Novara Media

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...

What happens when you lose? In this Trip, the ACFM crew explore the role of humility – and humiliation – in politics. Should we cultivate humility to cope with political weakness? Is fear of humiliation a product of patriarchy? Can humility help us be better political thinkers and organisers? And who’s the humblest ACFM host of them all? Nadia, Keir and Jem apply their weird-left lens to the...

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...

It’s part of the national myth: the English invented football and to England it will return (next time!). But if football is part of what makes England England, it’s equally part of the story of how Europe became Europe. In this Pro Revolution Soccer season finale, Tom Williams and Juliet Jacques tell this story of oddballs, war, oligarchs, dodgy deals and footballing genius. Along the...

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...

The French left have played a blinder. Or, at least, the centre-right chaos agent and French President Emmanuel Macron has played it for them. Macron called snap elections, hoping to crush both the left and right. He failed. Instead, the far right briefly surged, coming top in the first round before a newly cohesive French left took the largest share in the second, decisive round. Is this the end...

Tom and Juliet expose the surprisingly rich history of football as a wing of political resistance, from Algeria to Palestine to the growing power of the grassroots game in Britain. They also process England’s shock win against Switzerland, TV pundits’ criticism of Southgate, and the silence around Cristiano Ronaldo. Music by Matt Huxley. Help us build people-powered media: http://novar...

The ACFM crew offer their first reactions to Labour’s landslide election win. Can Starmer’s government rescue the public sector? Where will the money come from? And can they make it to a second term? Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

The United States’ impact on British culture and foreign policy is obvious. But its influence on our domestic politics, business, and daily lives warrants closer examination. To discuss this, Aaron is joined by Angus Hanton, author of ‘Vassal State: How America Runs Britain’.

Asked in a recent poll to summarise Britain in a word, ‘broken’ was the people’s top choice. This brokenness is concrete stuff: crumbling bridges, sewage-filled rivers, failing computer systems, cancelled rail projects. But it’s also bundled with the collective stories we tell about what it means to be a nation, and who belongs in it. To find out why it feels like nothing w...

Tom and Juliet are joined by Keir Milburn to take the long view on the Premier League. Juliet explains how ’80s hooliganism and stadium disasters led to the formation of a new top flight, boosted by Rupert Murdoch’s TV empire and resulting in the iron grip of the Big Five clubs today. Are we stuck like this? They also discuss the incoming Labour government’s vision for football a...

If you want to understand how power works in our society, you can’t just examine what journalists say – you have to pay attention to what they’re silent about. To discuss the world of corporate media, secret intelligence services and the problem with liberal think tanks, Ash is joined by Matt Kennard, head of investigations for Declassified UK and author of  The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs The Ame...

This time next week, Keir Starmer will likely be settling into No 10 with a thumping majority. Yet Labour has largely avoided the question of what they’re going to do with all that power once they get it, and the political media has barely posed the question. Meanwhile the Conservative party as we know it has shattered into pieces, and the far-right is filling the vacuum. To paint a picture...

This week Tom and Juliet are joined by David Goldblatt, author of The Ball Is Round, to answer a seemingly simple question: who runs football? David explains why billionaires and foreign investors love sinking their money into football, and what accusations of “sportswashing” leave out. Plus, we talk about what’s going on with Southgate’s strategy. Has pragmatism become dogmatism for E...

If you mention the Israel lobby in the mainstream media then, more often than not, you’ll face accusations of antisemitism. There are of course people who talk about the Israel lobby in antisemitic terms, but that doesn’t undermine the fact that it exists, and has existed for well over a century. This week’s guest is Israeli historian and author Ilan Pappé. His new book details the origins of zion...

Mick Lynch is the General Secretary of the RMT. He joined Ash Sarkar to discuss leveraging Keir Starmer, the importance of council housing and why it’s vital that people vote for the Labour Party.

Former chief political correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and self proclaimed conservative, Peter Oborne, speaks to Aaron Bastani about the collapse of the conservative party. Support Novara Media: https://novara.media/support

It’s easy to think that the Labour left is gone for good. But it’s not so certain. From the 80s to the 10s, the Labour left endured almost three decades of isolation and exile. The difference this time is that their ideas are still popular. Will they be back once more, or have they now truly been left for dead? To find out, Eleanor spoke to Andy Beckett, author of The Searchers: Five R...

Was the Iraq War the exception or the rule? Throughout the twentieth century, Labour governments have been involved in some of Britain’s most disastrous colonial acts: the partition of India, the counter-insurgency in Malaya, and the Nakba. So, what can we expect this time? Eleanor Penny asks David Wearing, author of AngloArabia: Why Gulf Wealth Matters to Britain. Support independent journa...

As Euro 2024 gets underway, election results show a surge of support for the far-right across Europe. Can football help us make sense of it? This week on Pro Revolution Soccer, Juliet Jacques and Tom Williams look at the connections between football and fascism, and explain how the same forces that allowed a tiny elite to take over the game are now reopening the door to the far-right. Music by Mat...

What’s it like to be left-wing in an aspiring ethnostate? Israel has swung hard to the right in the last few decades, with self-described fascists now in government. But a left remains, calling not just for a ceasefire in the war on Gaza, but for the end to the apartheid regime as a whole. What power do they have? Comedian and activist Noam Shuster-Eliassi and +972 Magazine journalist Haggai...

Novara Media’s football podcast returns for another crack at the silverware! Every Wednesday until the Euro 2024 final, Juliet Jacques and Tom Williams provide political and tactical analysis of the tournament in an episode of two halves. This week: the strange spectacle of politicians pretending to like football, the changing status of women and LGBT+ players and fans, what Starmer will do...

After investigating the politics of cool on the last Trip episode, the crew turn their attention to another distinctly modern sensibility: camp. Digging into Susan Sontag’s formative 1964 essay on the camp aesthetic, Nadia, Keir and Jem think about how elements of the artificial, the theatrical and the sentimental come together in camp objects, from porn movies to Tiffany lamps to risqué rad...

Renewable energy technology is only getting cheaper. And yet it hasn’t increased its share of the energy mix for two decades. So what explains this paradox: cheap green energy with incredibly slow adoption? According to Brett Christophers, there is a straightforward explanation for this seeming paradox: the capitalist need for profits. And green energy projects are not as profitable as oil a...

The right have ditched climate denial and found something worse. They’re doubling down on the exhaustion of people and planet alike, making us run ever-faster just to stay in place. Can we turn our collective exhaustion into a climate politics of rest and recuperation? That’s the urgent question Ajay Singh Chaudhary asks in  The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World. He t...