This week’s best radio: Jeremy Paxman and Songs of Leonard Cohen

This week’s best radio: Jeremy Paxman and Songs of Leonard Cohen

Rufus Wainwright, Suzanne Vega and Alistair Darling pay tribute on Radio 2, while the nightmare of a..

Rufus Wainwright, Suzanne Vega and Alistair Darling pay tribute on Radio 2, while the nightmare of a second Trump term is examined on the World Service

Anyone born in the year 1950 who grew to fancy themselves as a soulful 18-year-old bought Songs of Leonard Cohen upon its original release in 1968. For many of them it was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. One such is Jeremy Paxman, who pays tribute to his hero in How the Light Gets In (6 November, 10pm, Radio 2) with the help of musicians Judy Collins, Rufus Wainwright and Suzanne Vega, comedian Arthur Smith and former chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling.

On 26 September last year, the New Yorker ran a feature with the headline “President Trump’s First Term”. The election was still almost two months away and the magazine’s illustration of Trump in the Oval Office looked like one of Mad magazine’s crazy fantasies of the future. Not any more. Trump Re-elected (4 November, 7pm, World Service) marks the anniversary of the election by recalling the events of that fateful night and, more usefully, looking at the likelihood of Trump being returned for a further four years in 2020.

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