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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from leading economist Danny Blanchflower CBE - onetime external member of the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee.

Danny foresaw economic woes mounting up in 2007 and predicted a crash - a year or so before the start of the bank collapses that led to the Great Recession. 

Since then, the Tories have visited on the country one failed economic project after another - austerity, Brexit, Trussanomics. Now the average Brit is forced to pay what's been called the "Moron Premium"  for their chronic incompetence - higher food prices, extortionate energy bills and more expensive mortgages, while a failing economy stagnates in recession.

The Tories have predictably descended into  in-fighting and sinister culture wars as they await their inevitable rout at the next election. But what can Labour do to pull the UK economy out of its current death spiral?

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown  from Professor Tim Bale of the Queen Mary University of London, who is widely looked on as the UK's keenest academic observer of the Conservative Party.

The Tories have been left reeling and predictably even more mutinous by their  catastrophic defeats in last week's two by-elections in their hitherto safe seats of Kingswood in south Gloucestershire and Wellingborough in north Northamptonshire.

Not only did they lose Kingswood with a 16.4 % swing, where Labour only needed a relatively modest 11-point swing. They also lost Wellingborough, where the swing was 28.5% - the second highest swing from Conservative to Labour in any post-war by-election.

Tim - @ProfTimBale - discusses the shatteringly few options now left open to an incompetent populist governing party that is becoming more and more loathed by voters.  Seemingly, all they have left to clutch are the meagre straws of their deranged Rwanda policy and the tattered flag of a failed Brexit project. So, will delaying Rishi Sunak's inevitable day of judgement only make a terrible situation even worse?

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. 

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from John McTernan, one-time political secretary to Tony Blair and seasoned political strategist and commentator.

How does Labour not only win but replace the Tories finally as the natural party of government? 

14 years of Tory misrule have brought the failed projects of Brexit and  austerity  and the Boris Johnson and Liz Truss shitshows. Now Rishi Sunak and his divided rabble fester low down in the polls, waging their culture wars, while the country falls apart around them.

John argues that people are crying out for real change and Labour has an opportunity to win big and stay in power. Will Keir Starmer grasp the opportunity and give people the change they want and that the UK desperately needs?

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown  from US journalist and author Matt Johnson on the threat posed - yet again - by Donald Trump and his deranged far right MAGA cult that has captured the Republican Party.

Matt - @mattjj89 - the author of  How Hitchens can save the Left, explains how there is little evidence so far of a  tangible centre-left coalition to confront Trump - who is a dead cert to be  the Republicans' nomination to run for the presidency in 2024, despite facing 91 felony charges.. 

Incredibly, despite trying to overturn the result of the 2020 general election and provoking the January 6th insurrection, Trump is running against the incumbent Joe Biden who is 80 now and will be 86 were he to survive a second stint in the White House.

Trump himself is 78 but exudes a certain demonic energy in comparison with Biden whose age and unpopular running mate, Vice-President Harris Kamala Harris, could prove to be telling factors counting against a successful re-run.

Nick asks  Matt what can be done to save the US and the world from the undoubted calamity of a second Trump  presidency?

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Nick Cohen gets the Lowdown on the UK's greatest taboo - the ever-deepening Brexit crisis - from Chris Grey, emeritus Professor @RoyalHolloway, and author of the highly-regarded and must-read blog,  Brexit and beyond.

Extra Brexit food checks come in from next week - threatening food price rises and shortages. Meanwhile, the Tories fail to get one of its promised "Canada-style free trade agreements" with Canada!

Every week, @chrisgreybrexit - also author of the book  Brexit Unfolded  - exposes the many absurdities, lies and disasters of the Brexit Britain clown show and explains how the Brexiteers' preposterous promises were never remotely deliverable and were always likely to cause huge damage to the UK's economy and standing in the world. For example,  we should now be seeing the Silicon Valley of the East End's Hoxton - as promised by @DanielJHannan. Er...where is it?

Both Chris and Nick lament the chronic failure of the BBC and other MSM to hold to account the charlatans like Hannan , Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage who mis-sold Brexit. 

But how can Labour handle the Brexit mess they are set to inherit when so many people who voted for it refuse to accept the mayhem they were conned into inflicting on all of us?

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Chris Dillow, the economist, and author of the Stumbling and Mumbling blog.

Chris -  @CJFDillow - is a keen commentator on  British managerialism - the curse of incompetence and privileged entitlement that led to the Post Office scandal and blights much of modern Britain today.

Chris explains how modern Britain seems to reject competent management - opting instead for psychopaths and incompetents - often a combination of the two - who practise "managerialism" rather than efficient management that prioritises the good over bad.

All too often, today's hirers prize over-confidence - preferably relayed with private school tones - over quietly stated and competent management.  

The result is a UK - beset by management scandals - where nothing seems to work. 

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Daniella Peled, Managing Editor of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, on the terrible conflict in Gaza .

At a time when South Africa is bringing its genocide case against israel before the International Court of Justice, Daniella discusses with Nick the allegations of Israel's war crimes as well as the crimes committed by Hamas on October 7th. 

Daniella talks about the extreme political voices in Israel today and the impact these are having on the current conflict in Gaza and on the region. Truth is often said to be the first casualty of war. So, what roles are misinformation and lies playing in the current conflict?

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from Professor Rob Ford of Manchester University on the epic civil war looming in a 2024 general election on the radical right of British politics between the Tories and Nigel Farage's latest vehicle for fantasy politics - Reform.

Brexit, Liz Truss, crippling interest rate rises, a flat-lining economy  with booming immigration, and the cost of living crisis are just a few of the disasters visited on the UK by the radical right since the 2016 EU referendum.

Rob explains the differences between the far right right and the radical right. Rob, a leading academic and author of Revolt on the Right, explains how the Tories are caught on the horns of a dilemma. 

Do the Tories continue apeing Faragist politics and continue to alienate traditional middle class Tory voters in the key battlegrounds of the Home Counties? Or do they try to tack to the centre and upset the ageing crackpots in their constituency parties and their Red Wall working class one-time Brexit supporters?  Are they in danger of alienating both groups and everyone else in between?

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Nick Cohen gets the end of the year Lowdown from author, historian and novelist James Hawes as both contemplate the prospects of a general election in 2024.

The last 13-14 years of Tory misrule has brought the successive disasters of austerity, Brexit, Boris Johnson, the Great Covid Bungle,  Lettuce Truss , the  so called Cost of Living Crisis, a crisis hugely exacerbated by Brexit. The list goes on and on - but Nick and James hope that won't apply to the Tories.

Nick is more hopeful of the electoral wipe-out the Tories richly deserve but James is more cautious,  believing that somehow the tribal English Tory vote will rally to the clarion lies of The Daily Mail  - despite the obvious weirdness of Rishi Sunak and the cataclysmic mis-governance .of the last 13 and a half years

Both agree the defeat of the Tories - now little more than an English nationalist party - isimperative  if the UK is to rescued from its dizzying descent to poverty and irrelevance or even saved in its current form.

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Nick Cohen gets The Lowdown from barrister and writer Colin Yeo on the Tories' never ending Rwanda farce and the dog's breakfast they have made of the UK's asylum & immigration regime.

When the UK flounced out of the European Union, it also walked away from a returns policy that meant asylum seekers could be returned to the first safe EU country they arrived in.

Now the Tories are stuck with the preposterous and performatively cruel policy of exporting refugees to Rwanda which they desperately hope will deter future asylum seekers.  However,  they have  been thwarted by the courts so far. Now, they squabble among themselves about how to get their madcap scheme off the ground and dream of getting just one refugee on the plane to Kigali!

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Listen to The Lowdown from Nick Cohen for in-depth analysis of the issues and events that shape our lives and futures. From Ukraine to Brexit, from Trump to the Tories - we hope to keep you informed - and sane! @NickCohen4