Downstream is a weekly interview show featuring hosts Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani in conversation with activists, authors, economists, politicians, scientists, YouTubers, philosophers and thinkers of all stripes. The show is produced by leftists, but made for everyone. 

Produced by Jonah Sealey Braverman and Gary McQuiggin.
Brought to you by Novara Media.

Downstream with Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani

If I Speak – with Moya Lothian-McLean and Ash Sarkar

Welcome to ACFM, the home of the weird left. Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn bring you a show examining the links between left-wing politics, culture, music and experiences of collective joy.

ACFM

A podcast about the ideas, people and movements that wield power in our lives.

Novara FM

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 still 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 neoliberal 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.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics

Novara FM: We Were Promised Robot Butlers w/ Helen Hester & Nick Srnicek

If I Speak

05: Are we trapped in a fantasy?

04: Can you teach an adult to have empathy?

03: The dating trap

02: Is my long-distance relationship doomed?

01: Should I give my mum an allowance?

In 1891, the French drew the borders of what became Mali. Like many colonial borders, they were arbitrary, absurd to the many nomads who supposedly lived within them.

Now climate change is ravaging the Sahel region, and many of those nomads are being forced to settle down. And Russia and China have arrived to replace the long tail of French colonial domination. As has Al-Qaeda.

So what does this all have to do with the far-right anti-imperialism of Steve Bannon?

James Pogue is a journalist with an extraordinary range. He has reported from Mauritania and the Central African Republic, from the private gatherings of JD Vance and the militias of Oregon.

In this episode, he tells Richard Hames about how violence, money, racism weave together at the end of an empire – and perhaps the beginning of another.

Novara FM: The New Scramble for Africa in the Vacuum of Empire w/ James Pogue

Which side are you on? Keir, Nadia and Jem consider the ebb and flow of political commitment with ideas and music from Jodi Dean, Gramsci, John Coltrane and the Raincoats. 

Is cultural production the same as political action? What’s the difference between an ally and a comrade? And why do some communists end up as right-wing turncoats?

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".
Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Trip 48: Political Commitment

Moya and Ash talk to writer and director Amrou Al-Kadhi about his brilliant debut film, Layla, which follows a young drag queen in chaotic pursuit of self-expression. Plus, advice on how to handle a partner with a porn addiction.

Email your missed connections and dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

43: How far would you go to be yourself? w/ Amrou Al-Kadhi

Moya and Ash swerve the fuzzy festive feelings in order to get some things off their chest. Plus, advice for a listener who feels trapped in their happy relationship.

Email your missed connections and dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

44. How to deal with people who can’t deal with you

Die Hard is a perennial of festive TV, but is it really a Christmas movie?

James Butler and Eleanor Penny explore what the 1988 action comedy reveals about corporate power, class antagonism, mid-century terrorism and women in the workplace. Who is Bruce Willis’ shoeless cowboy cop out to rescue? And what is Hans Gruber’s vague European accent supposed to tell us?

Comments, questions, corrections? fm@novaramedia.com

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Novara FM: Die Hard w/ James Butler

Following Novara FM's investigation into Die Hard, Eleanor Penny tackles another festive Alan Rickman vehicle with Nathalie Olah, author of Bad Taste and Steal As Much As You Can. 

In Richard Curtis' Love Actually, a selection of mainly white and middle-class Londoners seem to be living in a parallel universe – one in which the war on terror never happened and the '90s never ended. What kinds of love are really on offer in this misty-eyed vision of modern Britain?

Comments, questions, corrections? Email fm@novaramedia.com

Novara FM: Love Actually w/ Nathalie Olah

Having long promised to decentralise power, Bitcoin is looking more and more like it will end up as a tool of American power under Trump. 

But blockchains could also be used to empower local economies. And why should the left stay attached to a money system controlled by the state?

Sam Hart is a developer, writer, and editor of the Cryptoeconomic Systems journal. He spoke to Richard Hames about the promises and perils of the new era of blockchain technologies.

Comments, questions, corrections? fm@novaramedia.com

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Novara FM: Why The Left Needs To Care About Crypto w/ Sam Hart

The AFCM gang gather for a midwinter reading of The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Download a version online and follow along as Nadia, Keir and Jem reassess of one of the most influential political tracts ever written.

Help us build people-powered media – support us from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Microdose: The Communist Manifesto

What happens when sex becomes an online stunt? Ash and Moya discuss OnlyFans creator Lily Phillips, who challenged herself to have sex with 100 men in one day, and wonder if the radical feminists were right about porn. Plus: advice for a listener struggling to build deeper friendships. 

Email your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

46: Porn is everywhere. How damaging is it really?

Recorded live at London Podcast Festival last September, Ash and Moya are joined by Yomi Adegoke – author of The List and Slay In Your Lane – to talk about public shaming. Is the era of the online pile-on over? Plus, our audience of special ones help to solve some listener dilemmas.

Email your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

47: Is the era of public shaming over? w/ Yomi Adegoke at London Podcast Festival

Ash and Moya tackle a mailbag full of dilemmas, including a committed couple disagreeing over money, a daughter considering cutting off her dad, and a student struggling to overcome the trauma of rape. Plus: Ash blushes her way through your emails about gay porn. 

CW: suicide, rape.
Resources: https://thesurvivorstrust.org/support-in-your-area

Email your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

48: Is it time to cut off my lying dad?

Elon Musk is the most symptomatic capitalist of our era: obsessed with publicity, by many accounts a fanatical workaholic, and increasingly in bed with the far right.

But how did he go from Obama-era liberal darling to giving a Nazi salute at Trump's second inauguration?

Historian of ideas Quinn Slobodian has traced the relationship between big tech and the far right for years. His books include Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism and Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy.

He speaks to Eleanor Penny about the world that made Elon Musk possible.

Quinn Slobodian previously appeared on Novara FM in late 2023 in an episode called 'New Cities, Old Scams'.

Novara FM: What Will 'Technoking' Elon Musk Do in the White House? w/ Quinn Slobodian

The concept of debt is as slippery as it is powerful. In this Trip episode, Keir, Nadia and Jem explain why debt is more like a belief than a calculation, and wonder how to imagine a society without it. 

From credit cards to dowries, they discuss the reality and fantasy of debt, with ideas from David Graeber and Deleuze and music from Crass and Gwen Guthrie.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Trip 49: Debt

Fourteen years ago Gary Stevenson was one of Citibank’s best performing traders. The bet that brought him success was one few foresaw: that despite record low interest rates, Britain’s economy would stay in the doldrums.

He wrote about that, and his time at Citi, in his bestselling memoir ‘The Trading Game’. In this, his third Downstream with Aaron, Gary talks about the rise of Reform, why the political establishment could be facing extinction; why Elon Musk’s wealth is a threat to democracy; and how the plan is to make you poorer – forever.

Downstream: Everything They Tell You About the Economy Is Wrong w/ Gary Stevenson

Ash and Moya discuss women’s changing faces on screen and the intensifying obsession with ageing. Plus: tough love for a Special One who’s getting in their own way.

Email your dilemmas to ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

49: We need more wrinkles on screen!

It’s been five long years since the decisive defeat of Corbynism at the ballot box.

How, if at all, should the left reconstitute itself? Should everyone join the Greens? Or do we just need Mick Lynch to start a new party?

In this episode, Richard Hames is joined by Rachel Godfrey Wood, Joe Todd, and Oliver Eagleton to thrash it all out and arrive at the One True Answer.

We’re keen to hear from you on this topic! Lets us know your comments, criticisms and key strategic insights at fm@novaramedia.com

Novara FM: Time for a New Left Party? w/ Oliver Eagleton, Rachel Godfrey Wood and Joe Todd

Following last week's ACFM on the meaning and morality of personal debt, Keir and Nadia return to investigate the macroeconomics of debt. Joining them to make sense of concepts like sovereign debt, structural adjustment and international ratings agencies is Heidi Chow, executive director of Debt Justice.

She explains how and why countries borrow money, why Global South countries end up mired in debt, and how the climate crisis will affect borrowing.

Subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

ACFM Microdose: Making Sense of Sovereign Debt w/ Heidi Chow

After hearing the R-word on a comedy podcast, Moya offers an intrusive thought about the limits of language policing. Plus: what to do about a horrible housemate. 

Send in your questions for If I Speak’s birthday AMA episode on 18th February! ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

50: The return of the slur

Ash and Moya respond to a mystery question about femininity with a chat about desire, agency and sexual politics. Plus: advice for a listener tangled up in their in-laws' finances.

Send in your questions for If I Speak’s birthday AMA episode on 18th February! ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

51: Am I feminine enough for you?

Love is supposed to be the most universal human experience after death and taxes. So why do so many people feel like they’re failing in it? Ash Sarkar is joined by Shon Faye, author of the bestselling book The Transgender Issue, to discuss her new book, Love In Exile. 

They talk about how marriage has changed since their grandmothers’ day, the crisis of lonely young men, and whether secularism is to blame for relationship breakdown.

Downstream: Why Are So Many People Lonely? with Shon Faye

Your death should be your own, as much as possible. That’s one of the principles behind the Assisted Dying Bill. It lets adults with less than 6 months to live end their lives.

But disability campaigners fear that people who don't want to die might be pressured to let themselves be killed.

Ellen Clifford is the author of The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe. She spoke to Richard Hames about one of the most fraught debates of our era.

Novara FM: Two Years to See a Specialist, Two Weeks to Die: Against Assisted Death w/ Ellen Clifford

One whole year of If I Speak! Moya and Ash celebrate with an #AMA, tackling your questions on career growth, love songs, role models, Irish politics and whether they’re friends in real life. Plus: listener feedback on last week’s “return of the slur”.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

52: Happy birthday IIS! Now ask us anything...

This part two of our discussion about a new left party. You can listen to part 1 here: https://novaramedia.com/2025/01/30/time-for-a-new-left-party/

James Schneider, Jeremy Corbyn’s former Director of Comms, argues for a new party. But who would it speak to? Would it be democratic and in what ways? And what could it actually achieve in the volatile terrain of British Politics?

Zack Polanski, Deputy Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, says we don’t need anything new. There is, after all, a socialist party in the UK already: it’s the Greens. And, unlike a new party, it already has everything it needs.

They spoke to Richard Hames about democracy, the challenge of combatting Reform, and a radical left vision for our collective future.

Lots of this episode was formed by comments we received on the first episode. If you’d like to shape future episodes in this series, please email fm@novaramedia.com

Novara FM: The Green Party vs Something New w/ James Schneider and Zack Polanski

For almost six centuries Europe has been at the centre of world affairs.

While the days of Empire are long gone, over the last several decades the importance and comparative wealth of Europe has declined at an extraordinary pace. Indeed for many countries, from Britain to Germany and Greece, living standards have stagnated or even declined.

Now, in what seem like the final months of the war in Ukraine, Europe can no longer rely on security guarantees made by the United States. Technologically dependent on a superpower across the Atlantic, the countries of Europe are economically, militarily and politically weaker than at any time in centuries. All while China ascends to the category of superpower, and Russia returns to the politics of expansionism.

So how bad are things for Europe? Has its entire political class just been discredited? If so, what will be the consequences? Could Russia target other states, like Lithuania or Estonia, if it succeeds in annexing large parts of Ukraine? Is there a model Europe can pursue beyond vassalage to Washington? And how might it relate to China in an increasingly multipolar world?

Downstream: Europe's Political Elite Are Completely Finished w/ Philip Pilkington

When did we all start 'getting the ick'? And why does it mainly seem to be women who get it? Ash and Moya unpack the gender politics behind the 'ick-course'. Plus: when is the right time to have the big money chat with your partner?

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

53: Getting 'the ick'

Read any of the mainstream press at the moment and you'll hear the same thing: major things are happening in America.

But what if this sudden shift was an illusion?

David Adler is Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International, a group that brings together forces from across the progressive left.

He told Richard Hames that far from being radical change, Trumpism is the culmination of decades-long project called the Reactionary International.

Novara FM: The Decades Long Plan that Made Trump Possible w/ David Adler

In 1996 Samuel Huntington published ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. At the time its hypothesis was counter-intuitive. Despite the supremacy of the United States after the Cold War, the ascent of globalisation would not lead to the end of history, but a return to distinctive and competing civilisations. Rather than homogeneity we would see a growing emphasis on difference, rather than unhindered free markets we would see friction, and eventually rupture.

In 2025, with the continued rise of China to superpower status and a revanchist Russia, it’s tempting to think Huntington was right. Rather than a global civilisation – based on market competition and the rule of law – we are edging towards a world of multipolarity and civilisation-states. But what if civilisational thinking is itself mistaken? What if the idea of plural ‘civilisations’ is a product of the 19th century? Where does such civilisational thinking really come from? What even is a ‘civilisation’? And what, in particular, is ‘the West’?

Josephine Quinn is one of Britain’s most respected historians of antiquity. Chair of Ancient History at Cambridge, her most recent book, “How the World Made the West”, was a book of the year for The Economist, The Sunday Times and The Guardian. In this conversation Josephine and Aaron go from the very dawn of ancient European history, through the Bronze Age Collapse, to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. How similar were those people to us? And what lessons does the distant past hold for the challenges of the 21st century?

Downstream: Everything We’re Told About the History of the West Is Wrong w/ Josephine Quinn

Why did Stormzy delete his pro-Palestine posts just before unveiling a Happy Meal tie-in with McDonald's? Ash asks Moya if big artists are all just businesses in the end. Plus: how to deal with a delusional friend.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

54: Forget the boycott, gimme that brand deal

Lockdown was one of the defining experiences of our lives, but it was far from unique in history.

From the plantation to the infirmary and from the leper colony to the stay at home order, contagion and confinement are inextricably intertwined.

In The History of the World in 6 Plagues, Edna Bonhomme investigates how fear, power, race science and colonial violence have shaped six of the most powerful plagues in history, and shaped our societies in turn.

Novara FM: Did Pandemics Make the Modern World? w/ Edna Bonhomme

What's the point of the arts when the world is on fire? To follow the pipeline from creativity to activism and back again, Nadia Idle is joined by Amber Massie-Blomfield, former chief of theatre company Complicité and the author of Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create Better World.

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Help us build people-powered media – pledge your support from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

ACFM Microdose: Making Art in a World on Fire w/ Amber Massie-Blomfield

55: Joy is an act of resistance... right?

When we talk about politics – whether it’s the climate, the economy or constitutional reform – the thing that’s at stake is an idea of ‘the future’. These days, the idea of imminent societal or ecological breakdown necessarily means adopting the framing of the present as being a ‘state of emergency’. This is an obvious way for political actors to attempt to generate consensus – but does this ostensibly well-intentioned way of viewing the future actually narrow political discourse in favour of far-right and authoritarian politicians?

To discuss this, Aaron is joined by Jonathan White, Deputy Head of the European Institute and Professor in Politics at the LSE and author of In the Long Run: The Future as a Political Idea.

Downstream: Why Don’t We Have Any Hope? w/ Jonathan White

The US is no longer supporting Ukraine. And, in response, the UK and Europe are rearming. The Germans are taking off their hallowed debt brake to allow it. The French want a European Army. And Keir Starmer is talking tough about the capabilities of the British Armed Forces.

In a world still dominated by the American military, what does it all matter?

And what could we do instead?

Khem Rogaly has the answer. He's a Senior Research Fellow at Common Wealth and he's proposed a 'Lucas Plan for the 21st Century' that would put the fight against climate change, and not war, at the centre of European economic growth.

Novara FM: The Absurdity of Rearmament w/ Khem Rogaly

Moya has a bone to pick with Ash about Minority Rule and the conversations sparked by her book tour, while posing the big question: why is it so hard to form your own opinions? Plus: what to do when a newly sober friend starts drifting away.

Follow us on TikTok! @ifispeakpod
Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com

Music by Matt Huxley.

56: The one where Moya grills Ash on her new book

On the 8th December 2024, the Assad regime in Syria fell, replaced by a group of former jihadists called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham.

In the north east of the country, in a territory called Rojava, a feminist socialist revolution has been ongoing for since 2012.

Then a few weeks ago, Abdullah Öcalan, a Kurdish leader who has been imprisoned by Turkey for 26 years, called on the PKK, the Kurdish Worker's Party, to disband.

Elif Sarican is a writer, organiser and activist with the Kurdish woman's movement. She spoke to Richard Hames about how to make sense of this new world, and whether or not the Kurdish revolution will survive.

Novara FM: Rojava After Assad: Where Next for the Kurdish Struggle? w/ Elif Sarican

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn bring you #ACFM, a new show examining the links between left-wing politics and culture, music and experiences of collective joy. In this episode: what is - or was - the counterculture? What is 'Acid Corbynism'? And is expanding consciousness anti-political? You can find the Acid Corbynism project on Facebook. http://novaramedia.com/?p=11481

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

#ACFM – Trip 1: Out of the Box

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the politics of collective joy.

Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracks featured:

Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing in the streets
MFSB - Love is the message
Orbital - Halcyon
Chumbawamba - Tubthumping
Sun Ra - UFO

Books referenced:

Baruch Spinoza - Ethics
Lynne Segal - Radical Happiness: Moments of Collective Joy.
Barbara Ehrenreich - Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy.
Jeremy Gilbert - Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism.
John Protevi - Political Affect: Connecting the Social and the Somatic.
E. P. Thompson - Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.
Sigmund Freud - Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego.

Novara Media Podcast

#ACFM – Trip 2: Collective Joy

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss the weird left.
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull.

Jeremy Gilbert will be speaking with Erik Davis in London at the end of June: https://www.facebook.com/events/2299886550339374/

PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481

Tracks featured:
The Fall – The Theme from Sparta FC
Captain Beefheart – Sun Zoom Spark
Throbbing Gristle – Discipline (Manchester) 
Laraaji - All of a Sudden

Texts referred to:
Normie Socialism or Communist Transgression, An interview with Kate Doyle Griffiths, Red Wedge Magazine: http://www.redwedgemagazine.com/online-issue/normie-socialism-or-communist-transgression-red-wedge-interviews-kate-doyle-griffiths
Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House - Ken Goffman and Dan Joy.
Keep Socialism Weird, Peter Frase: http://www.peterfrase.com/2018/10/keep-socialism-weird/
Mark Fisher & Jeremy Gilbert Reclaim Modernity : http://www.compassonline.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Compass-Reclaiming-Modernity-Beyond-markets_-2.pdf
Joe Kennedy Authentocrats (Repeater Books, 2018)
Erik Davis High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies (Strange Attractor Press, 2019).

#ACFM – Trip 3: The Weird Left

Nadia Idle, Keir Milburn and Jeremy Gilbert discuss love and hate. 
Edited and produced by Olivia Humphreys, Matt Huxley and Matt Phull. 
PRS LICENCE NUMBER: LE-0016481 
http://novaramedia.com/?p=13988

Tracks featured: I Hate Hippies - The Skinflics / Love is All You Need -  The Beatles / Hate and War – The Clash / Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Smashing Pumpkins / You Got the Love – The Source (featuring Candi Staton) / I’ll Take You There - Staple Singers / Socialism is Love - Max Romeo / Revolution – Nina Simone 
Texts referred to: Empire – Hardt and Negri / Ethics - Spinoza / Turn the Beat Around - Peter Shapiro Other Links:
This is Not a Love Song – The Free Association - http://www.freelyassociating.org/this-is-not-a-love-song/
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast – The Free Association http://www.freelyassociating.org/six-impossible-things-before-breakfast/

#ACFM – Trip 4: Love and Hate

James Butler is joined by Richard Seymour to discuss his book 'The Twittering Machine'. Are we all digital narcissists now? What has the rise of the social industry done to our politics? And can we break free of its emotional lures? http://novaramedia.com/?p=15280

#NovaraFM: Screen Capitalism: the Twittering Machine

James Butler is joined by Anna Minton, author of Ground Control and Big Capital. Drawing from her work encompassing the decline of council housing, the rise of capital-led 'regeneration' and growing precarity and homelessness, they ask: could this be a housing election? http://novaramedia.com/?p=15640

#NovaraFM: Where Will We Live?

James Butler is joined by Ann Pettifor, author of The Case for the Green New Deal, to discuss the relationship between ecology and economics, to explore Keynes's proto-localism, and discuss what the latest batch of economic figures tell us about the UK. https://novaramedia.com/?p=15811

#NovaraFM: Paying for the Planet? Ann Pettifor on the Green New Deal

James Butler is joined by Maya Goodfellow, author of Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats, to discuss the history and politics of migration in the UK, what Windrush tells us about the migrations system, and whether migration will play a key role in this election. https://novaramedia.com/?p=15964

#NovaraFM: Hostile Environment: Maya Goodfellow on Race and Migration

Nearly 12 months ago some said that we were on the verge of entering a new Roaring '20s. How prescient they turned out to be. 

One pandemic and a global economic freefall later, all the assumptions we started out with in January have turned to dust. In their place are pressing questions. Did Boris Johnson's landslide breathe a new lease of life into the Conservative Party? Has coronavirus changed politics for a decade? What does the explosive rise of BLM mean for the anti-racist cause?

Downstream hosts Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani are joined by NovaraFM's James Butler to discuss the year in review and what comes next.

Novara Audio: Radio For A Different Politics  

Downstream: The Year In Review 2020

On Monday a British judge ruled that Julian Assange should not be extradited to the United States on charges of espionage and computer hacking. Yet despite that verdict the judgment arguably represented a blow to freedom of the press, with the judge accepting the substance of the case made by the US State Department. 

On Downstream, Aaron Bastani is joined by Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister and prominent supporter of Julian Assange during his time in prison, as they discuss the meaning of the outcome and what next for the founder of Wikileaks.

Downstream: Does the US Want Julian Assange Dead?

#ACFM is a podcast about left-wing politics, culture, music and experiences of collective joy, brought to you by Novara Media. 

Nadia Idle, Jeremy Gilbert and Keir Milburn present a new Trip just about once a month, as well as Microdose interviews with special guests.

Search for "ACFM Music" on Spotify to find a playlist of music discussed on the show and join the mailing list to keep up with everything #ACFM: http://novara.media/acfmlist

Welcome To #ACFM!

The last few years have heralded the rise of the influencer: social media users who have, in essence, found a way to get paid for being themselves on the internet. But has this commodification of the self poisoned the public sphere? Or are we witnessing the end of gatekeeping - and the beginnings of a new, more democratic kind of celebrity? Moya Lothian-McLean, politics editor at gal-dem magazine, joins Ash Sarkar on Downstream to crack open the influencer industrial complex.

Downstream: The Influencer Industrial Complex w/ Moya Lothian-McLean

A year after the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, with Britain enduring more than 100,000 deaths since, major questions remain unanswered. Why was the response of the UK among the worst in the world? How is it possible that the death toll of countries in Europe and North America is so much higher than poorer countries such as Thailand and Vietnam? And when will things go ‘back to normal’?

Aaron Bastani poses these questions to Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet and author of The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What's Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again.

Novara Media

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