Novara Media

From his early career following Nelson Mandela on the campaign trail to his stint as US correspondent for the Guardian, Gary Younge has long been one of the most thoughtful and compassionate voices on the British left.

He joins Ash Sarkar to discuss his eventful career in journalism, his experiences of reporting in Soviet Russia, the current crisis facing the Labour Party and the time he spent 13 hours getting drunk with Maya Angelou.

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Born and raised on an ‘overspill’ estate in Birmingham, the writer Lynsey Hanley has experienced what a politician would call social mobility. In her books on housing estates and the British class system, she uses her own life to think through the psychosocial dimensions of crossing the class divide.

In the third episode of our series on class, Lynsey talks to Juliet Jacques about whether anything like social mobility is possible in Britain today. They discuss autodidactism, the political impact of ’80s pop, and how squatting, grants and the dole briefly subsidised a flowering of working class culture.

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In his new book, ‘Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism’, Yanis Varoufakis explores how giant tech firms, both in the US and China are expanding their control over the planet. His analysis is that, whilst material resources certainly matter, the real battle ground is over digital real estate. Aaron sat down with Yanis to talk about how Europe’s power has faded, Elon Musk’s wet dreams and why the US is really afraid of China.

Last month it was revealed that 98% of Europeans are breathing toxic air. We’re slowly realising that the modern world is covered in the dust of environmental devastation, from particle air pollution to nuclear fallout and dried-up lakes. And as life on Earth gets hotter and drier, it’s going to get even dustier.

As Jay Owens tells Eleanor Penny, dust might seem like nothing much at all, but only by paying attention to the tiniest particles can we really understand the scale of our impact on the planet and our own health. From 15th century sea coal fumes to fires at the Foxconn factory, Jay draws attention to the unequal horrors of pollution over centuries of capitalist production.

Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles is published by Hachette.

When we were in lockdown, conspiracy theorists went on the march. The emergence of anti-vaccine scaremongering coupled with virulent antisemitism was disconcerting for all of us.

But it was even more nuts for renowned journalist and author Naomi Klein, who noticed that she was being constantly getting mixed up with another author: Naomi Wolf. Klein found herself drawn into a strange mirror world as she tracked her doppelganger’s journey from feminist academic and liberal darling to gun-toting anti-vaxxer and friend of Steve Bannon.

Ash sat down with Naomi to talk about her unusually personal new book, the environmental consequences of Barbie and the current state of antisemitism. ‘Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World’ is out now via Penguin.

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For the second episode of our series on class, writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik takes us through three centuries of thought to explain the origins of identity politics.

It all starts with Haitian Revolution and its contribution to the radical Enlightenment – a movement that sought to overcome the racism inherent in the other, liberal Enlightenment.

Malik explains how this schism is at the root of our present day confusion about race, and makes the anti-racist case against identity politics in conversation with hosts Juliet Jacques and John Merrick.

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Music by Matt Huxley. Produced by Richard Hames and Chal Ravens.

Nick Dearden has been an economic justice campaigner for over 20 years, and his attention was on the pharmaceutical industry when Covid-19 hit. But as the world began to sing the praises of pharmaceutical companies, Nick saw an unprecedented PR coup. Giant corporations capitalised on the crisis, tightening their stranglehold over the health of the poor.

Nick sat down with Aaron Bastani to explain how ‘Big Pharma’ is run like a hedge fund, why the contracts between the government and Pfizer were redacted, and who’s scrambling to patent magic mushrooms.

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The politics of ‘deep adaptation’ is as intriguing as it is controversial. Jem Bendell, a former professor of sustainability leadership, launched the Deep Adaptation movement in 2018 by claiming that social collapse is not just a plausible outcome of climate change, but an extremely likely one.

He sat down with Richard Hames in Berlin to talk about the impact of his ideas on the movement, the promise of eco-libertarianism, the necessity of gallows humour in a crisis, and whether there is a climate politics beyond “doomerism”.

Jem’s new book is ‘Breaking Together: A Freedom-Loving Response to Collapse’.

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Rory Stewart has led a colourful life: diplomat in Indonesia, governor in post-invasion Iraq, founder of an NGO and a Member of Parliament. He’s also run for London Mayor and leader of the Conservative Party. But his latest occupation is podcaster, hosting ‘The Rest is Politics’ with Alastair Campbell. Rory sat down with Ash Sarkar to discuss his admiration for Jeremy Corbyn, why Tony Blair was wrong about Iraq and Afghanistan, and what makes the left think all conservatives are ‘evil’.