Showing results by narrator "Chris Clarkson" in All Categories

David Nunn considers himself a good man. Employed as a counsellor for a mental health charity in North London, his typical day revolves around broken minds and dysfunctional lives. Then, one day in January, a young man staggers into the charity’s office; no appointment booked and seemingly in the grip of a drug-induced episode. David reluctantly agrees to see the young man. It proves a brief but fateful encounter.

From the bottom to the top of our economy, capitalism is too blunt an instrument to tackle Britain's epidemic of inequality. Soaring rents, unfair taxation and a growing gig economy have brought about unprecedented economic shame: Amazon warehouse workers living in tents, nurses turning to foodbanks, London firemen commuting hundreds of miles to work. Even those higher up the ladder are losing their grip on the life they were promised.

Spite covers psychology, economics, genetics, literature and current affairs to examine why humans inflict self-harm just to get one over on someone else. Why do we secretly want our friends to fail? Lots of irresistible stories about toxic behaviour in supermarkets and over the privet hedge, ramping up to incendiary divorces, vicious business practices, backbiting politics, scorched earth terrorism, Trump and Brexit. Was Trump elected because people voted out of spite for Hillary Clinton?