20 October 2025.

Alex Blower is Research Fellow at Arts University Bournemouth.

Find out more about the book at: https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/lost-boys

The transcript is available here:

Timestamps:

01:32 - Can you tell us about your upbringing and experiences of education?

08:08 - What consequences have occurred from political leaders pointing to working-class boys themselves as the problem?

11:43 - Does this have an effect on the recent polarisation and marches?

14:02 - Did your feelings of aspiration change when you changed schools?

17:22 - Should schools be providing more diverse avenues for future progression?

20:42 - What is the working-class identity now?

24:51 - What inequalities are there and how are they perpetuated even by people with first-hand experience?

29:17 - Can you explain the caring roles that young working-class people have to take on, and how the education system is letting them down?

35:56 - What did you learn from the Being a Boy project?

39:11 - What is Boys’ Impact? And what changes do you hope to achieve from this work?

Intro music:

Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax

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The goal of drug policy is clear, according to the United Nations, whose convention on narcotic drugs largely sets the framework for what individual states do. The aim, the UN says, is to end the ‘serious evil’ of addiction. This, it adds, is to be achieved by preventing public access to dangerous substances, while at the same time ensuring adequate provision of narcotics to meet medical and scientific need.

The challenge of these twin purposes – ensuring availability for medical use, preventing availability for recreational use –encapsulates the ‘dual use dilemma’ that has confronted drug policymakers for the past 150 years, as Julia Buxton, Professor of Justice at Liverpool John Moores University, explains in this episode of the podcast.

Julia reflects on how personal experience drew her into the field, why US power has played such a disproportionate role and what happens when countries attempt reform. The conversation explores not only the human costs of criminalisation, but also why it has proved so hard to shift drug policy towards a different, health-led future.

Julia Buxton is Professor of Justice at John Moores University in Liverpool and British Academy Global Professor.

Find out more about the book at: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/trade/what-is-drug-policy-for

The transcript is available here: https://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2025/09/17/podcast-drugs-the-path-that-led-to-prohibition/

Timestamps:

2:19 - Tell me about the challenge of talking about drug policy to such different audiences

5:26 - Can you tell us about the story of how you came to study drug policy?

8:30 - Has the medicinal use of drugs improved in the past 25 years?

12:36 - When do you think it's useful to start looking in the historical record for the first signs of what would become our current global policy towards restricting access to certain drugs?

19:28 - What is path dependency in the context of evolving drug policy?

22:05 - How influential is the US in this context?

30:55 - Can you tell us about efforts to decriminalise some drugs in some countries?

41:50 - Are there things that give you a little bit of hope for a better future?

Intro music:

Cold by yoitrax | @yoitrax

Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.