Following Andy Burnham’s appointment as Britain's Prime Minister, there is renewed interest in what some have described as ‘Manchesterism’ – a political philosophy rooted in place, economic renewal and the belief that national prosperity begins with strong local communities.

But if this approach were to shape government thinking, what could it mean beyond Britain’s borders?

This episode explores whether a place-based politics could shift Britain’s foreign policy. Would international engagement be judged less by Britain’s global status and more by whether it delivers prosperity and security for communities at home? Could trade, diplomacy and development become tools of regional renewal?

Any new government would also inherit profound constraints. With pressure to increase defence spending, sluggish economic growth and difficult choices over taxation and public services, how would a Manchesterist approach balance competing priorities? What role would overseas development assistance play? And what happens to Britain’s soft power if resources become increasingly scarce?

More broadly, does Britain need a different organising principle for foreign policy in an era where domestic resilience and international engagement are becoming increasingly intertwined?

Guests

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Roli Ashtana, Senior Advisor, ODI Global & Senior Research Associate at South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA)
• Laura Chappell, Associate director for international policy, IPPR
• Kate Ferguson, Co-Executive Director, Protection Approaches

Related resources

• Burnham, Manchesterism and the return of place in foreign policy (LSE blog, by Roli Ashtana)
  
  
• Navigating trade-offs in the global economy: A framework for a world between orders (Report, IPPR)

Across the world, a familiar story is being retold with striking success: that stagnant wages, housing crises and crumbling public services are the fault of migrants and outsiders - not the billionaires and global systems quietly getting richer. It's a story reshaping elections, hardening divisions, and in some places, fuelling violence.

In this episode of Think Change, Sara Pantuliano is joined by Dimi Reider (Othering and Belonging Institute / Shared Futures Institute), Tania Cheung, Libby Lenkinski and Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou to ask: why do stories so often beat facts? Why has fact-checking failed to stop divisive narratives from taking hold? And what would it actually take to build a competing story - one rooted in justice and redistribution, not nostalgia for a status quo that wasn't working either?

The conversation ranges from the mechanics of how harmful narratives spread, to what's breaking down in how NGOs and philanthropy communicate, to where power, money and attention need to shift if progressive narratives are ever going to compete.

Guests:

• Sara Pantuliano (host), Chief Executive, ODI Global
• Tania Cheung, Head of the Shifting the Power Programme at Comic Relief
• Dimi Reider, journalist, policy analyst and facilitator at the Othering and Belonging Institute and Shared Futures Institute
• Libby Lenkinski, Founding President of Albi
• Kathryn Nwajiaku-Dahou, Director Politics and Governance, ODI Global

Related resources:

• Building Narratives for Change: where culture strategy meets policy (Event recording, ODI Global)
• ODI Global Strategy, 2026-2031
• Shifting Narratives: From Aid to Agency Shifting the Power Comms Lab Report (Report, Comic Relief)

Our first episode of Think Change, recorded in March 2022 just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, explored how disinformation was shaping narratives around a fast-moving conflict. We asked who was producing it, how it spread through digital platforms, and how it influenced public understanding of war in real time.

Three years on, to mark our 100th episode, we return to these same questions – which have become pivotal to understanding not only conflicts around the world but also international politics.

Information has become a battleground. Trust in institutions and the media is waning. And AI is transforming how narratives are created, amplified, contested – often faster than we can make sense of them.

In this special episode, leading commentators and thinkers reflect on what has changed since our first episode, and what happens to a society when its members can no longer agree on what is true.

Guests

• Sara Pantuliano, Chief Executive, ODI Global (Think Change host)
• Lyse Doucet, BBC Chief International Correspondent
• Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, Former UN diplomat & Former President of the Open Society Foundations
• Ksenia Iliuk, Co-founder, LetsData

Related resources

• Disinformation and the Russia-Ukraine War (Think Change podcast, ODI Global)
• A war on many fronts: disinformation around the Russia-Ukraine war (Expert comment, ODI Global)
• Has AI ushered in an existential crisis of trust in democracy? (Expert comment, ODI Global)
• Digital Societies Hub (ODI Global)