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Listen: Bristol Unpacked with Neil Maggs

Bristol Unpacked with Neil Maggs brings you fascinating and challenging conversations from characters of all stripes on big topics facing the city and beyond. Sign up to the Cable’s newsletter and follow us on social media to listen in. Subscribe for new episodes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Presenter: Neil Maggs

Audio producer: George Colwey

Executive producer: Priyanka Raval

Illustration: Jazz Thompson

Listen: Bristol Unpacked with West of England mayor Helen Godwin on doing leadership differently – and sorting out the buses

WECA chief Helen, who won the mayoral election for Labour in May, talks election pledges, building relationships, and learning from Andy Burnham to put the West Country on the map.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked with Lee Haskins, the world champ boxer who never left Lockleaze

Neil chats to former world champion Lee Haskins about keeping rooted in community and family, life after the ring and why boxing gyms are more inclusive than you might think.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked – mythbusting Islam and Islamophobia with Rizwan Ahmed

What is Islamophobia, what do Brits really know about the Islamic faith, and how can we all get along better? Neil gets deep into religion, identity and politics with Rizwan Ahmed of Bristol Muslim Cultural Society.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked, with Labour councillor Kirsty Tait on the Just Transition and how best to spend £20m in Hartcliffe

Neil asks Hartcliffe and Withywood representative Kirsty Tait about the government money the neighbourhood is getting – and about the importance of putting working-class voices at the centre of climate conversations.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked – from Wigan to LA, via Eastville, with Bristol Northern Soul Club

Neil chats to Bristol Northern Soul Club’s Levanna McLean and Eve Arslett about the scene’s resurgence – and how the Eastville Club has become an unlikely place of pilgrimage

Listen: Bristol Unpacked – high sheriff Kalpna Woolf on connecting people through food and battling for boardroom diversity

Neil chats to Kalpna Woolf on her journey from west London migrant kid to BBC head of production, cookbook author and boardroom diversity advocate – as well asking what exactly a high sheriff gets up to.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked – council leader Tony Dyer on a year of Green power in Bristol

Neil asks Bristol City Council leader Tony Dyer about his year at the helm in the city and the challenges of being in power, how the Green Party can widen its appeal, and the threat from Reform.

Listen: Bristol Unpacked with David Jubb of Citizens in Power – can citizens’ assemblies relight our democratic fires?

Neil sits down with David Jubb to talk citizens' assemblies: how do they work, why are they a better way of doing politics, and what's the new one he's helping run here in the West of England all about?

Listen: Bristol Unpacked with the BBC’s Pete Simson on the WECA mayoral election, making politics interesting and why snacks matter

Neil talks to Pete Simson, BBC Politics West editor, about the race to become the new mayor of the West of England Combined Authority and whether an upset in the 2025 election is likely after Arron Banks' entry.

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