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

Committed

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?

How does a teenage goodie-two-shoes grow up to be a convicted criminal? On Committed, a new four-part series from Novara Media, we go behind bars to find out why dozens of young climate activists are risking prison for what they believe in – and why Britain's courts are sending more of them to jail for longer. 

Committed begins on 22 April in the Novara Media podcast feed. 

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

Committed: A New Series Out Now

In episode one of Committed, Clare and Rivkah meet imprisoned Just Stop Oil activists who took direct action against the climate crisis and faced dire consequences.

By blocking roads, climbing bridges and throwing soup at paintings, they made headlines – and became national hate figures in the process. We find out how four ordinary young people ended up as convicted criminals, at the sharp end of the government’s crackdown on protest.

Episode 2 coming on 24 April.

1. What Kind of Person Goes to Prison for Their Politics?

Locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day, how are Britain’s jailed climate activists coping with a life of inaction? In episode two of Committed, Rivkah and Clare follow the Just Stop Oil inmates to find out how they’re adjusting. How does JSO prepare activists for incarceration? What’s it really like inside Britain’s prisons? And what do the guards and other inmates think of Just Stop Oil activists’ crimes?

Episode 3 coming on 29 April.

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

Committed: 2. How Do Climate Activists Cope in Prison?

In episode three of Committed, Clare and Rivkah find out what it’s like to see your loved ones locked up. How do the Just Stop Oil prisoners’ families make sense of their crimes? When your partner is in prison, how can your relationship survive? And what’s it like to know your fiancée would choose activism over you?

Final episode coming on 2 May.

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

Committed: 3. How Does It Feel When They Choose Activism Over You?

Just Stop Oil has ended its campaign of direct action, yet many activists still face years in prison. In the final episode, Rivkah and Clare find out whether their commitment to their cause has wavered. They also speak to veteran climate campaigner Roger Hallam, currently serving a four-year sentence, about his role in sending young activists to prison.

CN: This episode contains mention of suicide. For support with your mental health, contact samaritans.org.

Read Clare's story about right-wing journalists infiltrating activist groups on Novara Media: https://novaramedia.com/2024/09/11/rightwing-journalists-keep-grassing-up-activists-to-the-police 

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

Was Prison Worth It?

Keir Starmer claims that growth is the only cure for a country in decline. But why is it the central obsession of modern capitalist economies? And can we think our way out of it before our planet runs out of resources? 

Nadia, Keir and Jem offer their weird-left take on growth, degrowth, radical abundance, ecomodernism and personal productivity, with ideas from Kate Soper and Kohei Saito and music from Minnie Riperton, 7 Samurai and Joanna Newsom. 

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 53: Growth

Novara FM was Novara Media's first show – it's now coming to an end.

On the final episode, Richard Hames sat down with Aaron Bastani, James Butler and Ash Sarkar to talk about 15 years of Novara Media.

What have we learned from a decade and a half fighting a media landscape that insists nothing can ever change?

A new product will launch next month. Animated by the same complexity and depth as Novara FM, it will be available both on this podcast feed and YouTube.

Novara FM: Where Did Novara Media Come From? w/ Aaron Bastani, James Butler and Ash Sarkar

Are gardens a sanctuary or an enclosure? The ACFM gang sketch out a weird-left history of gardening, from the walled gardens of paradise to the tarmacked lawns of suburban Britain. 

Find the books, music and Dunmore Pineapple mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

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

ACFM Microdose: Gardening

What if we stopped treating the future like a speculative asset and started trying to actually build and prepare? The ACFM gang look to the horizon in this Trip episode.

Did young people always worry so much about their futures? Has the currency of emergency been devalued? Does conservatism have an idea of the future? Nadia, Jem and Keir wonder what's next with ideas from Max Weber and Kate Raworth, and music from LTJ Bukem and FKA twigs.

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 54: The Future

*Join the Baggu believers: it’s a huge foldable bag just for Special Ones, available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Moya wants to stop hating men and start building trust – which means a dialogue about all the things that make that difficult: objectification, racist over-sexualisation, degrading comments, and rape (TW: 27m; 40m). Plus: a few things we love about men, too.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

82: Help! I can't stop hating men

After last week's ACFM Trip to the Future, Jem and Keir reconvene to talk about science fiction. Is sci-fi a reaction to the "time-space compression" of the present? Is it inherently progressive? How did dystopian and paranoids visions of the future come to dominate sci-fi? Was Arthur C. Clarke an early acid communist?

Find the books and films mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm
Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

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

ACFM Microdose: Sci-Fi

In the summer of 2024, hotels sheltering Muslim asylum seekers across Britain were attacked by violent mobs. A year later, as the summer of 2025 drew to a close, a far-right demonstration of 100,000 people marched through London, bearing St George’s flags and led by Tommy Robinson.

On Downstream this week is Myriam François, a broadcaster and journalist, whose conversion to Islam 20 years ago has profoundly shaped her life in Britain. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, she tells the story of how she was politicised by a trip to Palestine in the early 2000s.

Does she think Britain’s move to recognise the state of Palestine will make any difference to the lives of people on the ground in Gaza? What is ‘whiteness’ and how do those who are included in it wield power in society? Is Islamophobia getting worse? And is an end to racism possible, without an end to capitalism?

Downstream: The Right Is Stirring up Anti-Muslim Hate – and It’s Getting Worse w/ Myriam François

Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance, a memoir about the women in Yanis’ family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience.

They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as well as women? Did Tony Blair do more to privatise Britain than Margaret Thatcher? Does Keir Starmer have a plan?

And how does fascism end up destroying not just those it deems to be its enemies, but the motherland as well?

Sign up for the upcoming Downstream Newsletter here: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters/the-downstream-newsletter/ 

Get tickets for the next Downstream IRL, ‘Gaza: The Story of a Genocide’ (with Aaron Bastani) at EartH Hackney on Mon 13 Oct at 6:30 pm:  https://link.dice.fm/N3e5f1cbd3ee

00:00  Intro
02:27 Five women who inspired Yanis’ political life
09:34 The Greeks In Egypt
22:02 The Asia Minor Catastrophe
29:30 Fascism always wrecks the motherland
36:43 The root cause of fascism is capitalism
39:44 Was America ever great?
45:19 Why Yanis doesn’t take Steve Bannon’s call
50:16 Communism can save the climate
1:00:18 The problems with Starmer
1:05:25 “Tony Blair is as evil as they come”
1:09:09 The road from Thatcher to Reform
1:13:36 Feminism, the manosphere, and the master slave paradox
1:23:44 On pornography
1:32:52 Humans Need Rules to live by
1:34:34 Physics or economics?
1:42:48 Collective will
1:48:14 Coming back from a bad year

Downstream: Was the 20th Century a Catastrophe, or a Miracle? w/ Yanis Varoufakis

*We've got merch! It’s a big foldable bag just for Special Ones, available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Prompted by Elena Ferrante’s novel My Brilliant Friend, Ash wonders what makes Moya jealous. Can friendships survive a power imbalance? What happens when YOU are the brilliant friend? And is jealousy a crucial part of desire?

Reading: Wounded Attachment by Wendy Brown

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

83: Is jealousy the spice of life?

Artificial intelligence is set to be one of the most disruptive technologies this century. For some, a machine capable of augmenting its own intelligence is a matter of time — and could even arrive within a decade.

This week’s guest is philosopher and author William MacAskill. One of the leading thinkers in the Effective Altruism movement, MacAskill is the author of several highly influential books, including Doing Good Better and What We Owe The Future.

His work explores not only on how to live a life of purpose, but how we also shouldn’t discount the interests of generations yet to be born.

What new technologies, medicines, and workflows might AI invent? How could AI affect the distribution of power and resources across the planet? Will democracy, as a political system, be able to manage it? And what might it mean to live a good life in a world of intelligent machines?

Downstream: Democracy Is Under Massive Threat From AI w/ William MacAskill

84: How to ace a first date (by two very different daters)

*Display your Special One status with our only piece of merch so far, available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Moya and Ash are joined by Kemi Alemoru, editorial director of Glamour UK, to analyse the current state of pop culture, from Taylor Swift to A24. Has pop turned to slop? Or is it on us to fix our algorithmic intake? Plus: advice on a workplace crush.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

85: Has pop culture turned to slop?

Amid the bumpy launch of a new left-wing party and the rise of the Greens and Reform, the ACFM crew turn their attention to parties. Do we still need political parties? Do parties work by drawing people together or excluding the uninvited? And what does a political party have in common with a dance party?

Nadia, Keir and Jem offer a weird-left view on parties with reference to the Paris Commune, Unite the Right, Abigail's Party and Beauty and the Beat, plus music from Fred Wesley and The Beastie Boys.

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 55: Parties

The Gaza Strip, home to 2.2 million people, is a tiny land mass about the same size as the Isle of Wight. Yet in terms of munitions by weight, Gaza has been subjected to more than all of the bombs dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined, over the whole of World War II. Another even more terrifying statistic: in Ukraine, after two years of conflict, there were around 30 cases of child amputees. In Gaza, there were a thousand cases of child amputation in two months.

This October marked two years since the high-intensity genocidal assault on the people of Gaza began, though the attempt to erase Palestine and ethnically cleanse its people began a century before. To mark the occasion, we hosted a live event at EartH Hackney to raise awareness and raise money for Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Kieran Andrieu is a political economist, journalist, and activist with six siblings living under Zionist occupation in the West Bank. Earlier this year, he joined the Global Sumud Flotilla, a fleet of over 40 boats and 500 activists, taking humanitarian aid to Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade of the strip. In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Kieran tells the whole story for the first time. What was it like being kidnapped at sea by amphetamine-using IDF soldiers? How were tactics of sleep deprivation used against them? How did the activists maintain morale in such circumstances? And what were the political victories of the mission?

Downstream: Kidnapped at Sea by the Israeli Military. The Full Story w/ Kieran Andrieu

Iran has been in the news a lot in 2025. Over recent decades, it has been a variable in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine. But during the Twelve Day War with Israel in June of this year, Iran very much took centre stage. People started asking questions, chief among them being: What does Iran really want?

On Downstream this week is Vali Nasr, professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, and author of a new book, Iran's Grand Strategy. 

In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Nasr traces the roots of Iran’s foreign and domestic policy, from western imperialism through the revolution, and into the present day. What have been Iran’s failures and successes, domestically and beyond its borders, in the years since the revolution? Why does a country with no real military or economic base find itself enmeshed in so many conflicts overseas? Does Iran sincerely support the cause of Palestinian liberation? Why would it want nuclear capability? And as the revolutionary guard grows old, what will Iran do next?

Downstream: The West Misunderstands Iran w/ Vali Nasr

We're coming to Manchester! On 25th November we'll be at Contact Theatre for a live show with special guest Lanre Bakare. Tickets are available now from the Contact website: https://contactmcr.com/events/if-i-speak-live

Moya and Ash offer a thought for spooky season: why do love hearing other people’s horror stories? Plus: Moya spills on a dating disaster, and a dilemma about a mentoring relationship gone wrong.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

86: Why do we lap up other people’s horror stories?

After last week’s ACFM episode on Parties, this time we expose the predicament facing Your Party, the new leftwing faction led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn.

What expectations do leftwing voters have for Your Party? Does the Corbyn faction distrust the membership? Is Zarah a politician or a poster? And does Yorp stand a chance of overtaking the ascendant Greens? Nadia, Jem and Keir analyse a turbulent few months in British left politics.

ACFM Microdose: What's Going On Inside Your Party?

In 1989, Francis Fukuyama, then a very young political scientist, declared that history was over. He wrote a book with the same title just a couple of years later. The Cold War had finished, the USSR had collapsed, liberal democracy and market capitalism reigned supreme, and it wasn’t going to change. And yet in the last few years, the script has moved quite significantly. History has returned. Emblematic of that has been the conflict between Russia and Ukraine which began in 2022, although of course, you can date that back to 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea.

On Downstream this week is Serhii Plokhy, professor of Ukrainian history at Harvard University. He offers a deep history of Russia and Ukraine, the conflict, where it comes from, and where it sits within the broader sweep of collapsing empires. He’s also got a new book out, about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy: The Nuclear Age. They discuss what is driving Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, almost four years after it began. What does Putin’s stated aim of ‘de-Nazification’ really mean? What role does Russia’s nuclear arsenal play in determining the shape of the conflict? And, in an increasingly multipolar world where history has indeed come back, is nuclear proliferation within the next ten years likely?

Downstream: Putin’s 1,000 Year War in Ukraine Has Ancient Roots w/ Serhii Plokhy

Come and see us live on 25th November in Manchester with special guest Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There! Tickets are available now from Contact Theatre: https://contactmcr.com/events/if-i-speak-live

Inspired by a famous pop psychology quiz, Moya and Ash tackle a quiz about the culture that shaped them, from celebrity crushes to memorable quotes. Plus: advice for a young fiancé who's losing interest in his partner.
Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

87: I'm losing interest in my fiancée. Should she make more effort?

Come and see Ash and Moya live this winter. If I Speak hits Manchester's Contact Theatre on 25 November with special guest Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There. Then the show will return to EartH in East London on 16 December alongside Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks. Tickets are available from Dice.

This week, after listening to the new album by Lily Allen – the patron saint of oversharing – Moya and Ash debate the ethics of spilling your guts in public. Do we owe a level of privacy to those that have wronged us? Plus: when was the best time to be a Roman?

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

88: What are the ethics of oversharing?

Investigative journalist Paul Holden has spent the last four years digging into the political machinations that brought Keir Starmer's Labour Party into office – findings that propel his powerful 2025 book, <a href="https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-fraud/">The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Labour Together and the Crisis of British Democracy</a>.

He tells Ash Sarkar about the cache of leaked emails that revealed the secret dealings of Morgan McSweeney – an adviser who's risen through the ranks to become perhaps the most powerful man in the Labour party – and explains how McSweeney's faction, Labour Together, sabotaged the Corbyn project.

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

Downstream: The Dark Truth About Starmer’s Rise to Power w/ Paul Holden

Come and see us live! We're in Manchester on 25 November with Lanre Bakare, author of We Were There – get tickets from Contact Theatre. Then we'll be at EartH in East London on 16 December with Jordan Stephens – actor, author and one half of Rizzle Kicks! Tickets are available from Dice.

A mystery question leads Ash and Moya into conversation about whether their politics are changing as they age – including their takes on Your Party, Zack’s Greens and why the UK left hasn’t produced a Zohran. Plus: how to escape a situationship.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

89: Am I doomed to get more conservative as I get older?

At Novara, we focus on the trends that are remaking the world and affecting our lives: technological development and automation, multipolarity, the demise of an American-led world order and the rise of China. On Downstream this week is a man whose work draws together all of these themes: former World Bank macroeconomist and leading expert on global inequality, Professor Branko Milanovic.  

In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Branko answers all of Aaron’s burning questions about modern economic history and where things are heading. How significant is the rise of Asia today, compared to the seismic historic shift of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century? What was the cause of World War I, and why don’t mainstream accounts understand the real roots of it? Who are the new elite, and why is it so hard to break their hold on wealth? And how likely is a conflict between China & the USA?

Downstream: Ex-World Bank Insider on Western Decline & the Chinese World Order w/ Branko Milanovic

Support for the Green party in Britain has been steadily rising for the past few decades. However, few predicted that when Zack Polanski took office as Green party leader in September, membership would surge from 70,000 to 150,000 members in a matter of months. According to the latest polling, the party’s share of the vote has soared too: growing from 10 to 17 per cent.

In front of a live audience at EartH Hackney, Zack tells the story of his first few months in office, and how the party’s plans from two months ago are already outdated. What are the core values, red lines and top priorities for the Greens in this new era? How broad a church will the Green party be? Is it a socialist party, or a party with socialists in it? And what exactly is their strategy to take on the floundering Labour party, as well as the looming threat of Reform?

Downstream: Zack Polanski Is Coming for Starmer and Farage

Moya and Ash talk to Dr Annabel Sowemimo about STI stigma, period-tracking apps, being disconnected from our bodies, and how to afford a second child. Plus: which hospital department has the sexiest staff?

Annabel's book, Divided: Racism, Medicine and Why We Need to Decolonise Healthcare, is out now.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

90: Are rightwing politics affecting my sex life?

Last chance! We're at EartH in East London on 16 December with guest Jordan Stephens – a handful of tickets are still available from Dice.

Ash and Moya tackle a mystery question about ethical consumption with a conversation about the urge to beautify and shopping as a numbing mechanism. Plus: advice for a special one wondering why men won’t watch ethical porn. 

CN: The dilemma contains discussion of sexual violence at 35:00.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

91: If there's no 'ethical consumption', can just I buy what I want?

In this Trip episode, Jem, Nadia and Keir debate the meaning of 'mainstream' – something none of them could ever possibly be, of course. 

Is 'woke' the new 'mainstream'? Can there be a mainstream if we don't all have access to the same culture? Is Tommy Robinson shifting the Overton Window? Why is nonconformity associated with coolness? And who engineers the 'typical girl'? The gang answer these questions and more, with ideas from Raymond Williams and Perry Anderson and songs from Pulp and The Slits.

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 56: The Mainstream

Did you know that the standard of Google searches has actually gotten worse over recent years? Once you think about it, it makes sense. Highly effective search means fewer searches overall. And fewer searches means less ad revenue. The financial basis of Alphabet, which is Google’s parent company, is, of course, digital advertising. Which means that undermining the quality of the company’s cornerstone product actually makes money. That’s how crazy the modern internet has become. There are, as the saying goes, many such cases.

Cory Doctorow, this week’s Downstream guest, has a word for this phenomenon: ‘Ensh*tification’. He’s written a book about it too. In front of a live audience at EartH Hackney, Aaron Bastani sat down with him to discuss it, and the implications of an internet that just gets worse.  

Ensh*tification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It explains the destruction of the internet by monopolistic, multi-trillion dollar forces. Silicon Valley, once a source for technologically-infused optimism, is now destroying the information space we all share. The internet still brings immeasurable value, of course, but the cost-benefit for society, and users, is increasingly up for debate. And things are only headed in one direction. 

Doctorow argues that the rise of conspiracism, surveillance, addiction, and fraud is no accident. Instead, he claims, all are inextricably linked as Big Tech, led by some of the world’s wealthiest people, seeks to extract maximum value by undermining our very sense of reality. 

So why does our online public square increasingly resemble a dumpster fire? How come, where I could once follow friends and loved ones, I’m now bombarded by AI slop? And is this deteriorating experience of the internet now bleeding into the physical world too?

Over 90 minutes Aaron and Cory discuss the book’s most eye-opening case studies, unpicking the insidious tactics employed by the tech giants, and revealing just how unscrupulous these companies are. Their end goal is, in many ways, at odds with a civilised, democratic society.

Downstream: The Plan is to Make the Internet Worse Forever w/ Cory Doctorow

NEW LIVE SHOW! Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026. Presale tickets available at 11AM on 10th December – go to crossedwires.live and use the code CW26EARLY.

After watching the Wicked sequel, Moya wonders if politeness is stopping us from seriously addressing women’s shrinking bodies and changing faces. Are we allowing extreme thinness to be normalised? Plus: can you mould your partner into someone better?

CN: From 15:30, eating disorders. From 50:00, rape.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

92: Should we say something about women’s shrinking bodies?

Since Hamas launched its assault on October 7th, 2023, the group has become synonymous with evil in large parts of the Western media. Condemnation has come at the expense of critical engagement with the group’s actions, objectives, and history, leaving a vacuum that has been filled with racist assumptions and conspiracy theories.

Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian scholar whose doctoral thesis on Hamas was published in 2018 as a book, ‘Hamas Contained’. The book drew on interviews with the organisation’s leaders and their archives. Tareq’s goal when writing it was to ‘get out of the way’ and let the group speak for itself. Tareq’s newest book, ‘A Fire in Every Direction,’ is a memoir about growing up as a queer Palestinian man in Amman. The title is a reference to Tareq’s activist mother, who fought for Palestinian liberation from exile.

In conversation with Ash Sarkar, Tareq traces the group from its inception in the Muslim Brotherhood, to an armed resistance group, and then a democratically elected party. How did the group rise to power in Gaza? What were the conditions under which they adopted violence as a strategy? Did October 7 go as planned, or was there a miscalculation? And how is Tareq making sense of this moment in time, in the face of the ongoing genocide by Israel against the people of Palestine?

Downstream: The Truth About Hamas, October 7th & Israel’s Ongoing Genocide w/ Tareq Baconi

NEW: Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026. Tickets are available now from crossedwires.live!

Ash and Moya debate the pros and cons of feeling shame after Ash reveals that her own moral universe is governed by guilt. Plus: what to do about a best friend with a mean streak.

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

93: I’m addicted to guilt. What’s wrong with me?

Ash and Moya are joined by author, musician and podcaster Jordan Stephens to talk about changing attitudes to gender, dating and relationships. Are we regressing into essentialist ideas of gender? Is having a boyfriend embarrassing? Plus: advice for a disappointed wife – with help from our audience. 
Recorded live at EartH in East London on 16 December (apologies for the bass bleed from the other venue!).

Further reading: Sam Jennings – The Trouble with Men and Women; Chanté Joseph – Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?

Send us your dilemmas: ifispeak@novaramedia.com
Music by Matt Huxley.

94: Resentment, hostility, scarcity… is this modern dating? w/ Jordan Stephens

Following the recent Trip episode about the meaning of mainstream, this time gang go deeper into ‘Mainstream’ – that is, the new soft-left faction inside Labour. That’s right, a festive episode about the inner workings of a political party! Don’t say we don’t spoil you.

Jem, Nadia and Keir explain the emergence of Mainstream’s ‘radical realists’ – who include Andy Burnham and Clive Lewis – with a brief history of the political tendencies that have shaped and split the Labour Party since the second world war. 

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Help us build people-powered media: https://novaramedia.com/support

ACFM Microdose: The 'Radical Realists' of Mainstream, Labour's New Faction

Norman Finkelstein is one of the west’s leading anti-Zionist scholars. The son of Holocaust survivors, he has spent his life studying and critiquing Israel’s assault on Palestine, decades before it became socially acceptable to do so.

Yet despite having dedicated his career to it, by the day before Hamas’ attack in October 2023, Norman had all but given up on the cause of Palestinian liberation. His most recent book on the subject had sold 370 copies. When news of the attack arrived, Norman knew people would want to hear from him. He wrestled with what to say, eventually coming to the view that Hamas’ actions could be viewed through the lens of the slave rebellions in the early 1800s: heinous acts of violence borne out of desperate circumstances. Acts that he could not condemn.

​In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Norman tells the story of his parents’ lives before the war, and the life they built in the shadow of the Holocaust. Could they speak about what they had been through? How did their experience impact Norman’s work and his devotion to the truth? What was it like arguing with his mentor, Noam Chomsky? And what is Israel’s endgame?

Downstream: ‘Gaza Is Over, It’s Gone. There’s Nothing Left’ w/ Norman Finkelstein

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.

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