Downstream – Novara Media Podcasts

Vicky Spratt is a London-based journalist and campaigner who writes on housing and the rental crisis. Her book Tenants is out now with Profile Books.

Britain is unique in the way that public schools (that’s private schools to anyone outside of Britain) have a stranglehold on the establishment. Alumni of these schools are massively overrepresented in the upper echelons of society – so is it any wonder that the media, the judicial system and the political class treat normal people […]

Roger Hallam was released from jail a few weeks before this interview. He was held on remand for 109 days after being charged with ‘conspiracy to cause a public nuisance’ – simply for giving a speech. He has been part of some of the most influential activist groups of the last few years including Extinction […]

Mehdi Hasan is one of the most prominent political journalists in the US. He talks to Aaron Bastani about the challenges facing the world today: authoritarianism, the role of media in shaping public opinion, and the need for a more equitable society. His new book, “Win Every Argument” is out now.

The media is awash with allegations of censorship. The works of Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming have been combed through to rid them of offensive tropes and language. Who is this seemingly gratuitous raft of cultural editing in service of? A lot of the media will have you believe that it’s the ‘snowflake’. The younger […]

The management consultancy industry is worth around a trillion dollars, yet few people on the street could tell you what all that money is for. Much of it is spent by governments, with the UK leading the charge. A huge range of services are contracted out to these huge, opaque companies. And in the long […]

Britain is in the grip of a generation-defining housing crisis. Private renters are being forced more and more into living in accommodation of a lower and lower standard – that’s if they can find somewhere to live in the first place. To discuss the problem, and how it can be fixed, Aaron Bastani is joined […]

From covering mass shootings as US Correspondent for The Guardian to investigating QAnon for a year for the podcast ‘Finding Q’, Nicky Woolf has been plumbing the grimmer depths of the American psyche for a long time. He joins Ash to discuss the mysterious ‘Havana Syndrome’, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Making Nazis Afraid Again. You […]

With Charles’ coronation approaching, it’s time to scrutinise not just the man himself but the monarchy as an idea. Joining Aaron to explore all things royal – from how they fund their luxurious lifestyles to the ways they secretly exert political influence – is Graham Smith, CEO of Republic, a pressure group driven by a […]

One of the most powerful justifications for racism in the 20th century was eugenics. Based on pseudo-scientific certainties cherry-picked from the messy world of genetics and behaviour, belief in eugenics led to some of the most profound horrors humans have ever experienced. So why are so many aspects of race science coming back alive today? […]

Dating might seem a trivial subject in an era of rising inequality and climate crisis. But finding romantic love – or learning how to live without it – is a big part of all of our lives, and how that happens, from the rise of dating apps to the liberalisation of divorce, has been transformed […]

Peter Hitchens is something of an iconoclast. Among his colleagues on the right, the Mail on Sunday columnist stands out as a heterodox thinker – yet he’s perhaps one of the few who could be described as a genuine conservative. Aaron Bastani meets him to discuss his previous life as a Trotskyist and a Moscow […]

Ash is joined by Novara’s own Aaron Bastani, Moya Lothian-McLean, Michael Walker and James Butler to talk about what was bugging them in the year 2022. From landlordism to normativity and a nasty turn in identity politics and from the declining fortunes of Europe to the absolute state of the discourse, the Novara team summarises […]

Throughout his 30-year career, Billy Bragg has never shied away from politics. From playing benefit gigs for miners in the 1980s to clashing with the BNP in his hometown of Barking, he has always used his influence to help those who need it. Ash recently sat down with Billy to discuss his 2006 book, The […]

What is it about Twitter that turns us into such objectionable creatures? What has social media done to the language we use and the way we interact with each other? Ash Sarkar talks to Richard Seymour, author of The Twittering Machine, about the state of social media: tweets, memes, grief trolling, outrage porn, duckface, Spidermen […]

New research shows our distant ancestors enjoyed a far more complex – and creative – existence than we had ever imagined. If humans have always experimented with ways of being, why are we told all the problems of our world are the result of inevitable progress? David Wengrow is an archaeologist and the co-author, with […]

Imagine you had a few million ill-gotten pounds, dollars or rubles. Where would you stash it? You’d need to make sure no one knew it was yours, or where you’d nabbed it from. It turns out that the best place in the world for these money-stashing services is the UK. Oligarchs from all over the […]

We’re told by the Conservatives and their acolytes in the media that the Labour Party is — and always has been — soft on immigration. Little could be further from the truth. Ash Sarkar meets Dr Maya Goodfellow to talk about New Labour’s inhumane immigration policies, the problem with the term ‘economic migrant’ and how […]

Chris Packham is a national treasure. A naturalist, photographer and author, he’s best known for bringing nature into our living rooms as host of The Really Wild Show, Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch. He’s also an environmental campaigner and an anti-hunting advocate who has been targeted by threats and arson for his views. Aaron Bastani talks […]

Eating is supposed to be fun, so why does food culture – from our table manners to the promise of “clean eating” – trigger so much anxiety? Ash Sarkar meets Ruby Tandoh, former Great British Bake-Off contestant and author of Cook As You Are, to talk about the new wave of food writing and her […]

In 2011, while working as a City trader, Gary Stevenson joined the ranks of the ultra-rich with a single bonus cheque. Not long after, he was named one of Citibank’s highest-performing traders worldwide. Stevenson made millions for his employer by betting on one thing: that inequality would worsen and living standards would fall. It made […]

On 2nd October, Brazil will be faced with a stark choice. The incumbent president, Jair Bolsonaro, has overseen economic calamity and nearly 700,000 Covid deaths in his first term. His challenger, Lula Da Silva, is hoping to regain the presidency – just three years since being freed from prison. To discuss the state of Brazilian […]

Two years after resigning as Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn catches up with Aaron Bastani to dissect Corbynism and its aftermath. On the table: the Islington North MP’s suspension from the party, the fallout from the anti-semitism crisis, his previous interactions with new Tory leader Liz Truss, and what he thinks of the royal family.

Three months after being signed off sick following a “sustained campaign of misogynistic abuse” from both her ex-husband and her local Labour party, Apsana Begum is returning to politics. In an exclusive interview with Novara Media, Britain’s first hijabi MP tells Rivkah Brown about escaping an abusive marriage, her suspension from the Labour party, and […]

On the eve of the Queen’s funeral, Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar look around at a nation in mourning to analyse the emotional and political impact of the death of a monarch. How did Elizabeth’s 70-year reign help to neutralise Britain’s colonial legacy? What do the UK’s grieving royalists look like to foreign media? And […]

It’s one of the few things that the late anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and tech billionaire Peter Thiel agreed on: the sci-fi future we were promised has not materialised. Where are the flying cars? Where are the teleportation machines? And why, instead, do we just have 15 different ride-hailing apps to choose from? In this […]

In the middle of a grave cost of living crisis, bosses at Royal Mail, BT and across corporate Britain are imposing pay rises for workers way below inflation. On Downstream, Aaron Bastani speaks to CWU General Secretary Dave Ward about corporate greed, the shadowy world of CEOs, the return of the working class and how […]

Since Bernie Sanders’ failed attempt to become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, there has been a reinvigoration of the left in the USA. This uptick has also been visible in the media, and nowhere more so than with the rise of Hasan Piker – arguably the most influential political voice on livestreaming service Twitch. Aaron […]

In the 2022 Tower Hamlets local elections, something unprecedented happened. The borough elected a mayor previously banned from taking part in politics. That’s not all. His party, Aspire, not only took the council from Labour but gained more seats than Labour across the whole of England. At the centre of all of this was Lutfur […]

Over the last few centuries, the global spread of a vast array of different drugs has reshaped how we work, experience pleasure, fight wars, and explore our inner worlds. And from Richard Nixon’s ‘War on Drugs’ to the opium wars to the scuppering of the hippie movement, those drugs have been entangled with politics and […]

Each generation must encounter the Communist Manifesto anew, deciphering Marx and Engels’ text for their own era. So what gives this short book its enduring power? In his new book A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto, China Miéville explains how its various facets – being part political treatise, part gothic literature, and part spell to […]

Since the 1990s, decarbonisation has been the primary goal for many environmentalists. But there is another threat to life on Earth, one that could be just as dangerous as runaway climate change: the farming of animals for human consumption. In his new book Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet, George Monbiot warns that […]

Lea Ypi’s life is awash with instances that question what it means to be free. From growing up in communist Albania to teaching at the London School of Economics, her story is a window onto the complex connections between freedom and sovereignty, and between the personal and the political. Aaron Bastani speaks to Ypi on […]

The election of Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party was met with euphoria across the mainstream media. But despite winning the leadership with a huge majority, Starmer had only been involved in politics for five years – having previously worked as a barrister, a pro bono lawyer and director of public prosecutions – […]

Known for his steadfast support of Jeremy Corbyn whilst heading up the biggest private sector union in the country, Len McLuskey has a unique and intimate knowledge of both Labour Party politics and the organised labour movement. Aaron Bastani speaks to the most important trade unionist of his era on the publication of his memoir, […]

Few political thinkers exert such influence that their work becomes synonymous with a historic era. Francis Fukuyama’s declaration of “the end of history” after the fall of the Soviet Union made him one of those thinkers – but 30 years on, has he reassessed his own claim? And what events since then have shaken his […]

Ed Winters, AKA Earthling Ed, is a vegan activist with an enormous presence on social media. His arguments range from outlining the ecological and economic consequences of relying on animal products to scrutinising society’s moral and spiritual relationship with animals in a way you might not expect from a YouTube activist. Aaron Bastani speaks to […]

Throughout the 20th century, as countries gained independence from the British Empire, there was a rightful sense of renewed agency. And yet, in the world of finance and global capital, many corporate structures of empire continue to exist. Ash Sarkar finds out why with Kojo Koram, author of Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of […]

In 2014, a mysterious letter detailing a plot by Muslim extremists to take over Birmingham schools caused a national scandal. No one seemed to know, or even care, who actually wrote the letter – but in The Trojan Horse Affair, rookie reporter Hamza Syed and S-Town producer Brian Reed go looking for answers. Ash Sarkar asks […]

How far would you go to get famous and escape poverty? Ash Sarkar is joined by Symeon Brown, Channel 4 News reporter and author of ‘Get Rich or Lie Trying: Ambition and Deceit in the New Influencer Economy’, to discuss how the democratic promise of the internet has reinvented the pyramid scheme. From cryptocurrencies to […]

In debates around the rights of transgender people, a charge often levelled at those fighting for trans inclusion is that their arguments rest on a denial of biological facts. In this episode of Downstream, Michael Walker speaks to biologist Julia Serano about what so-called gender critical thinkers get wrong about sex and gender, and whether […]

From ancient myths to the Batman trilogy, our storytelling culture is littered with villains embodied by disabled people and those with facial differences. Why does disability feature so heavily in our literary and cinematic traditions, and how has this hypervisibility had the ironic effect of erasing the experiences of disabled people? Ash Sarkar is joined […]

Do progressives spend enough time challenging the multiple oppressions disabled people face? Have we taken the time to properly understand the models and frameworks that disabled activists use to guide their action, and comprehend the world? And have we properly considered how an exploration of the experience and treatment of disabled people could enhance our […]

They are claimed from all sides and by all parties – but who are Britain’s ex-service personnel? What do they want? And what do their politics – whether conservative, liberal or socialist – tell us about Britain as a post-imperial country? Aaron Bastani speaks to Joe Glenton, journalist and author of Veteranhood.

From food scarcity to extreme weather, climate change will affect the lives of billions around the world. At what point are its future horrors unacceptable? And how should that shape climate politics now? Aaron Bastani speaks to Andreas Malm, author of How To Blow Up A Pipeline and White Skin, Black Fuel, about the limits […]

If neoliberalism is over, what comes after? Could this new political and economic moment end up turning right rather than left? Aaron Bastani speaks to sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo about his new book The Great Recoil, examining how ideas of protection, control and state intervention are replacing the previous orthodoxy of free market capitalism.

Aaron Bastani meets Nina Turner, co-chair of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, to discuss the American left under Biden, the prospect of Donald Trump running in 2024 and how American workers can build a more progressive politics.

At the Labour Party Conference last week, Ash Sarkar shared fish and chips on Brighton seafront with Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South. They talked about why being in the Labour Party is so hard right now, their experiences as Muslim women of colour on the left, how trans rights are dividing the party, and what’s […]

Is ‘consent’ the only dividing line between good sex and bad sex? Ash Sarkar is joined by Rachel Thompson to discuss her new book Rough and the politics of pornography, kink, and sex-ambivalent feminism.

Has the left forgotten how to have fun? Ash Sarkar is joined by #ACFM’s Jeremy Gilbert to discuss euphoria, liberation and wisdom in the rave.