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Available for over a year

Douglas Alexander examines whether recent crises - from Covid to the Ukraine war - have helped bring people together or driven them apart. In the more digital, hybrid world many of us have now glimpsed, will we have more time and more friends, or are we fated to feel that, in the real world, we are living among strangers? As we emerge into a post pandemic world already being shaped by a European conflict and the refugee and cost-of-living crises, it has brought in its wake, Douglas asks what we are learning about what really matters most in life. He visits the Cyrenians, Edinburgh's homelessness charity, and meets individuals who have opened their homes to Ukrainian refugees. And he talks to leading thinkers including social geographer Danny Dorling, anthropologist Robin Dunbar, economist Minouche Shafik and Emily Morrison of the Institute of Community Studies. Douglas Alexander is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and was member of the Cabinets of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Before Covid struck, he examined the forces which could bring Britain closer together in his Radio 4 documentary "A Culture of Encounter". Producer: Phil Reevell Editor: Hugh Levinson Sound: James Beard Production Coordinator: Brenda Brown