The Marvyn Harrison Podcast

Andrew Tate is trending again, but the bigger story isn't him, it's what made him possible. In this episode we break down anti-intellectualism: why comprehension is collapsing, why people trust vibes over evidence, and who actually benefits from keeping populations uncritical. We go back to Hofstadter's three strands of anti-intellectualism, cover South Africa's Bantu education system as intellectualism weaponised as policy, unpack...

Every generation gets called soft by the one before it. But is this time different? We dig into the case that young people have lost resilience — less unsupervised play, more helicopter parenting, safe-space culture — against the case that the real story is economic: unaffordable housing, insecure work, and a mental health crisis that's more visibility than fragility. No easy verdict. Just the argument, both sides.

Welco...

A UK campaign group wants Universal Credit claimants to do four hours of litter picking a month or risk losing their benefit. Supporters call it fair contribution. Critics call it workfare — a policy with a documented history of failure, unpaid labour, and exemption gaps for disabled claimants. We break down the proposal, the precedent, and who gets left out of the conversation.

Welcome to The Marvyn Harrison Podcast — a...

Your partner isn't ignoring you, isn't cold, isn't careless — they might just be wired differently. This episode breaks down 7 neurodivergent traits (ASD/Asperger's, ADHD, ADD, OCD, NVLD, sensory processing differences, alexithymia) with plain-language explanations, phonetic pronunciations, and what each one actually looks like inside a relationship. Not a diagnosis. Not an excuse. A map.

Welcome to The Marvyn Harrison Podcast...

Michelle Gayle actress, singer, and one of the most recognisable black British faces of the 90s, joins Marvyn for a conversation spanning her Harlesden childhood, her friendship with a young Naomi Campbell, the Jodeci vs Boyz II Men debate that defined 90s R&B fandom, and the real story behind why she walked away from EastEnders at the height of her fame. Along the way: grandmother wisdom, cod liver oil, hygiene rituals, and re...

He was in your living room every night. He played the first gay character most of us ever saw kiss another man before watershed on Channel 4. Men still message him today saying his character saved their life.

Behind the scenes, he was drinking alone on his kitchen floor on a Tuesday afternoon, waiting for someone to deliver drugs, freshly divorced, trapped in a cycle he thought was freedom.

This is James Sutton. And this conversation...

In August 2018, Raneem Uday and her mother Khaula Saleem were murdered in the West Midlands despite multiple 999 calls made that night. The system failed them — not through a single act of negligence, but through structural gaps in how those calls were handled and risk was assessed.

What followed is a study in what grief becomes when it meets determination. Raneem's aunt, Nour Norris, campaigned for what is now Raneem's La...

This morning, Keir Starmer walked out of Downing Street and resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In this solo episode, Marvyn Harrison cuts through the noise and asks the questions the rolling news cycle won't slow down long enough to answer. How does a landslide majority of 172 seats collapse in two years? What does this moment mean for Black and Brown communities who voted Labour in 2024? And should we trust Andy Bur...

It's World Sickle Cell Day, and the NHS Modernisation Bill, which proposes a single patient record bringing together a patient's full medical history in one place, has just reached committee stage in Parliament.

In this episode, we speak with Professor Arlene Wellman MBE: a senior nurse leader and strategic adviser at the Florence Nightingale Foundation with over 27 years' experience across the NHS, and the first internationally...

Two days' notice. One email. "Are you available on the 15th at 7:30am to talk to Liz Kendall about some work she's doing." That's how this started.

What followed was a morning inside Downing Street watching Keir Starmer announce a ban on social media for every child under 16 in the country — backed by a consultation of 116,000 responses, where 83% of parents said the risks outweigh the benefits and 90% backed a minimum age of ...

Marvyn Harrison is joined by Paige Lewin and Brandeis for the most chaotic, most fun, most opinionated food game show in podcast history. No earnest deep dives today, just diaspora food debates, Caribbean heritage on the line, and Marvyn as the sole judge, jury and point-giver. They go in on: the 30-minute meal that will win over your partner's parents, the Nigeria vs Ghana jollof rice war, the most overrated diaspora dish, hangove...

The crisis: 948,000 young people aged 16–24 in the UK — 1 in 8 — are not in education, employment, or training. In the US, it's worse. Youth labour force participation has been collapsing since 2000. That's 25 years of failure.

The experiment: The UK government is running a £45 million test across 8 regions to find out what actually works. The answer isn't obvious — Switzerland gets 90% of young people certif...

BBC investigative reporter Jacqui Wakefield spent a year inside the global manosphere — travelling to Kenya and Mexico to track how Western influencer culture is radicalising young men at scale. She shares what she found in the data when young men handed over their full social media histories, what happened when she confronted influencer Andrew Kibe on camera, and why it's women who ultimately pay the price for content that t...

Gareth Southgate joins Marvyn Harrison for a rare and honest conversation about the crisis facing young men and boys in Britain today — and what we actually do about it. In this episode, Gareth discusses his new BBC One documentary Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men (airing 8th June, 9pm, BBC One & iPlayer), why he felt compelled to make it after his Dimbleby Lecture, what a good man actually looks like in ...

In this follow-up conversation from South by Southwest, Marvin Harrison sits down with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to address the influence of the "manosphere" on young men and boys. Mayor Khan discusses the urgent need to hold big tech companies accountable for algorithms that prioritize engagement through negativity and misogyny. He outlines a dual approach to the issue: calling for stricter regulation via the Online Safety ...

This week, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan delivered a landmark speech at SXSW London, warning that manosphere influence online risks creating a lost generation of young men. In this solo episode, Marvyn breaks down what the Mayor actually announced, what the research tells us, and why the real intervention isn't a government policy, it's the conversation you have with the boy in front of you.

Covered in this episode: UCL research sh...

Başak Erten is a creative strategist, radio and brand consultant, and founder of The Art of Audacity — a cultural platform for women in creative industries, as featured in Forbes. She's spent over eight years producing content across the BBC, Sony Music Entertainment, and branded work for Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, and Nike.

In this episode she brings three sharp takes on where culture, media, and consumer behaviour are heading &...

Marvyn Harrison and Kojo go back. Two decades of parallel paths, community builders, event makers, fathers, who were never quite in the same room long enough to have the real conversation. Until now.

In this episode, they cover everything. The g:hop era. The Sunday Show years, Ed Sheeran performing there eight times, Drake, Jay Cole, Wretch 32, Nicki Minaj, Omarion, Boys II Men. How the show grew from a Clerkenwell warehouse to Leic...

Tyler West opens up about PTSD, witnessing violence at 14 & going back to therapy. Dr Amos explains anxiety conditions. NHS Talking Therapies: https://www.nhs.uk/talk

In this episode of The Marvyn Harrison Podcast, Marvyn sits down with Dr Amos Ogunkoya and Tyler West for a raw, honest conversation about mental health, masculinity, and what it really takes to ask for help.

62% of people can’t recognise the symptoms of c...