After last week’s look at the politics of comedy, this time the gang turn to the gogglebox for a Microdose about sitcoms. Specifically, we’re watching comedy shows set in the workplace – from shoddy B&Bs to big-box superstores, from Wernham Hogg to Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. What lies beyond the double entendres and cheap sexism […]
The French left is in its most explosive state for a generation. In response to the pension reforms pushed through by Emmanuel Macron’s government, the Yellow Vests, unions, students and environmentalists alike are linking up their struggles. The tactical vocabulary has expanded: strikes and official protests have been supplemented by blockades, ‘wild demonstrations’ and power […]
What’s the point of comedy? Stand-ups were at the forefront of the cultural backlash against Thatcherism, but today’s meme-driven lols are rarely in the service of left-wing politics. Meanwhile, the world’s most powerful people seem intent on having a laugh, from podcasting politicians to presidential comedians. In this Trip, Jeremy Gilbert, Nadia Idle and Keir […]
In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the experiment of communist East Germany came to an end. Yet for a while it was a successful project, raising living standards against massive odds and providing stability for the first time in half a century. So is it time to reassess Europe’s most wealthy, and advanced […]
Despite the gains won by a century of feminism, the conveyor belt of normie life still pushes us towards the nuclear family and the picket fence. We can sense that our freedom is still limited by our material conditions – the prohibitive cost of housing, for instance – but is it also limited by our lack […]
Palestinians don’t often get to tell their own stories, and on the rare occasion they do it’s on highly limited terms. Ash Sarkar speaks to writer and poet Mohammed el-Kurd, Palestine correspondent for The Nation, about growing up in occupied territory and why journalists fail to tell the truth about Israel.
Since the 1950s, nuclear power has been met with a resounding “nein danke!” from many left-wing campaigners, even as it has become a fixture of the energy mix, powering 15% of the UK grid today – down from 25% in the 1990s. Supporters on the left say nuclear is a necessity if we stand a […]
Everyone rails against the elite, but who are they? The left would say it’s the billionaires, the media barons, the oil tycoons, and the 1% – those who control our economy, our housing, and basic necessities. However, the right increasingly insists on the existence of a “new elite” of woke corporations, “social justice warrior” celebrities, […]
What if Das Kapital was made into a Marvel movie, with a team of workers fighting the supervillain ‘Capital’? Or if Silvia Federici’s Wages Against Housework had been a kitchen sink drama? That’s roughly the proposition of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a slick new action movie based on Andreas Malm’s 2021 polemic. Heeding […]
What’s it going to take to save the planet? After another year of extreme temperatures and limp promises, climate activists are at a strategic crossroads. Extinction Rebellion has declared a shift away from disruptive tactics. Splinter groups like Just Stop Oil remain committed to direct action, even at huge personal cost. And in Germany, the […]
In The UK, the last few decades have shown the steepest decline in trust in the media globally, second only to Egypt. How did we get here? Is it as simple as Rupert Murdoch wielding his malice more fervently here then elsewhere? Or are there insidious cultural factors that meant our newspapers, and increasingly our […]
If we don’t believe that race is a scientific fact, why can’t we shake it off? The answer, according to Sita Balani, a lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, has to do with how race is made through sexuality, and sexuality through race – like the two sides of a Möbius strip. Drawing on […]
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.
The world is drowning in cops. From uniformed guards in supermarkets to private security contractors in war zones, policing is increasingly being carried out by companies, not states. Who are they protecting? William I. Robinson, professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, believes that the root of global over-policing is what he […]
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 […]
In the wake of another report depicting the Metropolitan Police as institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic, the idea of reform seems increasingly futile. Can the police ever be held to account? This week on Novara FM, we’re republishing James Butler’s conversation with Mark Neocleous, Professor of the Critique of Political Economy at Brunel University. Through […]
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.
From the epic of Gilgamesh to the archetypes of Carl Jung, the mysterious power of myth is at hand. Is Genesis as mythical as Oedipus? How did the fantasy of Brexit become a reality? And what stories underpin the emerging theory of Gilbertism? In this Trip, Jeremy, Nadia and Keir explore the alternate realities created […]
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 […]
What was the Enlightenment? A time of wigs, books and noble thoughts? Or was it a little more swashbuckling than that, and perhaps wearing an eye patch? The final book by David Graeber is concerned with pirates and their lives: nasty, brutish and short, for sure – but also free and strikingly egalitarian. In Pirate Enlightenment, […]
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 […]
The ACFM groupmind went into overdrive on last week’s Trip, a wide-ranging conversation about the long and violent history of strikes. This time, Nadia, Jem and Keir take a closer look at cultural representations of worker organisation – that is to say, they sat themselves down with a huge stack of old movies and an […]
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 […]
Are the police running out of excuses? Police wearing body cameras still kill unarmed Black people. Sexual violence remains rife after inquiries and exposés. As reforms fail, the case for much more than piecemeal change builds. But at the same time, capitalism seems to have run out of other ways to maintain social control. Real […]
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 […]
In the midst of Britain’s biggest wave of industrial action in years, the gang turn their attention to the long and bloodied history of strikes. Who do we find on the picket line? Nadia, Keir and Jeremy explore a lineage that stretches back hundreds of years, from matchgirls to miners, from 1840s century Chartists to […]
From Shell’s record profits to British Gas breaking into poor peoples’ homes, energy companies are taking us all for a ride. Plus: Rishi Sunak is epicly unpopular 100 days into his premiership; and economists aren’t heeding Hunt’s calls for positivity about the British economy. With Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani. __________________________________________ Support Novara Media for […]
500,000 public sector workers have taken part in the biggest strike action in a decade. Michael Walker speaks to Daniel Kebede from the NEU on why teachers are on strike, and to Dalia Gebrial about the significance of the day. __________________________________________ Support Novara Media for as little as £1 a month: https://novaramedia.com/support
