Novara Media

Ash has a big theory about what makes someone into a proper adult – and it’s less about age or wisdom than the experiencing of caring for someone else. Plus: a special one who’s holding out hope that a casual hook-up will turn serious. Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026 – tickets are available now from https://crossedwires.live/ now! Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@nov...

Our guest this week was born in 1943, in what was then British India – modern day Pakistan. Unlike most, who have learned history through books and second-hand sources, he has witnessed first-hand a great deal of the 20th and 21st centuries. Tariq Ali founded Verso Books, the leading left-wing publishing house in Britain, as well as the New Left Review. He met Malcolm X, was friends with John Lenn...

Sure, you look great – but can you spell pharaoh? Ash and Moya start the year with a tough conversation about the beauty regime that rules over us all. Has women’s freedom been undermined by a fixation on beauty? Are men experiencing 2000s-levels of body dysmorphia? Plus: advice for a listener who wants more intellectual conversations with her husband. Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffiel...

It has been a bellicose start to 2026, with the US army kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and threatening to annex Greenland, putting many more nations, including Mexico and Colombia, on high alert. On Downstream this week is investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who’s best known for helping Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the NSA’s global surveillance program come to light, as...

Culture writer Lanre Bakare joins Ash and Moya in Manchester to talk about Black cultural identity outside of London, the precarious state of arts and nightlife around the UK, and the rise of ‘cultural deserts’ – as well as the unofficial launch of the 'BAMÉ Army'. Plus: Lanre tackles a dilemma about a xx housemate. Lanre’s book, We Were There, is out now. Recorded at Contact Theatre in Manchester...

After ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ on October 7th, a specific narrative quickly emerged and pervaded the entire Western mainstream media. Namely, that unprecedented horrors were committed against the state of Israel and that whatever way it responded was justified. Any deviation from this narrative was quickly shut down. In the intervening years, the British state has aided Israel in its response, a...

Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani joined each other on 17th December for a special end-of-year Downstream, wrapping up the year in politics.

Ash and Moya are joined by author, musician and podcaster Jordan Stephens to talk about changing attitudes to gender, dating and relationships. Are we regressing into essentialist ideas of gender? Is having a boyfriend embarrassing? Plus: advice for a disappointed wife – with help from our audience. Recorded live at EartH in East London on 16 December (apologies for the bass bleed from the other v...

Norman Finkelstein is one of the west’s leading anti-Zionist scholars. The son of Holocaust survivors, he has spent his life studying and critiquing Israel’s assault on Palestine, decades before it became socially acceptable to do so. Yet despite having dedicated his career to it, by the day before Hamas’ attack in October 2023, Norman had all but given up on the cause of Palestinian liberation. H...

NEW: Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026. Tickets are available now from crossedwires.live! Ash and Moya debate the pros and cons of feeling shame after Ash reveals that her own moral universe is governed by guilt. Plus: what to do about a best friend with a mean streak. Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

Since Hamas launched its assault on October 7th, 2023, the group has become synonymous with evil in large parts of the Western media. Condemnation has come at the expense of critical engagement with the group’s actions, objectives, and history, leaving a vacuum that has been filled with racist assumptions and conspiracy theories. Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian scholar whose doctoral thesis on Hamas...

Did you know that the standard of Google searches has actually gotten worse over recent years? Once you think about it, it makes sense. Highly effective search means fewer searches overall. And fewer searches means less ad revenue. The financial basis of Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company, is, of course, digital advertising. Which means that undermining the quality of the company’s corners...

In this Trip episode, Jem, Nadia and Keir debate the meaning of 'mainstream' – something none of them could ever possibly be, of course. Is 'woke' the new 'mainstream'? Can there be a mainstream if we don't all have access to the same culture? Is Tommy Robinson shifting the Overton Window? Why is nonconformity associated with coolness? And who engineers the 'typical girl'? The gang answer these qu...

Last chance! We're at EartH in East London on 16 December with guest Jordan Stephens – a handful of tickets are still available from Dice. Ash and Moya tackle a mystery question about ethical consumption with a conversation about the urge to beautify and shopping as a numbing mechanism. Plus: advice for a special one wondering why men won’t watch ethical porn. CN: The dilemma contains discussion o...

Moya and Ash talk to Dr Annabel Sowemimo about STI stigma, period-tracking apps, being disconnected from our bodies, and how to afford a second child. Plus: which hospital department has the sexiest staff? Annabel's book, Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare, is out now. Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com Music by Matt Huxley.

Support for the Green party in Britain has been steadily rising for the past few decades. However, few predicted that when Zack Polanski took office as Green party leader in September, membership would surge from 70,000 to 150,000 members in a matter of months. According to the latest polling, the party’s share of the vote has soared too: growing from 10 to 17 per cent. In front of a live audience...

Come and see us live! We're in Manchester on 25 November with Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There – get tickets from Contact Theatre. Then we'll be at EartH in East London on 16 December with Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks! Tickets are available from Dice. A mystery question leads Ash and Moya into conversation about whether their politics are changing as they age –...

At Novara, we focus on the trends that are remaking the world and affecting our lives: technological development and automation, multipolarity, the demise of an American-led world order and the rise of China. On Downstream this week is a man whose work draws together all of these themes: former World Bank macroeconomist and leading expert on global inequality, Professor Branko Milanovic. In conver...

Investigative journalist Paul Holden has spent the last four years digging into the political machinations that brought Keir Starmer's Labour Party into office – findings that propel his powerful 2025 book,  The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Labour Together and the Crisis of British Democracy . He tells Ash Sarkar about the cache of leaked emails that revealed the secret dealings of Morgan McSweeney – an a...

Come and see Ash and Moya live this winter. If I Speak hits Manchester's Contact Theatre on 25 November with special guest Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There. Then the show will return to EartH in East London on 16 December alongside Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks. Tickets are available from Dice. This week, after listening to the new album by Lily Allen – the patr...

Come and see us live on 25th November in Manchester with special guest Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There! Tickets are available now from Contact Theatre: https://contactmcr.com/events/if-i-speak-live Inspired by a famous pop psychology quiz, Moya and Ash tackle a quiz about the culture that shaped them, from celebrity crushes to memorable quotes. Plus: advice for a young fiancé who's losing in...

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, then a very young political scientist, declared that history was over. He wrote a book with the same title just a couple of years later. The Cold War had finished, the USSR had collapsed, liberal democracy and market capitalism reigned supreme, and it wasn’t going to change. And yet in the last few years, the script has moved quite significantly. History has returned. Em...

After last week’s ACFM episode on Parties, this time we expose the predicament facing Your Party, the new leftwing faction led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. What expectations do leftwing voters have for Your Party? Does the Corbyn faction distrust the membership? Is Zarah a politician or a poster? And does Yorp stand a chance of overtaking the ascendant Greens? Nadia, Jem and Keir analyse a...

We're coming to Manchester! On 25th November we'll be at Contact Theatre for a live show with special guest Lanre Bakare. Tickets are available now from the Contact website: https://contactmcr.com/events/if-i-speak-live Moya and Ash offer a thought for spooky season: why do love hearing other people’s horror stories? Plus: Moya spills on a dating disaster, and a dilemma about a mentoring relations...

Iran has been in the news a lot in 2025. Over recent decades, it has been a variable in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. But during the Twelve Day War with Israel in June of this year, Iran very much took centre stage. People started asking questions, chief among them being: What does Iran really want? On Downstream this week is Vali Nasr, professor of Middle East Studies...