Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps

that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds.

This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

We thought he was ours forever in the same way that Jermaine Greer and Clive James turned out to be ours forever.

But it wasn't to be. 20 years ago, Michael Ignatyev was that smart, charismatic Canadian intellectual who presented

the late show and made it very difficult for thoughtful British people to go to bed before

midnight on a weekday. He wrote for the observer and for the new statesman. He produced memoir,

Booker shortlisted fiction and the authorised biography by Zaya Berlin. And then at the turn of the

millennium, he left us. First for Harvard, where he wrote on human rights and the ethics of military

interventionism, and then for his native Canada in 2005. There was an academic job waiting for him,

but his real goal was a kind of midlife career switch.

Within a year, he'd secured a seat in the Canadian House of Commons.

Within four, he was leader of the Canadian Liberal Party.

In the general election of May last year, however, his political career came to a sudden and dramatic conclusion.

He lost the vote, he lost his seat, as it is 42 of his liberal colleagues.

It was the kind of political education that most academics could only dream about,

and the kind of dream that might have made some of them wake up screaming.

Lignatyev might be about to enter the most interesting phase of his career.

And the talk we're going to hear from him today, which is brought to you in association with

Newcastle University's Insights public lecture series, is one of the first fruits of his rare

experience.

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