A Point of View

Sarah Dunant looks at the queasy relationship between art, finance and corruption. Recent protests by the photographer Nan Goldin and others over "dirty money" have hit the headlines. But Sarah argues that without some of this rather dubious funding, the art world would look very different. "What do you want", she asks. "A clean church and white walls? Because there's no doubt that without all of this lamentable corruption we would not have many of the greatest works of art the world has ever seen." Producer: Adele Armstrong

Zia Haider Rahman on why Brexit has made him feel closer to Britain. He says the referendum has revealed deeper schisms in British society than the lines between native and immigrant. "The sociological explanation", he argues, "might be that by confronting everyone with the variety and complexity of native British identities, Brexit has created space for other British identities". Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy on why - even with apparent chaos all around us - we can’t afford to despair. "Despairing of justice, positive change, even kindness", she writes, "begins to rob our minds of the capacity to produce those things”. Producer: Adele Armstrong

Tom Shakespeare on why we’re in urgent need of a bit of plain speaking. "I don't mean here to exalt the obnoxious, the downright rude", he writes, "but while civility is a virtue, I think we could do with a little more directness". Producer: Adele Armstrong

AL Kennedy questions her love of cookery shows. "That's when I start to feel uneasy, sitting at home staring at entremets and buttercream, three-foot-high cakes made with pints of fresh eggs, because I have this theory...that television tends to memorialise things, just as they fade away. Producer: Adele Armstrong