Rethink

Two weeks in the sun - it's the classic summer getaway. For many of us, summer holidays are something to look forward to all year.But some of the most popular destinations for British holidaymakers are under strain. Protesters in Barcelona and Majorca have been pushing back at the number of visitors they host - even spraying them with water pistols. Locals are unhappy at being priced out of the housing market and feeling pressure on public services - but they also need tourists to support their economies.At the same time, many destinations are experiencing increasingly hot summers, with sometimes catastrophic results. Two years ago, 20,000 tourists in Rhodes were forced to evacuate their hotels to get away from wildfires. Climate models suggest future summers will be hotter still.So is it time to rethink how we approach the summer holiday? Should we be considering different destinations for our holidays - swapping Mediterranean beaches for northern Europe or British destinations? Would those places be ready for more summer visitors? How can tourist destinations change to meet shifting demands? Is it time for schools to move away from the long summer break?We'll look at the history of the beach holiday, and try and imagine what summer holidays will look like in the future. And we'll ask - what is a summer holiday for?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Lucy Burns Editor: Clare FordhamContributorsSarah Stodola, author of The Last Resort: A Chronicle of Paradise, Profit and Peril at the Beach Simon Calder, travel journalist Christos Giannakopoulos, research director, the National Observatory of Athens Rowland Rees-Evans, chair of the Wales Tourism Alliance Lee Elliot-Major, professor of social mobility at the University of ExeterRethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University

President Trump promised "America First" on the campaign trail, and has delivered that in his second term, unleashing a trade war and causing global economic instability. Although China and the USA have recently agreed a temporary truce in the trade war, the US President regards Beijing as an economic enemy. Perversely, Donald Trump's actions may push other countries into China’s embrace. For some countries, like Russia, that's a natural fit. Others, like China’s neighbours South Korea and Japan, have agreed to talks about a free-trade agreement, while the EU says it is seeking to "engage constructively" with Beijing. So where does that leave the UK? Of late, Labour ministers have been on a charm offensive, with the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary and the Energy Secretary all visiting China, as well as a recent trade delegation. So should the UK be seeking closer ties with China? What are the risks, and is China even interested in us? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Clare FordhamContributors: Todd Hall, Director of the University of Oxford China Centre and Professor of International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University Of Oxford. Yeling Tan, Professor of public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and also a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Wang Guan, senior news anchor with The China Media Group and also a founding fellow of the Taihe Institute think tank in Beijing. Cindy Yu, contributing editor and a columnist at The Times, who also writes the Chinese Whispers substack. Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University

The UK government has made growth its key mission. But solving the British productivity puzzle is not a new priority - it’s been on the agenda for successive governments.Getting productivity up is crucial to sustain higher living standards. The more productive we are, the better off we'll be. But the UK has experienced significantly slower productivity growth than comparable countries since the global financial crisis in 2008 and by some measures, Britain has been going through its worst period for productivity growth since the Napoleonic Era.Britain’s productivity lags that of many of our major trading partners, including France, Germany and the USA and that’s despite British workers spending longer in the office. According to the ONS, the French can work four days and achieve roughly as much as the British do in five.What are the factors behind the UK’s chronically weak productivity growth, what are other countries doing better?How can we increase Britain’s productivity?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Farhana HaiderContributors:Margaret Heffernan, Professor of Practice in Management at the University of Bath, writer and former CEO. Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Gareth Davies, Head of the National Audit Office. Leslie Perlow, Professor of organisational behaviour at the Harvard Business School and founder of the Crafting Your Life special project.Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University

Across many countries, civil services, once seen as the backbone of stable governance, are facing growing scrutiny. Long viewed as the impartial and efficient machine of government, the role of civil servants is now being questioned as political polarisation intensifies and trust in traditional institutions declines.In the UK, the United States and other democracies, critics question its effectiveness, arguing that the civil service has become opaque, unwieldy and inefficient, and process is getting in the way of outcomes.The modern British civil service emerged in the 19th century, and was designed to carry out the day-to-day tasks of government in an unbiased and professional manner. However, is a bureaucracy that was created and designed more than a century ago still fit for purpose - or are we witnessing a turning point in its role in modern governance?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Eleanor Harrison-Dengate Editor: Clare FordhamContributors: Gus O’Donnell, former Cabinet Secretary, 2005 - 2011 Jennifer Pahlka, former United States government’s deputy chief technology officer Aaron Maniam, scholar at the Blavatnik School of Government, and former Singaporean civil servant Hannah White, Director and CEO of Institute for Government Joe Hill, Policy Director, ReformRethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University

For most of this century, the UK has had a housing shortage, but for one section of society, that shortage has become a crisis. Prices have risen so much that people who need social housing are completely locked out of the private renting market, and owning a home for many is only a pipe dream. And when politicians speak about "affordable homes", these are also out of reach for many people. "Affordable" means homes available at 80% of the market rate. Typical social housing rents are much lower- around 30% of the full rate.And this type of home is in very short supply. In 1980, there were around seven million dwellings in the social rent sector, largely owned by councils. Today that's just over four million, the majority of which are owned by housing associations instead. To the average person, the answer seems simple - just build more homes. And that’s being done, but not enough are being built - only around 10,000 social homes are constructed each year - far lower than the estimated 90,000 we need every year. So how can we speed up the process to help the million households in England currently sat on council waiting lists?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Contributors: Anna Minton, Reader in Architecture at the University of East London and author of the book "Big Capital, Who is London For?" Jasmine Basran, Head of Policy at the homelessness charity Crisis. Richard Hyde, founder of Thinkhouse.org, an open library of housing research, and chair of Solihull Community Housing. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester. Graham Kauders, commercial director at EDAROTH, an AtkinsRéalis company.Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University

Across the West, the long-established liberal order appears to be struggling to adapt to the economic and social challenges of the 21st century. As a result, traditional politics is being rejected by voters at the ballot box, increasingly usurped by narratives once considered too radical for the mainstream.In Europe, right wing populists and the far-right are in the ascendancy in countries such as France, the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. Across the Atlantic, Donald Trump has returned to the White House for a second term. The roots of political liberalism can be traced back to the 18th century, with much of the modern liberal world order emerging out of the end of World War II. But as similar patterns emerge across numerous democracies, could we be witnessing the end of liberalism?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ben Cooper Editor: Clare FordhamContributors: Jon Cruddas, author and former Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham Edmund Fawcett, political journalist and author Sarah de Lange, Professor of Political Pluralism at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam Catherine de Vries, Professor of Political Science at Bocconi University Michael Gove, Editor of The Spectator and former Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

You would be forgiven for thinking that inflation, interest rates, GDP and tariffs drive the global economy. But there are a whole set of interconnected underlying systems that work quietly in the background to keep economies running smoothly. It's not just countries that rely on them, but individuals as well. These systems allow workers to get paid, banks to make transfers, and the free-flow of information on the internet. These immaterial systems have a presence in the physical world, from fibre optic cables to the servers that host our data. Building and maintaining this infrastructure, and everything else that makes up modern civilisation requires a constant and reliable supply of raw materials. But in this globalised world, both the underlying systems online and the supply chains in the material world have pinch points - places where if just one thing gets squeezed, then there are immediate and dramatic effects on the economy. And whoever controls those pinch points wields a vast amount of power. In this episode of Rethink, Ben Ansell explores those pinch points, how the USA and China are realising their power, and what this means for the UK. Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Clare Fordham Contributors: Henry Farrell, SNF Agora Professor of International Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and co-author of Underground Empire. Abe Newman, professor in the School of Foreign Service and Government Departments at Georgetown University, and co-author of Underground Empire. Ed Conway, economics and data editor of Sky News and author of Material World.

Sir Keir Starmer says that the NHS is well placed for an AI revolution in health care. The Health Secretary Wes Streeting says it could lead to huge advances in health care, from patient passports, which enable doctors to easily access a patient's full medical history, to early intervention - being able to assess a child's risk of disease from birth. The NHS has a vast pool of information about our health, and unlocking its power is a noble aim: but can everything really be thrown straight into an AI, which will then pump out answers? Inputting it presents a mammoth task; NHS data is in many places, the bits of information are not always compatible, nor are they easily accessible. Also, medical records are hugely sensitive and private, so what safeguards need to be put in place before data researchers and medical tech companies can be given access? What will be the most likely, realistic and achievable benefits of using AI in our healthcare system, and - if the NHS gets this right - what are the potential rewards for patients? Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Clare FordhamContributors: Dr Jess Morley, postdoctoral research associate at the Yale Digital Ethics Centre Professor Andrew Morris, President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Director of HDR UK, the national institute for health data science Michael Shenouda, Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Medical Officer at Open Medical, and board member for the ABHI, The Association of British HealthTech Industries Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation

In 2024, more than two million crimes went unsolved in England and Wales, with police unable to identify a suspect. That figure has increased by 180,000 since 2022, despite there being 86,000 fewer crimes in the same period. So with detection rates down, and constant financial pressures on the police services across the UK, should crime prevention play a greater role in policing? Targeting preventable crimes and the people most likely to commit them, a process called "focused deterrence" is being trialled at five sites in England. Police services already have better intelligence resources available than in any time in history, and they are also working with care services and other agencies to flag up potential problems. How could crime prevention be taken further? Would a more academic approach to policing result in knowledge being spread more quickly, and how could police be better prepared for emerging crimes as society and technology change? Ultimately, could it lead to lower crime rates and financial savings, and is there any evidence to suggest it does either?Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ivana Davidovic Editor: Clare FordhamContributors: Katrin Hohl, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at City University Alexander Murray, Threat Leadership at the National Crime Agency and the Chair of the Society for Evidence Based Policing Alex Sutherland, Professor in Practice Criminology & Public Policy at Oxford University Dr Rick Muir, Director of the Police Foundation

Rethink examines emerging issues in politics, society, economics, technology and the UK's place in the world, and how we might approach them differently. We look at the latest thinking and research and discuss new ideas that might make the world a better place.In this episode, we consider the changing relationship between the public and big tech companies. Big technology companies have given us incredible social media and online services, that came with a price - our data. They used it to target advertising and to learn about our likes and dislikes, and the vast majority of us couldn't have cared less about giving up this information. But Artificial Intelligence products have changed the game, from chatbots that can hold human-like conversations, to Generative AI that can write prose or create a picture from a simple text prompt. And these unthinking machines require endless amounts of data to train them. Some companies have been quietly changing their terms and conditions to access our social media and messages for AI training. Privacy regulators in the UK have called a halt to this so far, but US consumers don't have that protection. Developers have also been scraping the internet, gathering both free and copyrighted material, and leading to legal actions in both the USA, the EU and the UK. Copyright holders are concerned about a lack of payment or licencing deals, and also that AI imitates their content, putting them out of work. The Government has now launched a consultation to try to balance up the needs of AI and the creative industries. But with some companies refusing to pay for content, creators have a new tool at their disposal - a program that makes stolen pictures poisonous to AI.Presenter: Ben Ansell Producer: Ravi Naik Editor: Clare Fordham Contributors: Ben Zhao, Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at University of Chicago Jack Stilgoe, Professor in science and technology studies at University College London, where he researches the governance of emerging technologies Justine Roberts, CEO and founder of Mumsnet. Cerys Wyn Davies, Partner at Pinscent Masons solicitors, specialising in IP and Copyright. Neil Ross, Associate director of policy for Tech UK