The Conversation Weekly

Three months ago, Andy Burnham’s desk was filled with the business of running Greater Manchester. Buses. Housing. Policing. This mayoral region in the north of England is home to 3 million people and Burnham, a former minister in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has been its mayor for nearly a decade.
But after a whirlwind ten weeks, Burnham is due to travel to Buckingham Palace on July 20 to meet King Charles, who will appoint him as Britain’s next prime minister.
At the heart of Burnham’s plans for power lies Manchesterism, a political philosophy that centres on giving cities and towns outside London more political control. In this episode, we explore how running Greater Manchester shaped Andy Burnham’s politics with researchers Kirsty Fairclough from Manchester Metropolitan University and Philip Brown from the University of Huddersfield. They assess what Burnham achieved as mayor and discuss whether a philosophy designed around one city can work on a national level for the UK.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

When Taylor Swift launched her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, in October 2025, she recorded two short clips to promote it. One for Amazon Music began with “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift”. Another, for Spotify with “Hey, it’s Taylor”.
These two phrases may sound a little mundane, but they’re now at the frontline of a legal fightback by celebrities like Swift against AI deepfakes. In April, Swift’s intellectual property company, TAS Right Management, applied to the US Patent and Trademark office to trademark them as registered sound marks, along with a photo of her, from her recent Eras tour.
In this episode, we speak to intellectual property expert Graeme Austin, a professor of law at the University of Melbourne and chair of private law at Victoria University of Wellington to understand why Swift took this route, and the different ways celebrities are trying to protect themselves against AI deepfakes. And if you’re not a celebrity with a large legal team, what can you do?
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Can you own a voice? Taylor Swift’s latest legal move raises big questions for AI and copyright
From Taylor Swift to Bollywood, stars turn to the civil courts to fight deepfakes
Taylor Swift trademarking her voice and likeness points to a new legal frontier in combating AI deepfakes

El Niño has begun and forecasters predict a more than 60% chance that the naturally occurring phenomenon could become a very strong, or super El Niño later in 2026.
El Niño begins with warmer water in the Pacific Ocean near the equator and can have a cascade of dramatic effects on the world’s weather.
But what chain of events has to happen for high temperatures in the Pacific to translate into severe floods, droughts and storms around the world? And what role does climate change play in El Niño?
In this episode, Ioana Colfescu, an expert in climate and machine learning at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh, explains how El Niño works and what it could mean for the world.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.
Mentioned in this episode:
Voices of the South

A new youth protest movement in India that started as online satire is now staging an ongoing sit-in in New Delhi calling for the resignation of India’s education minister.
The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) was launched in late May by Abhijeet Dipke, a graduate of Boston University, in response to alleged comments by India's chief justice, Surya Kant, comparing unemployed young Indians to cockroaches. Dipke launched a parody political party, calling on all cockroaches to unite, which led to street protests in cities including Delhi, Pune, Jaipur and Bengaluru.
The CJP latched onto mounting anger in India at a series of issues affecting exams, including the secondary school leaving exam, which has affected thousands of people and been linked to suicides. But the movement has also tapped into the anger of a generation of graduates who’ve done everything right but still can’t find work that matches their aspirations.
In this episode economist Rosa Abraham at Azim Premji University, explains how India’s jobs crisis is fuelling this new youth protest movement.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.

When Australia banned under 16-year-olds from using social media in December 2025, it became a test case for a policy now being pursued by governments around the world. This week, the UK announced a similar social media ban from 2027.
So how’s it going in Australia? Have the teenagers emerged from a phone-lit glow to reengage in the real world? And what kind of difference is it having on their mental health?
In this episode, we speak to Susan Sawyer, a professor of adolescent mental health at the University of Melbourne, who is running a number of ongoing studies examining the way young people and their parents are reacting to Australia’s ban.
This episode was written and produced by Gemma Ware, Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Mixing by Michelle Macklem and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Read the full credits for this episode and sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation.
If you like the show, please consider donating to The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation.