Novara Media

Are we living through a new era of British weirdness? Keir and Jem spin mark the start of spring by taking in the weird left politics of leylines, weird walks and standing stones. What does it mean for our ideas of the nation and ourselves? Find the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build peo...

David Harvey is a legendary Marxist geographer. He’s taught Marx for over half a century – maybe you’ve even been one of his millions of students. He’s the author of the new The Story of Capital as well as many others, such as the classic The Limits to Capital. Talking from his home town of New York City, he told Richard Hames what he’s learned from decades of studying the most important radical i...

Ash and Moya are reunited and ready to answer a mystery question, inspired by Lena Dunham’s memoir, Famesick: do we need more women mentors? Plus: a homesick ex-pat struggling to stay in contact with his family. Send your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Our show in Sheffield is coming up on 4th July. Get tickets now from https://crossedwires.live Music by Matt Huxley.

The two-party system has defined British politics for centuries, but the status quo is under attack from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and an insurgent Green party – both looking to clean up in the local elections on 7 May. This week Aaron Bastani speaks to economist James Meadway about the disruptive new progressive party on the block. Meadway was an economic advisor to John McDonnell during Jeremy Co...

A decade and a half ago, the British far right was a fringe concern. But since then, the ruling party – whether it be The Conservatives or Labour – has played into their hands over and over again. Whether through appeasement or ineptitude, more than a decade of rightward drift has put Reform within reach of Downing Street. Can anyone stop them? Is anyone actually in control? Or are the emotional f...

It’s the question that will come to define our lives: is our society going to collapse? But the field of collapse research is fragmented, chaotic, and often just plain deranged. Who can you trust? Luke Kemp is the author of Goliath’s Curse and a Research Affiliate at the Cambridge University Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. And he’s also a political radical. He told Richard Hames about ho...

Moya answers your dilemmas with former Vogue agony aunt Shon Faye. Featuring: a graduate abroad who might have a saviour complex; a gay man who doesn’t know if his relationship is real; a stripper who wants to tell her parents the truth; and a relationship breaking down over Israel. Plus: how does Shon always hit her deadlines? Read Shon on Substack: https://shonfaye.substack.com/ Got a dilemma? E...

To accompany our podcast series, Death in Westminster, hosts Kojo Koram and Dalia Gebrial met with investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan and former private wealth lawyer Stephanie Brobbey at EartH in Hackney last month. Digging into the dark money that flows through Westminster, Kojo and Dalia find out what made Stephanie quit her job hiding rich people's assets, why Peter couldn't find anyone...

As the American empire teeters, China gains dominance, and war spreads across Eastern Europe and West Asia, questions arise as to Europe’s place in this rapidly changing world order. On Downstream this week, Ash Sarkar speaks to Roderick Beaton, former Koraes Professor of History at King's College London, about his latest book Europe: A New History.  How did the boundaries between Europe and Asia...

To accompany our new podcast series, Death in Westminster, hosts Kojo Koram and Dalia Gebrial met with investigative journalist Peter Geoghegan and former private wealth lawyer Stephanie Brobbey at EartH in Hackney last month. Digging into the dark money that flows through Westminster, Kojo and Dalia find out what made Stephanie quit her job hiding rich people's assets, why Peter couldn't find any...

Moya is joined by doctor-turned-novelist William Hunter to talk about what it takes to abandon your career for something new. What are the signs it’s time for a change? What if you quit everything but still feel bad inside? Plus: what to do about bigoted tweets from the past. Will’s debut novel Sunstruck is out in paperback on 25th June. Got a dilemma? Email ifispeak@novaramedia.com Join us at Cro...

Take part in our survey: novara.media/survey The 1990s were a decade of mass technological disruption, as the internet was rolled out across the globe, and we logged on for the first time. In China, the arrival of the internet was swiftly followed by what has come to be known as the ‘great firewall’, a complex matrix of censorship, surveillance and state control. From that point on, there were two...

After mulling over the problem of boredom in the last Trip episode, the ACFM gang return with a solution: hobbies. In this episode Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder what makes a pastime a hobby, why hobbies tend to mutate into jobs, which hobbies are appropriate for commoners, whether men and women approach their hobbies differently, and why having a hobby is so often framed as uncool. It's a weird-left...

Fill in our audience survey: https://novara.media/survey For fifty years, Alfred McCoy has exposed covert operations. In 1972 he uncovered the CIA and French intelligence’s complicity with the heroin trade during the Vietnam War – research that the CIA tried to suppress. He’s the author of many books, most recently Cold War on Five Continents, which gives a comprehensive account of late 20th centu...

What would it mean to be valued simply as a woman – not as a mother, wife, caregiver, girlypops or MILF? Ash and Moya talk about their animal natures and fear of motherhood in a chat spurred by last week’s interview with feminist critic Sophie Gilbert. Plus: how to go deeper with your friends. Flag your Special One status with the If I Speak Baggu bag – it’s ethically made, comes in two colours an...

Liberalism, in one form or another, has been the pervading political ideology of the past 200 years. It has become so pervasive, as an ideology, that it lays claim to the middle ground and common sense itself. But liberalism is a set of dogmas and doctrines like any other political ideology, and unfathomable horrors as well as huge advances have been made in its name. Today on Downstream, the idea...

Moya has a big theory about success: we love the idea of it, but hate people going on about it. Did Timothee Chalamet’s naked ambition cost him an Oscar? Plus: what to do about a envious colleague. Got a dilemma? Email ifispeak@novaramedia.com Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July! https://crossedwires.live/ Music by Matt Huxley.

Last week at EartH Hackney, Dalia Gebrial sat down with Hannah Spencer, the new MP for Gorton and Denton, and Faiza Shaheen, the director of Tax Justice UK. The three women discuss Hannah's massive landslide victory, her first few weeks in Parliament, and what a wealth tax would actually look like. What approach did Faiza and Hannah take with Reform voters, when out canvassing together? What lesso...

When was the last time you were bored? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder if ennui is a feeling that belongs in the past – and what a boredom-free life might be missing. Is compulsive scrolling a modern symptom of boredom? Why are spiritual practices often based around tedious repetition? Do bored workers make better organisers? What about the "stuckness" experienced by migrants, or the drudgery of housew...

In the last decade and a half, society has got vastly more politicised: Occupy, Black Lives Matter, the Me Too Movement and many other movements besides mobilised hundreds of millions of people around the world. So where are the massive organisations that big mobilisations brought in the 20th century? They don’t exist. For all the increased political activity, society hasn’t become much more organ...

Moya and Ash react to Louis Theroux’s documentary on the manosphere. The antics of YouTubers like HS and Sneako seem designed to amuse teenage boys and offend the normies – but when does the mask become the face? And who are the women who flock to these influencers? Plus: advice for a man who doesn’t want to dump his emotions on women. Got a dilemma? Email ifispeak@novaramedia.com Join us at Cross...

There’s nothing in the world more important than the food system. The twentieth century was scarred by enormous famines – and, like the one in Gaza, they are still deliberately engineered. But since the 1970s, the absolute number of deaths from famine have dropped by over 90%. On a global scale, we now make so much food that farmers will sometimes destroy it just to keep the prices high. How is th...

The most powerful CEO in history is barely a person anymore. But it’s not just his X-addled brain that has transformed him. He has deeply integrated himself in the ‘cyborg collective’ – a world of electrons, brain implants, fantastical promises, financial systems, bots, and memes – he has made for himself. Henry Ford gave his name to Fordism. According to Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, we’re ent...

Aaron Bastani sat down with Novara Media’s own Ash Sarkar, to celebrate the paperback release of her bestselling book, Minority Rule. 'Minority rule' is the term Ash used to describe the irrational fear that minorities are trying to overturn and oppress majority populations. She revealed how minority elites rule majorities by creating the culture wars that have taken over our politics, stoking fea...

Ash has a big theory about why so many aspects of modern life feel like masturbation: private, self-centred, disconnected. They discuss the objects and subjects of sex, and Moya makes a confession. Plus: advice for a special one who’s dating her first communist. Got a dilemma? Email ifispeak@novaramedia.com Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July! https://crossedwires.live/ Musi...