Downstream – Novara Media Podcasts

It’s official – we’re in the middle of an unprecedented vibe shift. Donald Trump’s second term in the White House tips the political balance across the world. So, what happens next? And what defines the era that we’re living in? Ash Sarkar is joined by Professor Will Davies, author of The Happiness Industry and Nervous States, to talk about ‘libertarian authoritarianism’, the end of experts, and t...

Love is supposed to be the most universal human experience after death and taxes. So why do so many people feel like they’re failing in it? Ash Sarkar is joined by Shon Faye, author of the bestselling book The Transgender Issue, to discuss her new book Love In Exile. They talk about how marriage has changed since their grandmothers’ day, the crisis of lonely young men, and whether secularism is to...

Fourteen years ago Gary Stevenson was one of Citibank’s best performing traders. The bet that brought him success was one few foresaw: that despite record low interest rates, Britain’s economy would stay in the doldrums. He wrote about that, and his time at Citi, in his bestselling memoir ‘The Trading Game’. In this, his third Downstream with Aaron, Gary talks about the rise of Reform, why the pol...

The Institute of Economic Affairs is one of the most powerful and secretive think tanks in the UK, known for promoting free-market Thatcherism as a solution to all of our economic woes. Who’s behind it? This week, Kristian Niemietz, a director at the IEA and a long-time Novara Media hater, sits down with Aaron for a debate about trickle-down economics, why he’s a neoliberal, and who re...

Donald Trump is the next president. Meta, Walmart and McDonald’s have forsaken their diversity policies. Elon Musk is demanding that Keir Starmer be removed as PM. Why is this all happening at the same time? And why do progressives have so little to offer when it comes to the economy and people’s everyday lives? Brett Christophers is a geographer, author and former management consultant. According...

On 10 December, Ash Sarkar, Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani discussed an epoch-defining year and its implications for the future. Is Starmer screwed? Are expansionist wars back? Has ‘woke’ died? Find out in our end-of-year Downstream special. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Just two months before a general election, Germany finds itself in a precarious position. The European project is fragile, the country’s manufacturing innovation has stalled, and Germany’s dependence on Russian resources has become, quite obviously, disastrous. So what will happen to this once deeply consequential world power, and what does its story tell us about the future of Europe...

When the Taliban retook all of Afghanistan in 2021, it came as a shock to much of the West. The day after the last American soldier left, journalist and filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at flew into Kabul to spend a year filming with the Taliban’s senior military leadership. What he found was a regime drunk on power, in control of far more territory and with better weaponry than ever – courtesy of the...

Humanity has long pursued an elixir of youth and dreamed of eternal life. For the Abrahamic faiths, physical immortality was lost in the Garden of Eden, with only the soul remaining of permanence. More recently, futurists and thinkers have speculated about the possibilities of radical life extension. For neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston there is another alternative, however. He believes th...

While the first modern trains were built in the early 19th century – more people travel by rail today than ever before. Not only have passenger numbers risen in the UK but the likes of China, Iran and Uzbekistan now have high-speed networks. On this episode of Downstream, Aaron Bastani is joined by author and railway engineer Gareth Dennis. They discuss the rationale behind HS2, why Hyperloop was...

Global heating is a serious problem, but the question of just how urgently to fight it is a fraught one. Should 2C or 1.5C of warming be our limit? Or can we blow past these limits now, and come back down to them later, using technology to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere? There’s only one problem: those technologies don’t yet exist. In this Downstream, Andreas Malm, human ecologist and a...

Everyone knows that the Roman Empire rose, then fell. Historians don’t all agree on the reasons for the collapse, but their misunderstandings can shed plenty of light on the current state of the world, according to the authors of How Empires Fall: Rome, America and the Future of the West . Peter Heather, a historian of antiquity, and John Rapley, a political economist, talk to Aaron about th...

War is spreading throughout West Asia, a situation understood by many observers as an outgrowth of Israeli expansionism. In a return visit to Downstream, historian Ilan Pappé provides a century’s worth of context to the unfolding crisis. He talks to Aaron to talk about the lack of a viable left in Israel, why nation-states haven’t worked in the Middle East, and why the British Empire is ulti...

What if instead of talking about history from the perspective of humanity, we told it from the perspective of the resources that made human expansion possible? Sunil Amrith is a historian and author of The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of The Last 500 Years . He sat down with Ash to explain how a bumper crop of grass powered the Mongol empire, how the two world wars irreversibly changed...

From pollinating crops to managing organic waste on a continental scale, insects are vital to life on Earth. They are also disappearing. Dave Goulson is an entomologist and ecologist whose books communicate the majesty of insects and arthropods – along with a grave warning about their demise. He talks to Aaron to Bastani talk about the critical lack of scientific expertise in government, the allur...

Stephanie Kelton is an author and economist, and subject of the new film ‘Finding The Money’. Her work as a proponent of Modern Monetary Theory and as an advisor to Bernie Sanders has put her front and center of the debate around government debt, taxation and the potential green industrial revolution. She sat down for a remote conversation with Ash to discuss debt, Liz Truss and whether you really...

Xi Jinping is possibly the most powerful person in the world, but what do we know about his origins, ways of thinking and goals for China and the human race in general? To answer these questions and more, Aaron is joined by Olivia Cheung, author of “The Political Thought of Xi Jinping”. They discuss his early difficulties with the CCP, his treatment of the Uyghurs and how China is manoeuvring it’s...

The Silk Road has dominated the way we imagine the trading relationship between Europe and Asia to have worked in antiquity. In his new book, The Golden Road, William Dalrymple busts that myth. He sat down with Ash to talk about the origins of algebra, Indian gems in Anglo-Saxon Britain and why Genghis Khan was scared of India.

Guy Shrubsole is an author and campaigner whose new book The Lie of the Land  seeks to expose the history of the British elite’s relationship to the land they own and debunk the myths that they perpetuate. He sat down with Aaron to talk about grouse moors, planning permission and exactly what we should do about The Fens.

Dr. Munther Isaac is the pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, serving a community of Christians that dates back to the time of Jesus. He joins Ash to discuss Israel’s continuing annexation of the West Bank, the role of Christian Zionists, and the origins of western hypocrisy.

Political scientists agree that we are now living in a “multipolar” world, with power contested by multiple states and blocs. But how we arrived at this formation, and whether the newly powerful actors on the global stage are inherently problematic, remain areas of disagreement. Someone with has a distinct perspective on this new world order is Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize-winning...

During 1960s, fears of planetary ‘overpopulation’ became widespread. And yet, in more recent years, an altogether different worry has emerged: future population decline. Fertility rates have fallen for decades – and in some places centuries – as humans live in cities, gender equality improves and access to birth control becomes widespread. But, according to some, if they fall too far, and too fast...

The Green Party of England and Wales now has four MPs in Parliament, and even more impressively has doubled its vote share to 7%, coming second in 39 other seats. So what happens now? How will the Greens exercise their new agency in government, and how can they navigate a biased media landscape and increase their influence? Aaron is joined by Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party and MP for B...

A foundational principle of the state of Israel is that it keeps Jews safe. This principle has been profoundly challenged in the last nine or so months. But what if Israel never really had the will or capacity to keep all Jews safe and, in fact, has made them less safe? Avi Shlaim is a historian and author of “Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew”. He joined Ash to talk about the Israeli right, Mo...

Jeremy Corbyn was a Labour MP for almost four decades – and led the party at two general elections. This year however, and despite still being a party member, Corbyn was blocked from standing again in his seat of Islington North. As soon as Rishi Sunak declared a snap general election, and the Labour leadership chose a different candidate, Corbyn announced he would stand as an independent. He was...