Novara Media

Has the left misunderstood the state of our nation? Sociologist and trade unionist Dan Evans thinks so. He talks to Aaron about the unexpected power of the petty bourgeoisie – the insecure class between the working class and the bourgeoisie – and how its Thatcherite values of home ownership and entrepreneurialism have reshaped British politics in the last few decades.

They also discuss the political culture of Dan’s hometown in South Wales, what Corbynism got wrong about class, why university graduates are facing downward mobility and – perhaps inevitably – the state of the Labour Party.

Dan’s book, A Nation of Shopkeepers: The Unstoppable Rise of The Petty Bourgeoisie, is out now from Repeater.

The global meat industry has grown fivefold since the 1960s and is still growing. Yet sales of vegan and so-called ‘plant-based’ alternatives are soaring, as more of us question our relationship with meat and our attitudes towards animal life and the planet’s health.

In her provocative new book Meat Love, writer Amber Husain plucks examples from Greek tragedy to bourgeois restaurant culture to interrogate our most well-meaning assumptions, revealing the empty promise of “ethical” meat. Does eating the whole animal make killing it OK? Can you really love a creature and send it to be slaughtered? And why would Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall want to cosplay as a peasant?

Amber tells Eleanor Penny about the cultural conditions that sustain our desire for flesh while devaluing both human and animal life.

Since 2016 we’ve seen mainstream politics take a turn for the weird, epitomised by the surprise success of populist projects like Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Since then, fringe views have continued to muscle into the middle ground, with conspiracy theories and far-right talking points trickling into political discourse.

Julia Ebner has been charting this shift through her undercover work for years, infiltrating neo-Nazis, jihadists and Covid-sceptics to find out how ideas spread, as detailed in her books Going Dark and, most recently, Going Mainstream.

She joins Aaron to talk about how sceptics become extremists, the rise of Andrew Tate, and what it was like to be on the receiving end of Tommy Robinson’s hate campaign.

Once upon a time we dreamed of a world free from household drudgery, helped by robot butlers, self-cleaning appliances and “smart” homes that saved energy and tidied after themselves. Yet despite decades of high-tech innovation in the home, we’ve barely reduced our workload – and no one’s managed to automate the folding of laundry.

So why is household labour stuck in the past? If technology won’t save us, what kind of political fix will? And why does the list of chores just keep getting longer? These are some of the questions explored by Helen Hester and Nick Srnicek in their new book, After Work: A History of the Home and the Fight for Free Time.

Eleanor Penny visited Helen and Nick at home in Surrey to discuss the impact of automation on our domestic lives, the fixation on the nuclear family, the possibility of public luxury, and how raising their own family has informed their thinking on the promise of the post-work society.