The Lowdown from Nick Cohen

The French post-revolutionary politician Talleyrand said of the Bourbon royals that they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. In contrast, the Tories appear to have learned nothing, and forgotten everything - particularly about winning elections - including the longstanding UK political rule that the further the drift from centre ground politics to batshit extremes, the more certain the thra...

Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 and the author and political commentator Steve Richards @steverichards14 discuss the challenges faced by the Labour government as it faces down a ferocious backlash from the radicalised right and far right, and their client media. How can Sir Keir Starmer tackle the series of omni-crises - whether relating to the economy or public services - left by 14 years of disastrous an...

Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown on the Putin lie machine from well-renowned Kremlin disinformation expert and author Peter Pomerantsev. Earlier this month, the US seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state employees - of the TV channel Russia Today with conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The pair remain at large.  Peter's first...

Send us a text Nick talks to Lowdown regular, author and Guardian columnist Rafael Behr about what Labour does now in government after 14 years in opposition on the sidelines of terrible Tory governments delivering austerity, brexit, a bungled pandemic response, five failed prime ministers, economic decline and collapsing councils and public services. Will the UK inherited from the Tories prove to...

Send us a text Nick Cohen chats withAnnette Dittert, London Correspondent and bureau chief for ARD, Germany's first and celebrated post-war public broadcaster -  also known as "Das Erste" (The First) . The Far Right AfD (Alternative for German) made stunning gains in recent state elections in eastern German in Thuringia and Saxony , throwing mainstream parties into a funk and causin...

Send us a text Nick talks with Anne Applebaum, the celebrated American journalist, author and historian about her new book Autocracy Inc., The dictators who want to rule the world , published by Penguin. Putin, Xi Jinping, Jong Un, Trump, Maduro - dictators great and small - wannabe or real deal - dominate the news space these days. Democracy hasn't been under so much pressure since the 30&ap...

Send us a text Nick talks to Professor Tim Bale of the Queen Mary University of London, who is widely looked on as the UK's keenest academic observer of the Conservative Party. Poll after poll indicates a near-extinction event for the Conservative Party on July 4th.  The disasters of Brexit, Johnson and Truss coupled with the Tories' tedious and interminable culture wars have long expose...

Send us a text   @NickCohen4 and Guardian political columnist @rafaelbehr discuss the potential for an extinction-level general election result for the Tories on July 4th. Time and events seem to have caught up with the Conservative Party at last as they face retribution at the hands of an exasperated electorate after 14 years of chaos and 5 prime ministers, plus policy disaster after policy disas...

Send us a text Nick talks to celebrated author, columnist and editor Will Hutton about his new book, This Time No Mistakes:  How to Remake Britain (Bloomsbury), described as "a brilliant book" by no less a figure than Sir Keir Starmer. If  Labour wins - as currently expected - how does it pull the UK out of the doom cycle it's been put into by the Tories? Will explains how much work...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from leading economist Danny Blanchflower CBE - onetime external member of the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee. Danny foresaw economic woes mounting up in 2007 and predicted a crash - a year or so before the start of the bank collapses that led to the Great Recession.  Since then, the Tories have visited on the count...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown   from Professor Tim Bale of the Queen Mary University of London, who is widely looked on as the UK's keenest academic observer of the Conservative Party. The Tories have been left reeling and predictably even more mutinous by their  catastrophic defeats in last week's two by-elections in their hitherto safe seats of Kingswood in south Glouceste...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from John McTernan, one-time political secretary to Tony Blair and seasoned political strategist and commentator. How does Labour not only win but replace the Tories finally as the natural party of government?  14 years of Tory misrule have brought the failed projects of Brexit and  austerity  and the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss shitshows. Now Rishi Sunak...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown   from US journalist and author Matt Johnson on the threat posed - yet again - by Donald Trump and his deranged far right MAGA cult that has captured the Republican Party. Matt - @mattjj89 - the author of   How Hitchens can save the Left , explains how there is little evidence so far of a  tangible centre-left coalition to confront Trump - who is a dead c...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown on the UK's greatest taboo - the ever-deepening Brexit crisis - from Chris Grey, emeritus Professor @RoyalHolloway , and author of the highly-regarded and must-read blog,   Brexit and beyond. Extra Brexit food checks come in from next week - threatening food price rises and shortages. Meanwhile, the Tories fail to get one of its promised "Canada...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Chris Dillow, the economist, and author of the Stumbling and Mumbling blog. Chris -  @CJFDillow - is a keen commentator on  British managerialism - the curse of incompetence and privileged entitlement that led to the Post Office scandal and blights much of modern Britain today. Chris explains how modern Britain seems to reject competent management -...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Daniella Peled, Managing Editor of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, on the terrible conflict in Gaza . At a time when South Africa is bringing its genocide case against israel before the International Court of Justice, Daniella discusses with Nick the allegations of Israel's war crimes as well as the crimes committed by Hamas on Octobe...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown from Professor Rob Ford of Manchester University, professor of political science, co-author of the award-winning book Revolt on the Right , and political commentator and pundit extraordinaire about the perfect storm of woe descending on the Tories. The disasters of Brexit, cost of living, the bungling of Covid, Partygate, the catastrophic and chaotic reig...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Matt Johnson,  author of How Hitchens can save the Left   [Pitchstone Books] a celebrated study of the writer and polemicist Christopher Hitchens who sadly died 12 years ago aged just 62. Hitchens lived in the US and was a controversial and vivid commentator on the US and its various foreign policy adventures following the 9/11 terror atrocities in t...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown   from Professor Shlomo Sand, author and  historian about his new book A Brief Global History of the Left  (Polity). What is happening to the Left? It seems to be dying a slow death in the West and certainly in Israel.. While many commentators have predicted its demise, the Left has always defied these bleak prognoses and risen from the ashes in the most...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown on the brutal conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza from Daniella Peled, Managing Editor of the of Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR). Daniella puts into context the latest conflict  between Israel and Hamas. Approximately 1,400 Israelis were killed by Hamas on October 7th. Since then, the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed at least 4,000...

Send us a text Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown from celebrated lawyer and author David Hooper whose latest book, Buying Silence,  How oligarchs,  corporations and plutocrats use the law to gag their critics (Biteback) exposes  how the rich and powerful use vexatious so-called SLAPP legal actions - Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation - to silence and destroy whiste-blowers, journalists and...

Send us a text This week, Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown from Dr Dave Rich, Head of Policy for the Community Security Trust (CST) - an organisation that provides security for Jewish communities and institutions. Dave is also an expert in left wing anti-semitism and the author of the book Everyday Hate: How antisemitism is built into our world – and how you can change it   (Biteback.) Jews in the UK o...

Send us a text Nick Cohen talks to Yascha Mounk, the political scientist and author, about his new book about the astonishing rise of "Woke ideology" - The Identity Trap: A  story of ideas and power in our time. According to the Washington Post,  "whatever you call it — identity politics, political correctness, wokeness or cancel culture — some new power seems to be at work in our c...

Send us a text Nick Cohen talks to James Hawes, Renaissance man, historian, writer and novelist about the Tories' southern English tribe and the threat it poses to the rest of the UK. James, the author of The Shortest History of England,   predicts the Tories will become ever more extreme and nationalist in electoral defeat and that the eventual break up of the UK looks unavoidable. The UK&ap...

Send us a text This week, Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Jonathan Portes , Professor of Economics and Public Policy at King's College London, ex- Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office.  Jonathan is also  a Senior Fellow of the Economic and Social Research Council's  UK in a Changing Europe initiative, which examines the UK's now troubled relatIonship with the EU. Can anything be d...