The Lowdown from Nick Cohen

Get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen as he investigates a world that seems to get ever more crazy, with leading commentators, columnists and politicians.

Each week, leading commentator Nick Cohen talks to the country's leading movers and shakers - to cut the through much of the noise and commentary that passes for so much political discourse these days. Nick - a long-term columnist for The Observer and The Spectator - teams up with other commentators, journalists, authors and politicians to make sense of our ever stranger and troubling world. Nick aims to help keep you sane! So please get The Lowdown from Nick Cohen and subscribe to his Substack column - Writing from London.

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Episodes

Ep 16: War and peace in the Middle East with journalist Daniella Peled of Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Send us a text Nick 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...

Oct 21, 2023•30 min•Season 1Ep. 16

Ep17: SLAPP BACK! How the rich abuse British courts with lawyer & author David Hooper

Send us a text Nick 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...

Oct 21, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 17

Ep 15: Israel, Hamas and the threat to Britain's Jews with antisemitism expert Dave Rich

Send us a text This 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 r...

Oct 12, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 15

Ep 14: The Ascent of Woke with Yascha Mounk

Send us a text Nick 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 fixa...

Oct 05, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 14

Ep 12: The Tory South & its revolt against the UK with James Hawes

Send us a text Nick 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 p...

Sep 23, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 12

Ep 11: The Stagnation nation - is the UK's decline unstoppable? with Profesor Jonathan Portes

Send us a text This 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 U...

Sep 13, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 11

Ep. 9: Wither and whither the Tories? With author & Conservative Party expert - Professor Tim Bale

Send us a text Professor 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...

Jul 24, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 9

Ep 8: From Russia with hate - the hang-up of history with Jade McGlynn

Send us a text Russia 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 ...

Jul 02, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8

EP 7: Race in the UK and the US - with Tomiwa Owolade

Send us a text The 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 distor...

Jun 26, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 7

Ep 3: Britain's growing food crisis with Liz Webster

Send us a text Nick 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 alread...

May 28, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 3

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