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Twelve men at a restaurant in Sicily. Ten engrossed in their phones. Presumably the other two had forgotten their chargers. This week, Mark and I ask how a device designed to connect us became such a convenient way to ignore whoever's sitting opposite. From scrolling through strangers' lives to sending children off to do homework on the screens we've just told them to put away, have we confused being connected with having a connection? Join us for 15 Minutes of In Search of Sanity. You can even listen together. Radical, we know. If you enjoy our content, follow our Substack!

Trump's shenanigans. Newsom's Democrats running California as a one-party State. Labour changing Prime Ministers without any votes cast. The left wants government to deliver equity. The right wants it to restore order. Both seem increasingly tempted to give it more power, provided their lot hold the keys. Meanwhile, Singapore poses an awkward question: would you trade some political freedom for a government that actually delivers? Everybody imagines a benevolent dictator until they become the person he finds inconvenient. This week, Mark and I take aim at both political tribes and look beyond America to ask whether voters are losing faith in freedom or simply patience with failure. Join us for 15 minutes of In Search of Sanity. Before somebody decides we've had quite enough free speech.

After Macklemore accused Israel of genocide and apartheid during performances at MetLife Stadium, Robert Kraft refused to host him at Gillette Stadium. Other venues objected and Macklemore was removed from the remaining dates of Ed Sheeran's tour. The online pro-Palestine crowd promptly turned on Sheeran. Macklemore has the right to speak. Kraft has the right to decide who performs at his stadium. Sheeran has a tour to run. This week, Mark and I ask: did anyone actually do anything wrong, or does every disagreement now require a human sacrifice?

Political tribes and their chiefs now seem to believe they are saving civilisation. One side is fighting fascism. The other is fighting socialism. Alas, once disagreement becomes proof of evil, politics stops being a contest of ideas and becomes a vicious divorce, and the kids caught in the middle are the whole country. This week, Mark and I rummage through the Greek philosophy on love for three ideas we may have mislaid. Philia, fellowship between citizens; pragma, the grudging compromises that stop society falling over; and xenia, extending dignity to strangers, even the irritating ones with podcasts. We also consider Mandela's admission that he was no saint, merely "a sinner who keeps on trying". The good news is that democracy does not require us to love our opponents. Only to stop treating them as enemies. Listen in. Love may be the most radical idea in politics.

California has the wealth and talent of a superpower. It also has some of America's worst housing costs, highest wealth and income inequality, eye-watering energy prices, stubborn homelessness, weak infrastructure and awful school outcomes. Yet after years of Democratic dominance, voters still seem reluctant to change the management. This week on In Search of Sanity, California newspaper editor Joe Tarica joins us to ask why. Britain, meanwhile, is seeing voters scatter across Labour, Conservatives, Reform, Greens and Liberal Democrats. So why does America's richest state remain so stubbornly locked into a two-party choice?

A slightly lighter 15 Minutes In Search of Sanity this week, yet with a serious question underneath. Prince Harry was once Britain's most popular royal. Now he and Meghan Markle are planning to spend more time back in Britain just as support for the monarchy hits historic lows. So we look beyond the Sussex soap opera and ask what a constitutional monarchy actually means. Is the King really just ceremonial? Who pays for the institution and how much constitutional power still sits behind the crowns, carriages and bearskins? Fifteen minutes of monarchy, money and mild mockery.

As faith in America's institutions declines, increasingly radical voices on both Left and Right are offering very different answers. Are they diagnosing real problems, exploiting public frustration or both? Last week we examined the rise of democratic socialism. This week we turn to the populist Right, from Tucker Carlson and America First to the darker fringes represented by Nick Fuentes. Perhaps America's problem isn't that Left or Right has all the wrong answers. It's that too many Americans have stopped believing the center has any answers at all.

You already know the algorithm is playing you. What nobody tells you is you can play it right back. This week on iSoS, we dig into the actual science of why outrage spreads faster than good news online. Then we discuss some concrete moves that flip the script and start feeding you content that makes you feel like a person again, not a gladiator. Discussed: Media Literacy, Social Media, Politics, Bipartisanship, Online Discourse.

This month on 'iSoS in Conversation', we sit down for a jovial hour with Jordan Cunningham — former California Assemblyman, ex-prosecutor, and now a political consultant— for an unflinching look at how The Democrats took over California and what's left of the California GOP. We discuss: How The Democrats became a super majority. Reagan. Schwarzenegger. Now this. What neutered the California GOP? Britain manages fifteen parties in one Parliament. California can barely manage two. What's the fix? CA has the worst scorecard in the country: Health, poverty, homelessness, affordability, red tape. Highest taxes to pay for it. Yet the Democrats keep winning. How? Is MAGA a help or a hindrance and The GOP's own civil war. How Steve Hilton went from running Downing Street's strategy under David Cameron to being the last Republican standing in California. Trump's guy in a state that can't stand Trump. Plan, or last gasp? Plus Jordan takes on Mark in a 'Quick Fire' round of revealing Q&A.

Fake news. Alternative facts. My truth. Post-truth. We have plenty of names for the problem. What we don't have is an honest account of where it came from. In this episode, Clive and Mark trace the crisis of truth from the French philosophy departments of the 1960s to your social media feed in 2025. Along the way? The academic hoax that got a feminist reinterpretation of Mein Kampf accepted by a peer-reviewed journal. The brain imaging study that shows facts literally activate our self-defence systems. The Gallup numbers that show trust in American media has fallen from 70% to 28% in fifty years. And then there's AI. A billion people are now using it as their primary source of information. It hallucinates false claims on news topics at a rate that doubled in a single year. MIT research shows it uses more confident language when it's wrong than when it's right. So where do you go for the truth? Clive and Mark have some answers and a few uncomfortable questions about whether the institutions we used to trust to provide it were ever quite as reliable as we thought.   Tags: Politics, Current Events, Misinformation, Media Literacy, Nonpartisan, Critical Thinking

History gave us kings, emperors, and robber barons, and none of them quite prepared us for Elon Musk. Worth a trillion dollars as of this week, more powerful than most presidents and richer than most countries, he remains accountable to no electorate, no regulator with real teeth, and no shareholder brave enough to challenge him. Mark and Clive take on the Elon question. Subscribe and share if you like the show!

California's high-speed rail has spent $126 billion and laid zero miles of track. HS2, the UK's high-speed rail project has been under construction since before the iPhone 6. Meanwhile SpaceX is launching rockets for a fraction of the cost of a NASA coffee break. The problem isn't that we can't build things. It's who's holding the shovel. In this episode, Clive and Mark go transatlantic on the great infrastructure disaster of our time. Two countries. Two doomed rail projects. One disease: public sector procurement. Plus what California's housing crisis, Britain's planning paralysis, and the NASA vs SpaceX numbers tell us about incentives, accountability — and why nobody ever gets fired for a cost overrun. They just get a committee. If you enjoyed the show, consider subscribing to our free Substack at insearchofsanity.substack.com.

Republicans say it's alive. Democrats say it's dead. Mark & Clive suggest that reality and history say something more interesting. Your weekly dose of 15 minutes In Search of Sanity.

In Search of Sanity is back. We've started with a guest California's political class would rather we hadn't found. Steve Hilton is Oxford-educated, the son of Hungarian refugees, the man who made the Conservative Party in the UK electable again. Today he is the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for Governor of California. Which is, by any measure, quite a journey. We sit down with Steve for 60 minutes of biography, contradiction, and the question California's political establishment would rather not hear. Can the man who detoxified the Conservatives in Britain do the same for the GOP in America's most progressive state? Joe Tarica, editor of The San Luis Obispo Tribune, joins Mark and Clive. Three people. One conversation. No sacred cows.

In this episode, Clive and Mark discuss their plans for the re-launch of In Search of Sanity. The current media landscape necessitates a big push towards literacy and reason. Let's be the push!