The Lowdown from Nick Cohen

Send us a textNick 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 and his divided rabble fester low down in the polls, waging their culture wars, while the country falls apart around them.John argues that people are crying out for real change and Labour has an opportunity to win big and stay in power. Will Keir Starmer grasp the opportunity and give people the change they want and that the UK desperately needs?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 cert to be the Republicans' nomination to run for the presidency in 2024, despite facing 91 felony charges.. Incredibly, despite trying to overturn the result of the 2020 general election and provoking the January 6th insurrection, Trump is running against the incumbent Joe Biden who is 80 now and will be 86 were he to survive a second stint in the White House.Trump himself is 78 but exudes a certain demonic energy in comparison with Biden whose age and unpopular running mate, Vice-President Harris Kamala Harris, could prove to be telling factors counting against a successful re-run.Nick asks Matt what can be done to save the US and the world from the undoubted calamity of a second Trump presidency?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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-style free trade agreements" with Canada! Every week, @chrisgreybrexit - also author of the book Brexit Unfolded - exposes the many absurdities, lies and disasters of the Brexit Britain clown show and explains how the Brexiteers' preposterous promises were never remotely deliverable and were always likely to cause huge damage to the UK's economy and standing in the world. For example, we should now be seeing the Silicon Valley of the East End's Hoxton - as promised by @DanielJHannan. Er...where is it?Both Chris and Nick lament the chronic failure of the BBC and other MSM to hold to account the charlatans like Hannan , Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage who mis-sold Brexit. But how can Labour handle the Brexit mess they are set to inherit when so many people who voted for it refuse to accept the mayhem they were conned into inflicting on all of us?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 - opting instead for psychopaths and incompetents - often a combination of the two - who practise "managerialism" rather than efficient management that prioritises the good over bad.All too often, today's hirers prize over-confidence - preferably relayed with private school tones - over quietly stated and competent management. The result is a UK - beset by management scandals - where nothing seems to work. Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 October 7th. Daniella talks about the extreme political voices in Israel today and the impact these are having on the current conflict in Gaza and on the region. Truth is often said to be the first casualty of war. So, what roles are misinformation and lies playing in the current conflict?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 reigns of Boris Johnson and Liz "The Lettuce" Truss have been followed by the Rishi Sunak sh1tsh0w.Exhausted and divided , and appealing only to headbangers in their own party, the Tories stagger on from one disaster to the next, desperately trying to limit the scale of the tsunami of voter retribution heading their way. How big will the defeat be or will they manage somehow to salvage enough of a base to threaten a come-back in the not-too-distance future?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 the US. He started adult life as a Marxist but later espoused causes that were labelled "neo-con" at the time.But what would "Hitch" have made of a topsy-turvy politics which has seen dangerous buffoons like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson come to power and the rise of an authoritarian right that Matt Johnson identifies as the posing the greatest current threat to Mankind? Nick and Matt discuss this endlessly fascinating and brilliant writer and wonder what on earth he would have made of it all.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 unexpected ways.Nevertheless, we are witnessing today a global decline in organised movements on the Left, and while social struggles continue to challenge dominant political regimes, these efforts do not translate into support for traditional left parties or into the creation of dynamic movements on the Left.Bestselling historian Shlomo Sand tells Nick that the global decline of the Left is linked to the waning of the idea of equality that has united citizens in the past and inspired them to engage in collective action. Professor Sand and Nick also discuss the current crisis in Israel and Gaza.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 civilians, and is leading to a humanitarian crisis.Daniella compares this latest violence with other conflicts that she has studied around the world.She and Nick try to make sense of the latest conflict between Israel and Palestinians, the prospect of peace between the 2 sides and examine the turbulent political situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories leading up to the lethal Hamas attack on Israel from October 7th.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 campaigners.Dodgy chancers from notorious warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin to the corrupt Robert Maxwell have found London courts law firms willing to abuse libel, data and privacy laws to ruin their critics and to deploy any tactics, including the use of private detectives and PR agencies.David Hooper explains that it is the crippling costs of defending such actions that pose such a threat to press freedom, freedom of speech and to the rule of Law in the UK.What can be done to counter this threat and why are solicitors and barristers being allowed to get away with such flagrant abuses of behalf of their often dubious clients, that have included sanction Russian oligarchs and even controversial former US presidents?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textThis 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 often suffer instances of antisemitism when there is conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Dave reports that such incidents have increased four-fold in the wake of the tragic and horrific Hamas attacks on Israel and the retaliatory strikes on Gaza by the Israeli military.But it seems only Jews suffer from this phenomenon. For example, Russians in the UK seemingly experience no such back-lash despite Putin's illegal attack and genocide against Ukraine. Why is antisemitism alive and kicking in the UK, both on the left and on the right, and what can be done to counter it?Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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 culture and institutions."Yascha tells Nick that advocates of this "Woke" ideology fixate on identity to the exclusion of all else, and that many reject “universal values and neutral rules like free speech and equal opportunity as mere distractions.” He argues that this ideology has grown ever more embedded in society - influencing many institutions.Right wing extremist supporters of Donald Trump are already manipulating fears over "The Great Awokening"" for the 2024 presidential elections in the hope that voters will see this revolutionary strain of identity politics as a threat to American values.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick 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's curse - its first-past-the -post electoral system has guaranteed virtual Tory hegemony for long periods of contemporary history, and the chronic decline of the country.James Hawes thinks PR could help transform the UK's political map, and its fortunes. But without it, the Tories will inevitably reassume power and continue their damaging revolt against Europe and the whole of the UK, leading inevitably to the eventual collapse of a 220 year old union.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textThis 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 done to prevent the UK's growing economic crisis? Is decline inevitable? Jonathan reveals how the UK's growth rate shrank by three-quarters following the 2008 crash. Now the country's annual growth rate is an anaemic half a percent with the economy projected to double every 120-140 years instead of the pre-2008 35-year period. Inevitably, Brexit's not helping as it hits trade and tax revenues. But there are other systemic failures.Jonathan says there's plenty of things a new Labour government could do - despite the calamity of Brexit - to try and run things around: build homes, reform social ansd tax policy plus up-date our dysfunctional and decrpit voting systemSupport the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textProfessor Tim Bale of the Queen Mary University of London is widely looked on as the UK's keenest academic observer of the Conservative Party. Tim's latest book The Conservative Party after Brexit (published by Polity) charts the Party's dizzying descent into populist and radical hard right Brexit populism. Have the Tories truly transmogrified into to the far right europhobic party they appear to be or are they merely aping one to appeal to the ageing reactionaries controlling local Tory constituencies, and, against the odds, cling onto power whatever the cost to the country?Tim Bale argues the Tories are almost certainly on the way out of power- and thatb Rushi Sunak doesn't appear to have what it takes to save them.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textRussia expert and author Dr Jade McGlynn joins Nick Cohen from Kyiv to talk about Ukraine's tragedy - a Russia that has been badly run by bad men - with a couple of rare exceptions here and there. And how this also happens to be Russia's tragedy. Jade explains how the recent "Mad March on Moscow" by Wagner militia mafioso Yevgeny Prigozhin is a symptom of Vladamir Putin's dysfunction and despotism, and how hatred flows now flows between Ukraine and Russia like drones and missiles.Jade McGlynn - widely acknowledged as a brilliant and insightful author and Russian observer - is the author of two recent landmark books relating to the tragedy now playing out in Ukraine - Russia's War, published by Pushkin House, and Memory Makers, just published by Bloomsbury. Memory Makers, The Politics of the past in Putin's Russia, is based on Jade's analysis since 2014 of the start of Russia's illegal incursions into Ukraine. The book examines how Russia's repeated misadventures into its neighbour's territories are driven by the obsessive lies and myths it's gaslit into believing by Putin, and too many of his predecessors.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textThe Lowdown from Nick Cohen this week examines the issue of race and diversity in the UK with the freelance writer and author Tom Owolade.Tom's brilliant and ground-breaking book This is not America - published by Atlantic - argues that too much of the debate about race in Britain has been viewed through the prism of American experiences and history. This prism fails to reflect the challenges – and achievements – of an increasingly diverse black British population and distorts how many people view the issue of race in the UK.Tom tells Nick that too few Brits understand the ethnic changes that are taking place in the UK or even the wide diversity of black British communities themselves, especially given the arrival of people from west and east Africa in recent years. Tom also believes class is a hugely important additional factor in the UK. Tom and Nick explore the significant differences in the history and experiences of black Brits and Black Americans. You can read Nick's assessment of Tom's important debut book in his Substack column, Writing from LondonSupport the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Send us a textNick Cohen speaks in depth about Britain's growing Brexit food crisis with Liz Webster from the campaigns, Save British Farming and Save British Food.#Brexit has already smashed food supply lines and jeopardised Britain's food security. Now new Brexit checks on EU imports scheduled for October look certain to lead to even more empty supermarket shelves and further fuel food inflation. Liz Webster explains how Brexit threatens to worsen even further Britain's already chronic food shortages, a crisis already exacerbated by climate change and Putin's illegal aggression against Ukraine.Support the showListen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.