Send us a text Nick 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. Exha...
Dec 09, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Send us a text Nick 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...
Dec 02, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Send us a text Nick 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 Le...
Nov 19, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 19
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
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
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
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 fixate on identity to the exclusio...
Oct 05, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 14
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 periods of ...
Sep 23, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 12
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 UK's growth rate shra...
Sep 13, 2023•29 min•Season 1Ep. 11
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 controlling lo...
Jul 24, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 9
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 like drones and missiles....
Jul 02, 2023•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8
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 distorts ho...
Jun 26, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 7
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 already chronic food ...
May 28, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 3
