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Political commentator Mike Indian is surprised that so little attention has been paid to one of the more radical things in the King's Speech, the boosting of employment rights. He discusses the rebellion of 7 Labour MPs over the child benefit cap. While insignificant now with such a large majority, he feels that things could get trickier with such a broadly-based range of MPs from the second year onwards. He explains how much the American electoral landscape has changed with the exit of Joe Biden from the Presidential race. Harris, he feels, could be a serious contender against Donald Trump but that her choice of Vice President will be key.

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech to the House of Commons on 29th July 2024, unabridged and as delivered.

While box office is down 12%, James Cameron-Wilson is excited by Twisters, taking £3.1m at #2, thinking the disaster movie is ripe for revival. A standalone sequel, he found this big slice of popcorn escapism with Daisy Edgar-Jones intense and totally engrossing. He wished he'd been able to see Kevin Costner's gargantuan Western project Horizon: An American Saga Part One on the big screen but had to settle for its streaming appearance. Although flawed and sometimes hard to understand, he still found it brilliant and visually amazing. He wanted to like Russell Crowe as a detective with memory loss in Sleeping Dogs on Amazon Prime but, despite the presence of Karen Gillan, it's a B-movie which is formulaic and implausible.

Russell Pointon of Edison Group summarises the company's quarterly consumer report, which finds signs of better momentum in profit reports and, despite a tough macro background, sees consumer confidence increasing. Among companies that are lowly valued relative to their peers, Russell highlights Card Factory. Under relatively new management, it is extending its range beyond greetings cards into gifts and party goods and also moving into suitable overseas markets. Despite good growth prospects, its multiple is still in the high single digits and it has returned to paying dividends.

Tech buff Steve Caplin explains the global IT outage caused by a Crowdstrike software update and Microsoft's extraordinary advice. There's an Italian litter-picking robot dog. Small aerial drones can learn to navigate by studying ants. Other drones can mimic geckos to cling to things. Spray-on trainers for athletes are now a reality, while athletes can also run faster if shielded from wind resistance. There's a crowd-funded Dymo-type printer. And Disney are retiring an animatronic attraction – for fear it will offend alcoholics.

Adam Cox shows how we all have reserves of inner strength and power which are much greater than we realise. Athletes competing in the Olympics show how they have mastered the ability to tap those reserves; this episode uses a broad metaphorical approach to help anyone to see that they don't need to look elsewhere. You already have those resources —Adam will help you find them.

We talk through the estimated $5Bn in lost activity across banking, travel, and other industries due to Crowdstrike’s faulty update and the $30Bn shaved off the company’s market cap. Jason Moser and Matt Argersinger discuss the impact of the global IT outage, where it will show up financially and how Crowdstrike responded, why the market is down on Tesla’s profitability, and how Spotify’s stellar run is continuing and why dividend investors might want to keep an eye on UPS. Then, 19 minutes in, Motley Fool co-founder and Chief Rule Breaker David Gardner talks with Emily Flippen about his best stock recommendation, some of his best investing lessons and how to make sense of the nascent artificial intelligence space. Finally, 31 minutes in, Jason and Matt break down two stocks on their radar: Twilio and Coupang. Stocks discussed: CRWD, MSFT, TSLA, CMG, SPOT, UPS, NVDA, TWLO, CPNG. Host - Dylan Lewis; Guests - Matt Argersinger, Jason Moser, David Gardner, Emily Flippen

Liz Ann Sonders is a Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist at Charles Schwab. Motley Fool’s Bill Mann interviewed Sonders for our member event FoolFest: this show is a cut of that conversation. They discuss how a deluge of economic information has changed investing, what’s happening beneath the surface of broad market indexes, and the Magnificent Seven and the best performers in the S&P 500. Companies mentioned: SCHW, GE, NVDA. Host - Bill Mann; Guest - Liz Ann Sonders

Building up a savings pot and then investing to grow your wealth and provide a decent pension for retirement is the key to long-term financial success. But there's lots to consider at each step — and most people will want to buy a home along the way. So what do you need to think about when sketching out your lifetime finances and then trying to achieve your goals? Georgie Frost and Simon Lambert take it step by step and look at each element of saving, investing, buying a home and building a pension. How much should you have in an emergency savings pot? How do you move from saving to investing? How can first-time buyers get ahead in tricky times? How much do you need to save for retirement? They look at all of these things and more.

David Willetts set out the challenge of inter-generational injustice 14 years ago in his book, 'The Pinch': but the problems have got worse, not better, during that same period of Conservative government. Young people face huge problems as a result of a fiscal environment structured to benefit older people, student debt, asset prices inflated by prolonged low interest rates — and then the pandemic: not to speak of demographic dislocations as a result of migration. Government finances may indeed require a complete overhaul, but it needs to be done in combination with resolving inter-generational injustice. Background music: 'Generations Away' by Unicorn Heads