New Economics Podcast

By New Economics Foundation

What's New Economics Podcast about?

Award-winning podcast about the economic forces shaping our world, with Ayeisha Thomas-Smith and guests. Brought to you by the New Economics Foundation – the independent think tank and charity campaigning for a fairer, sustainable economy.

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New Economics Podcast episodes:

04.10.2024
Should we be going for growth?
Britain’s favourite broadcaster David Attenborough once said: “Anyone who thinks you can have infinite growth in a finite environment is either a madman - or an economist.” But our political leaders don’t seem to agree. Both our major political parties have...
03.08.2024
Spring budget reaction
We’re waiting longer than ever for hospital appointments, our kids’ schools are literally crumbling, and homelessness has sky-rocketed in the past year. This week’s spring budget was a vital chance for chancellor Jeremy Hunt to respond to the huge problems...
02.29.2024
Can capitalism save the climate
Worried about your carbon emissions? Don’t stress! You can pump out as much as you want - as long as you buy some offsets to balance it out. Scared of the collapse of wildlife? No problem! We can figure out...
02.13.2024
Introducing the new chief executive of NEF
It’s 2024 and in Westminster an election is at the forefront of everyone’s minds. Step back a little further and across the UK millions of us are more concerned with how we’ll afford to pay their sky-high rent or energy...
06.19.2023
Why antiracism means anticapitalism
The Metropolitan Police’s diversity and inclusion strategy claims it is determined to “eliminate racism and discrimination”. But the force was branded ‘institutionally racist’, and not for the first time, in an official report this spring. Recently, a Met firearms officer...
06.06.2023
Why asset managers own the world
This spring, swimmers in Kent were told to avoid ten beaches in the county due to sewage leaks. Public outrage at sewage pouring into our rivers and beaches has so far focused on water companies. But is someone else to...
05.22.2023
A crisis of caregiving
The friend who has to cancel plans to look after their elderly mum. The colleague who leaves their phone on loud so they don’t miss a call about their disabled child. The neighbour you’ve barely seen since their partner’s diagnosis....
05.10.2023
Should we all be troublemakers at work?
As the chancellor stood up in Parliament to present his spring budget in March, half a million people went on strike to demand better from their bosses. Teachers, junior doctors, Tube drivers, civil servants and more all walked out of...
04.24.2023
Have we been conned by consultants?
Nurses struggling without PPE, the frantic search for hospital ventilators, even the dreaded ping from NHS test-and-trace. To most of us, these memories represent some of the worst of the Covid pandemic. But for a select few companies, they were...
04.07.2023
How we can all have a home
You can’t paint your walls, you can’t have a pet, you can’t guarantee you’ll have somewhere to live in six months time. Millions of us are paying sky-high rents but struggling to make a home in a housing system where...
03.13.2023
Right to Roam
On a sunny day in January, a ghostly figure covered in green ribbons appeared on a moor in south-west England. It was a person dressed as Old Crockern, the guardian spirit of Dartmoor. He was greeted by 3000 people who...
02.27.2023
The UK's political battlegrounds
Last year the UK had three different prime ministers, four different chancellors and five different housing ministers. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's first minister for close to a decade, recently announced her resignation - and it’s not clear who will replace her....
11.07.2022
How we win a new economy - changing the rules
Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in September 2022. Over the last five episodes we’ve looked at how the UK is being torn apart. Our economy is built on huge inequalities: between working people and big business, between families and...
10.28.2022
How we win a new economy - fighting for our human rights
Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in September 2022. This summer, on a small road in south-east London, a crowd of people prevented immigration officers from detaining a local man. Protestors sat on the ground in front of the van...
10.14.2022
How we win a new economy - fixing the housing crisis with social homes
Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in September 2022. The cost of living scandal could force 1.7 million households into homelessness this winter, according to the charity Crisis. In the UK, we can no longer rely on social housing to...
09.30.2022
How we win a new economy - solving the cost of living and climate crises together
Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in August 2022. 2022: a year of extremes. During the 40 degree summer heat, roads melted and railway lines buckled. The London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since the Blitz as record temperatures...
09.16.2022
How we win a new economy – a hot strike summer?
Note to listeners: this episode was prerecorded in August 2022. As the first week of rail strikes came to an end in June, Google searches for the phrase “join union” had increased by 184%. News channels and politicians didn’t seem...
09.02.2022
How we win a new economy - the end of neoliberalism?
In this mini-series of the New Economics Podcast, we’ll discover how our economy has been run over the past few years - and look at the key battlegrounds for those fighting to change the rules. Over the last few years, neoliberalism...
05.30.2022
How did the British Empire write the rules of today’s economy?
Outside of the frenzied headlines about woke warriors cancelling Jane Austen and stately homes, we’re living in a period of renewed consideration of Britain’s colonial history. The British Empire began before the English Civil War, and shaped our country for 400...
05.16.2022
Who owns the internet?
What do you get the guy who has everything? A 44 billion dollar social media platform apparently. Elon Musk has already been accused of union busting, shot a car into space, and become the world’s richest man. So what’s next...
05.03.2022
What did Covid-19 reveal about how our economy is really run?
In the early months of the pandemic, the government shut down whole sectors of the economy and started paying the wages of a huge proportion of Brits. Some worked from home, juggling homeschooling their kids and figuring out how to...
04.19.2022
What does the Sunak scandal tell us about our tax system?
A few weeks ago the chancellor presided over a spring budget which ushered in the fastest drop in living standards on record, as he told us that we “can’t protect everyone”. But this week it was revealed that his wife...
04.04.2022
The UK's response to the refugee crisis
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, over 4 million people have fled the country. Earlier this month Priti Patel announced a visa application centre had been established en route to Calais for Ukrainians trying to come to the...
03.21.2022
Are fossil fuels funding the war in Ukraine?
At the time of recording, hundreds, and possibly thousands, of civilians have been killed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and more than 2.5m Ukranians have fled the country. The Russian army has been accused of war crimes after bombing a...
03.07.2022
Tackling the cost of living crisis
2022 has been dubbed the ‘year of the squeeze’ by the Resolution Foundation. In April, soaring energy bills will collide with tax increases for working people. Last month grocery prices rose at their fastest rate in eight years, and inflation...
02.21.2022
Tackling the energy crisis
Families are bracing for less and less money to get by as energy bills rise this spring. In the fifth richest country in the world, pensioners are skipping meals so they can afford their heating bills, and parents are only...
11.29.2021
Closing the Covid-19 vaccination gap
Coronavirus cases are once again rising in Europe and across the world. The World Health Organisation has said that countries shouldn’t be giving out booster jabs for the rest of the year, but in the UK we’re offering third shots...
11.19.2021
The future of work
A record number of employees have quit their jobs in recent months, in what’s been dubbed the Great Resignation. Newspapers report that it’s part of post-Covid demand for flexible working and better work life balance. After last year, where up to...
11.12.2021
Is our digital economy breeding misogyny?
In August this year Jake Davison, a 22-year-old from Plymouth, went on a shooting rampage that left six dead, including his mother and himself. In the aftermath it emerged that Davison had been a member of ‘incel’ forums online. He’s...
11.05.2021
Trans Liberation
If you read mainstream media coverage of the issues facing transgender people in the UK, you’ll see a lot of fevered discussion of pronouns, bathroom access, and confusing legislation like the Gender Recognition Act. The media tells one story -...
10.26.2021
Is austerity back?
At the height of the pandemic, politicians promised to do whatever it took to keep the economy going, and introduced emergency support like the furlough scheme. But now those measures have been cut and the conversation has turned to “fixing...
10.15.2021
What really happens at a UN climate summit?
In a few weeks’ time, 25,000 people will descend on Glasgow. They are coming for the UN climate summit, also known as Cop26. The delegates might not have the pleasure of sampling the city’s mac-and-cheese pies or a dram of...
10.08.2021
The Great Homes Upgrade
The UK has the draughtiest and oldest housing in Western Europe. And our gas boilers pump out twice as much carbon dioxide as all of the country’s power stations. Do we need to upgrade the UK’s homes? Why is our housing...
10.01.2021
Can we prevent living standards plummeting this winter?
Over 11m people have been furloughed in the last 16 months, and almost 6m are currently on universal credit. But over the next week, the government’s main emergency policies to help people through the pandemic will end. People on furlough...
08.13.2021
Where did our immigration system come from?
This week a controversial deportation flight took off for Jamaica. Legal challenges meant that only a tenth of the 90 people due to be deported were on the plane. The planned deportation included people whose lawyers said they had a...
08.06.2021
Fighting the climate crisis in the courts
With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re spending five episodes this series looking at pressing climate issues. In this episode we’re talking about taking the fossil fuel industry to court. Last week, a government spokesperson said...
08.03.2021
Fast Fashion
With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re spending five episodes this series looking at pressing climate issues. In this episode we’re talking fast fashion. Summer is here and Love Island is all over the telly. The...
07.23.2021
How can we tackle the climate crisis while levelling up?
With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re spending five episodes this series looking at some of the biggest climate issues. In this episode we’re talking about a just transition. Last week, the prime minister travelled to...
07.09.2021
A climate conversation between two generations
With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re going to spend five episodes this series looking at some of the biggest climate issues. We kicked things off last week with Alice Bell explaining everything you need...
07.02.2021
Greenwashing
With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re going to spend the next five episodes of the podcast looking at some of the biggest climate issues – starting this week with greenwashing. Last month 20 young people...
06.18.2021
The Police Bill
Throughout the spring, hundreds of thousands of people across the country marched, signed petitions, and spoke out against the catchily-titled Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Critics say the Bill would curb our freedom of speech and assembly by giving...
06.11.2021
Culture Wars
This week, the front page of the Daily Mail screamed “Outrage as Oxford students plan to axe queen”. In reality, a group of postgrads voted to take down a portrait of the queen in a single common room, in a...
04.01.2021
What will Biden’s America look like?
There’s a new president in the Oval Office and he’s ready to make some changes. Joe Biden wants the start of his presidency to be defined by rejoining the Paris climate agreement, vaccinating the country against Covid-19, and pulling the...
03.19.2021
Changing the rules of our economy to stop environmental breakdown
There are just eight months left until the UK hosts the UN Climate Conference. And despite Boris Johnson’s insistence that we will have a green recovery from the pandemic, in the last month there have been a number of climate...
03.12.2021
How can we make sure everyone has enough to live on?
Last week a video circulated of 800 people queuing for a food bank in Wembley. Volunteers at the London Community Kitchen said that the number was not uncommon. In Rishi Sunak’s recent budget, he announced that the furlough scheme and...
03.08.2021
Why should we care what big tech does with our data?
From the A-level algorithm scandal, to parents taking on YouTube, to making Facebook and Google pay for news, people are fighting back against the way big tech companies and governments use our data. So what are companies like Google and...
03.02.2021
What's Brexit done to fishing and farming?
We were supposed to have cast off the shackles of EU rules around farming and fishing. Brexit was sold as a ‘sea of opportunity’. And yet, tonnes of British meat have been left rotting at European ports, while Scottish fishers...
02.15.2021
Vaccine Nationalism
By the middle of January, 49 wealthy countries had administered 39 million doses of the Covid vaccine. But the world’s poorest countries had only done 25 jabs, all of them in just one country: Guinea. Not 25 million, not 25,000...
02.05.2021
Is outsourcing out of control?
Meagre food packages for kids on free school meals. A £22bn track and trace system that isn’t fit for purpose. And people asked to travel hundreds of miles for a Covid test. What do all of these things have in...
01.29.2021
Exposing the truth about modern slavery
From Sports Direct warehouses to nail bars, awareness-raising campaigns warn that modern slavery is happening all around us. Over Christmas, fashion brand Boohoo cut ties with 64 garment suppliers in Leicester after it came out that factories were paying their...

What's New Economics Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

New Economics Podcast episodes:

Should we be going for growth?

Spring budget reaction

Can capitalism save the climate

Introducing the new chief executive of NEF

Why antiracism means anticapitalism

Why asset managers own the world

A crisis of caregiving

Should we all be troublemakers at work?

Have we been conned by consultants?

How we can all have a home

Right to Roam

The UK's political battlegrounds

How we win a new economy - changing the rules

How we win a new economy - fighting for our human rights

How we win a new economy - fixing the housing crisis with social homes

How we win a new economy - solving the cost of living and climate crises together

How we win a new economy – a hot strike summer?

How we win a new economy - the end of neoliberalism?

How did the British Empire write the rules of today’s economy?

Who owns the internet?

What did Covid-19 reveal about how our economy is really run?

What does the Sunak scandal tell us about our tax system?

The UK's response to the refugee crisis

Are fossil fuels funding the war in Ukraine?

Tackling the cost of living crisis

Tackling the energy crisis

Closing the Covid-19 vaccination gap

The future of work

Is our digital economy breeding misogyny?

Trans Liberation

Is austerity back?

What really happens at a UN climate summit?

The Great Homes Upgrade

Can we prevent living standards plummeting this winter?

Where did our immigration system come from?

Fighting the climate crisis in the courts

Fast Fashion

How can we tackle the climate crisis while levelling up?

A climate conversation between two generations

Greenwashing

The Police Bill

Culture Wars

What will Biden’s America look like?

Changing the rules of our economy to stop environmental breakdown

How can we make sure everyone has enough to live on?

Why should we care what big tech does with our data?

What's Brexit done to fishing and farming?

Vaccine Nationalism

Is outsourcing out of control?

Exposing the truth about modern slavery