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Iran has been in the news a lot in 2025. Over recent decades, it has been a variable in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. But during the Twelve Day War with Israel in June of this year, Iran very much took centre stage. People started asking questions, chief among them being: What does Iran really want? On Downstream this week is Vali Nasr, professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and author of a new book, Iran’s Grand Strate...
The Gaza Strip, home to 2.2 million people, is a tiny land mass about the same size as the Isle of Wight. Yet in terms of munitions by weight, Gaza has been subjected to more than all of the bombs dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined, over the whole of World War II. Another even more terrifying statistic: in Ukraine, after two years of conflict, there were around 30 cases of child amputees. In Gaza, there were a thousand cases of child amputation in two months. This October marked tw...
Just over two years after the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, and just days after the announcement of a ceasefire, Aaron Bastani spoke to three Palestinian writers in front of a live audience at EartH in Hackney. Ahmed Alnaouq is the host of Palestine Deep Dive and the co-founder of ‘We Are Not Numbers’, an organisation that provides international mentors for Palestinian writers. Yara Eid is a war journalist, born and raised in Gaza, who has worked for Amnesty International and been published...
Amid the bumpy launch of a new left-wing party and the rise of the Greens and Reform, the ACFM crew turn their attention to parties. Do we still need them? Do parties work by drawing people together, or by excluding the uninvited? And should a political party have anything in common with a dance party? Nadia, Keir and Jem discuss, with reference to the Paris Commune, Unite the Right, Abigail’s Party and Jem’s own party, Beauty and the Beat , and music from Fred Wesley and The Beastie Boys. Find ...
Artificial intelligence is set to be one of the most disruptive technologies this century. For some, a machine capable of augmenting its own intelligence is a matter of time — and could even arrive within a decade. This week’s guest is philosopher and author William MacAskill. One of the leading thinkers in the Effective Altruism movement, MacAskill is the author of several highly influential books, including Doing Good Better and What We Owe The Future . His work explores not only on how to liv...
Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance , a memoir about the women in Yanis’ family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience. They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as well as women? Did Tony Blair do more to privatise Britain than Margaret Thatcher? Does Keir Starmer have a plan? And how does fascism end up de...
In the summer of 2024, hotels sheltering Muslim asylum seekers across Britain were attacked by violent mobs. A year later, as the summer of 2025 drew to a close, a far-right demonstration of 100,000 people marched through London, bearing St George’s flags and led by Tommy Robinson. On Downstream this week is Myriam François, a broadcaster and journalist, whose conversion to Islam 20 years ago has profoundly shaped her life in Britain. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she tells the story of how s...
After last week’s ACFM Trip to the Future, Jem and Keir reconvene to talk about science fiction. Is sci-fi a reaction to the “time-space compression” of the present? Is it inherently progressive? How did dystopian and paranoids visions of the future come to dominate sci-fi? Was Arthur C. Clarke an early acid communist? Find all the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build people-powered medi...
It’s almost 10 years since Britain voted to leave the EU, and we’re still dealing with the consequences. In his new book, Between The Waves, Politico’s chief UK political correspondent Tom McTague argues that the journey to Brexit really began with Enoch Powell, before be taken up by his political heir, Nigel Farage. He talks to Aaron Bastani about how the dissolution of empire shape Britain’s relationship to Europe, how the Labour party switched from Eurosceptic to Europhile, and what Farage le...
What if we stopped treating the future like a speculative asset and started trying to actually build and prepare? The ACFM gang look to the horizon in this Trip episode. Did young people always worry so much about their futures? Has the currency of emergency been devalued? Does conservatism have an idea of the future? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder what’s next with ideas from Max Weber and Kate Raworth, and music from LTJ Bukem and FKA twigs. Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://n...
What were the ancient alternatives to democracy? Did people in the Bronze Age forget how to write – or deliberately stop? And what’s the use in studying ancient languages? In a Downstream IRL recorded at EartH Hackney, Aaron Bastani speaks to Josephine Quinn, Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge University, about some lesser-known aspects of the ancient world, as explored in her book How the World Made the West. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support...
What can the collapse of the Ottoman Empire teach us about the danger of the current discourse around migration? ‘Re-migration’ is not a new concept conjured up by the far-right, but rather something that would be familiar to many Europeans of a century ago. What would those involved in these tragedies think of the direction in which the world is heading? To answer these questions and more, Aaron Bastani is joined by Lea Ypi, Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics and au...
Professor Jason Hickel challenges the political consensus that economic growth is universally good, instead positing that the relentless pursuit of GDP growth drives humanity towards climate catastrophe and exacerbates social inequalities. He highlights the disproportionate impact of climate change on the Global South, emphasizing climate injustice and the role of capitalism in misallocating productive capacity for profit over human and ecological needs. Hickel advocates for a socialist approach with democratic control over production and public investment to achieve rapid decarbonization and meet essential social objectives.
Are gardens a sanctuary or an enclosure? The ACFM gang sketch out a weird-left history of gardening, from the walled gardens of paradise to the tarmacked lawns of suburban Britain. Find the books, music and Dunmore Pineapple mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support
Dan Wang is a technology analyst and author whose life experience, spent partly in North America, partly in China, sets him up as an authoritative observer of the differences and similarities between the American and Chinese empires. In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Wang shares his thesis that elite overproduction of engineers in China, and lawyers in America, can explain the traits of each empire as they face down the 21st century, from high speed rail and housing, to lockdown policy and man...
Owen Jones is a journalist and the author of ‘Chavs’, ‘The Establishment’, and ‘This Land’. He has spent the last 21 months relentlessly reporting and commenting on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. He joins Ash Sarkar to talk about how media bias actually works, the history of the West’s support for Zionism, and how to deal with the weaponisation of antisemitism when it’s done to support a genocide.
Ash Sarkar sat down at EartH Hackney with acclaimed historian and author William Dalrymple. Picking up where they left off last time they spoke on Downstream, Sarkar and Dalrymple had a wide-ranging conversation at the crossroads of empire, resistance, and the long shadows of colonialism. From the rich histories traced in The Golden Road to the urgent realities of Gaza and the deeper fault lines of South Asia’s past, this was a discussion that cut across centuries—and continents. Dalrymple broug...
Novara FM was Novara Media’s first show – it’s now coming to an end. On the final episode, Richard Hames sat down with Aaron Bastani, James Butler and Ash Sarkar to talk about 15 years of Novara Media. What have we learned from a decade and a half fighting a media landscape that insists nothing can ever change? A new product will launch next month. Animated by the same complexity and depth as Novara FM, it will be available both on this podcast feed and YouTube.
Dr Eliza Filby is a historian and author of the bestselling book Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad . In conversation with Ash Sarkar, Dr Filby draws on her own life story, growing up in South London with parents who went from communists to Thatcherites in the 1980s. She debunks the common myths we tell ourselves about class and meritocracy, and in doing so, shines a light on the root cause of so much inequality: inherited wealth. Is it really true that the Baby Boome...
Keir Starmer claims that growth is the only cure for a country in decline. But why is it the central obsession of modern capitalist economies? And can we think our way out of it before our planet runs out of resources? Nadia, Keir and Jem offer their weird-left take on growth, degrowth, radical abundance, ecomodernism and personal productivity, with ideas from Kate Soper and Kohei Saito and music from Minnie Riperton, 7 Samurai and Joanna Newsom. Find the books and music mentioned in the show: h...
This interview would once have been illegal to broadcast in the UK. For many, Gerry Adams is a peacemaker, but for others he remains inseparable from the violence and trauma of the Troubles. Ash Sarkar travels to the James Connolly Centre in West Belfast to talk to Adams about the slow rise of his party, Sinn Féin, the emotional demands of leading a political movement, and his responsibility to the victims of IRA violence. Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support...
Is the UK still a liberal country? With terrorism laws criminalising speech around Palestine Action, it’s a serious question. A growing gulf between public opinion and state policy on Gaza reveals a liberal order in decline. Richard Hames spoke to Simon Childs about where our society is going.
The Silk Road has dominated the way we imagine the trading relationship between Europe and Asia to have worked in antiquity. In his new book, The Golden Road, William Dalrymple busts that myth. He sat down with Ash to talk about the origins of algebra, Indian gems in Anglo-Saxon Britain and why Genghis Khan was scared of India. You can see Ash and William live in conversation at EartH Hackney on the 29th July: https://dice.fm/event/92dq5d-downstream-irl-ash-sarkar-in-conversation-with-william-da...
Michael Lewis is an American author, journalist, and former bond trader. His best-known book, The Big Short, explains the 2000s US housing bubble and helped many people understand the 2008 financial crisis. In this interview, Lewis speaks with Aaron Bastani about his latest book, a collection of essays on federal government employees. Lewis finds that many of these workers are actually doing a good job, far from the stereotype of inefficient bureaucrats and the ire the likes of Trump and Musk di...
Following their Trip episode about Cleaning , the ACFM crew take a closer look at the hidden labour that keeps the economy running. Would public canteens solve 80% of our problems? Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support
Blindboy is an artist, podcaster, and author. His storytelling style weaves anti-colonial histories with perspectives on modern masculinity, politics, and mental health, all cut with an absurdist sense of humour. In public Blindboy wears a mask made from a plastic bag, maintaining anonymity while developing a cult following as a podcaster. In this interview, Blindboy delves into the historical connections between Ireland and Palestine, going as far back as the 1920s when the two countries were o...
The Trump Administration’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ will fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the tune of $45bn – a staggering increasing. But the fight back has already started. The 2025 protests in LA sought to slow down enforcement of increasingly draconian migration rules. Harsha Walia is the co-founder of ‘No One is Illegal’ and author of Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. She spoke to Eleanor Penny about the global fight against bord...
As AI begins to fundamentally alter our lives, we’re in urgent need of expert voices who both understand how the technology works and are capable of scrutinising its effects. In her new book, Empire of AI, tech reporter and former Silicon Valley engineer Karen Hao debunks the myths that surround AI and exposes the true costs of this global industry. She speaks to Aaron about Sam Altman’s origin story, the traumatising nature of content moderation work, and the striking similarities between Open ...
In the socialist utopia of our dreams, who exactly is doing the cleaning? Nadia, Jem and Keir confront a tricky topic in this ACFM Trip. With music from X-Ray Spex, The B-52s and more, they offer their weird-left perspective on everything from dirty dishes and bodily secretions to circumcision, pollution and the caste system. Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters Follow our ever-expanding play...
Escalation towards war with Iran has hit a pause. But for how long? Eskandar Sadeghi is the author of R evolution and its Discontents: Political Thought and Reform in Iran . He joined Richard Hames to explain the strategy and history of this conflict – and what it means for the future of geopolitics. And, of course, remember that the purpose of this war was to distract us from the Gaza Genocide.
