Amol Rajan

speaker

3,997 appearances 23 recordings 6 series first heard Feb 2026 last heard 16 Jul

Amol Rajan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 23 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 12.

Appearances

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Radical · Last Call for the Local: Are Old Pubs the Solution to Modern Crises? (Oisín Rogers) · 25 Jun 2026 podcast

35 years of running pubs. matched

Let's talk in sort of broad generalities first. matched

How has the industry, very, very broadly speaking, changed in the time in which you've done it? matched

We'll get into some of the underlying currents and trends in a moment, but sort of compared to 35 years ago, turning up in London off the ferry and getting a bar job, you know, could one still do that today? matched

I want to outline in a second the scale of the challenges facing a lot of pubs. matched

And it's interesting you mentioned you worked a lot in London because I think outside of London, the problem is much more acute. matched

Can we just spend a moment? matched

I kind of want to hear from you. matched

What a pub is. matched

Because a pub serves so many different functions. matched

And I think you could map some of the problems that we have today, which we talked about a lot on this podcast, whether it's economic problems at a national level or kind of social problems at a much more local level onto the decline of the pub. matched

What to you is the point and the purpose and the kind of nobility of a pub? matched

You suddenly remind me, I once asked the former director general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, what the case for the BBC and the licence fee was. matched

And he said, it would be good in a society, as a starting point, if there were certain places where everyone could walk in and be treated equally. matched

And isn't that exactly what a pub is? matched

The dustman and the duke, the prince and the pauper. matched

You walk into, whether it's your pub or any of the other thousands, there is this kind of levelling effect because the price of a pint is the same regardless. matched

Exactly. matched

And we have an incredible, unique history in this country. matched

If you think about, there's famous stories like, you know, matched

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