The Exchange | Long-form interviews from the New Statesman

The summer just passed was the hottest on record. Next year, the scientists predict, will be even hotter. And what will happen between these two infernos? Respite? Wrong. More extreme weather. Storms, droughts, and floods will sweep the world in coming months. George Monbiot, environmental activist and author, joins Oli Dugmore to discuss our new climate reality, how prepared (or rather unprepared...

In Japan, couples can rent a grandchild in order to make them feel less bereft on special occasions. In South Korea, dog stroller sales have overtaken pram sales. And in France, deaths outnumbered births for the first time since the Second World War in 2025. So what's actually going on? Award winning journalist Camilla Cavendish joins Oli Dugmore to discuss her new book, Generation Maybe: Why...

Owen Jones burst onto the scene in 2011 with his bestselling book Chavs: the demonisation of the working class. Since then his activism and journalism has followed the ebbs and flows of the left in UK politics, his own push and pull relationship with the Labour Party - which he ultimately left in 2024. Now he wants to cast his analysis beyond Britain. He joins Oli Dugmore in this episode to discus...

Fuchsia Dunlop has dedicated much of her life to eating Chinese food. If you’re interested in Chinese cuisine and culture, you may have come across her through television programmes, heard her on the radio, or cooked one of her recipes. And if you haven’t, stick around and you’ll be tempted to dive a little deeper into this extraordinary world. Fuchsia joined Oli Dugmore on the day her latest book...

Alexei Sayle has never much cared for a conventional view of the world. Born in 1950s Liverpool to committed communist parents, he was named after Maxim Gorky - real name Alexei Maximovich Peshkov. Dyed-in-the-wool Marxism, in other words, was baked in from birth, and he’s Jewish on his mother's side.  His first two memoirs, Stalin Ate My Homework and Thatcher Stole My Trousers , told the sto...

In 2011, Luke Harding was ordered to leave Russia - the first Western journalist to be exiled since the fall of the Soviet Union. As the Guardian's senior correspondent, he continued to watch Russia from afar, covering WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. But in recent years he crept back closer to Moscow, reporting from the front lines of the war in Ukraine. His n...

Most people would say that Britain is, by and large, a liberal country. Individuals have the freedom to express their individual beliefs, others are expected to accept this difference in opinion with a certain level of tolerance. Our government is decided by free and fair elections, we have a high level of personal freedom and protected rights. But Adrian Wooldridge, author and Bloomberg...

For ten years Gianni Infantino has run FIFA more or less unchallenged - cosying up to Putin, the Saudis, and above all Trump, and turning the World Cup into the most commercially aggressive tournament the sport has ever seen.  Then a few weeks ago, it emerged he'd been secretly negotiating to sell a fifth of FIFA's business to outside investors for $20 billion. The plan collapsed within days,...

For decades, hell, even centuries, there’s only been one show in town for the British right - the Conservative Party. But now, as the British electoral system complains and convulses and shudders and shrieks, a right-wing party has been at the top of the polls; it’s just not the Tories. Broadcaster, author and political commentator Iain Dale joins Oli Dugmore to discuss Reform, Restore, and the po...

Keir Starmer is no longer prime minister, Andy Burnham is.  What just happened? Why did it happen? And what now?  Oli Dugmore is joined by the New Statesman's editor-in-chief Tom McTague for a Starmer retrospective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gary Stevenson, economic campaigner and YouTuber, is using this change in government to lobby for a wealth tax. Without one, he predicts, "society will collapse". He joins Oli Dugmore on this episode of The Exchange. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over 1000 of Epstein's victims of sexual abuse and trafficking have now been identified; some have chosen to come forward publicly, and among them there was one voice which was the loudest. Virginia Roberts Giuffre. In 2021, she decided she wanted to tell her own story, in its entirety. Joining forces with the ghostwriter Amy Wallace, she began working on Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse...

Some had dubbed Starmer as "the Trump whisperer", so how has this change in leader come across in the US? Do they even care? Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo, joins us on The Exchange to discuss the view from across the pond and how Britain became a punching bag for the American right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Then social media came along. This is one of the reasons social psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes whole heartedly in the social media ban for under 16s, which has been rolled out in Australia, and will be brought into effect in the UK early next year. But is the ban really working in Australia? Is banning a solution? And is there a way to let young people benefit from the opportunities of the i...

Yesterday morning Keir Starmer resigned as prime minister. Today is the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum. Britain will soon welcome its seventh prime minister in a decade. Are the two events connected? Or is country's instability rooted further back in history? Editor-in-chief Tom McTague joins Oli Dugmore. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Children's laureate, screenwriter, author of Millions , architect of the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony, and father of seven, Frank Cottrell-Boyce joins Oli Dugmore to discuss what childhood means in Britain today. Over two years visiting schools, prisons and asylum hotels, he found a country that has quietly stopped looking after its youngest citizens. He talks about the NEETs crisis, furniture po...

Mariana Mazzucato is one of the most influential economists of modern times. An avowed progressive, her ideas impact the lives of millions of people, from the United States to sub-Saharan Africa. She was directly consulted in the creation of Biden’s CHIPS Act, which is worth $280 billion. The World Bank’s Mission 300, is straight out of her book Mission Economy. Oli Dugmore sits down with her...

Are AI companies the new empires? Journalist Karen Hao says the parallels are striking. This disruptive sector  requires vast amounts of land, minerals and water – not to mention data and content from individuals.  Hao interviews subjects ranging from those close to Open AI CEO Sam Altman to workers in the Global South who’ve been traumatised by their jobs in AI content moderation. She joins...

Guy Standing is a British labour economist best known for coining the term "precariat" to describe the growing global class of people living with unstable employment, mounting debt, and chronic insecurity. Standing’s latest book, Human Capital , explores how the education system has been corrupted and privatised. He joins Oli Dugmore to discuss this, as well as how his concept of the “precariat” d...

Charleston Festival is running until May 25. Find out more here . Ten years on from the referendum that redirected the course of British politics, the New Statesman's editor Tom McTague is joined by Caroline Lucas, Anand Menon and Marina Wheeler to consider how we should think about our relationship with Europe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eric Schlosser is one of America’s foremost investigative journalists, writing about everything from the prison system to nuclear weapons, exploring the hidden systems underpinning modern life. 25 years ago, he set out to investigate the economic model behind one of America’s most recognisable industries: a system built on low-paid workers, dangerous conditions and the exploitation of migrant labo...

Rather than a relic of the past, Mary Beard sees the classical world as a powerful tool for understanding the present. It's an idea she has explored in over twenty books on ancient history and numerous documentaries on the BBC and elsewhere, all of which have made her Britain’s best known classicist. She joins culture editor Tanjil Rashid in the studio. - Mary Beard's new book Talking Classics: Th...

In 2011, Ben Lerner stormed onto the scene with his debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, a winning blend of low comedy and high art. He has since firmly established himself as one of America’s most acclaimed novelists and is a leading voice in so-called autofiction. Now he returns with his fourth novel, and it may be his most profound yet.    In  Transcription , Lerner turns his...

Anthony Seldon, historian, educator and one of Britain's leading political biographers, has been for a long walk. His new book, The Path of Light, recounts his extraordinary 1300 kilometre passage to Auschwitz. Tracing stories of courage, resistance and moral clarity across a continent once consumed by darkness - it's a journey that speaks not only to the past, but powerfully to the world we're li...

Fatima Bhutto was born into exile - and into one of the most powerful political dynasties in South Asia.   Her life has been shaped by both privilege and profound personal tragedy.   Born in Afghanistan, she spent her early years displaced, after her grandfather, former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed under General Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime.   Her childhood was m...