The ACFM crew offer their first reactions to Labour's landslide election win. Can Starmer's government rescue the public sector? Where will the money come from? And can they make it to a second term?

Produced and edited by Matt Huxley and Chal Ravens. PRS licence number: LE-0016481

Novara Audio: Radio for a Different Politics

ACFM Microdose: Election '24 Vibecheck

Everybody hates a tourist, as Jarvis Cocker once pointed out, and the ACFM gang are no exception in this ACFM Trip exploring the allure of holidays. 

Keir, Jem and Nadia consider all the different ways we avoid work, from holy days and vay-cays to grand tours and gap yahs. Does travel make fools of us all, or is there a smarter, more ethical way to go sightseeing? Is the promise of an annual getaway the only thing keeping the working population docile?

Featuring ideas from John Urry, David Harvey and Arun Saldanha, plus music from Dead Kennedys, Cliff Richard and Madonna.

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".

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ACFM Trip 45: Holidays

A month after racist riots engulfed the country, the ACFM crew ask what fascism – and antifascism – look like in Britain today.

Do the riots and counter-protests mark a return to "street politics"? Why didn't the Labour party align itself with opponents of the pogroms? And how popular are extreme rightwing views among Britain's frustrated youth? Jem, Nadia and Keir take a closer look at the make-up of the rioters and the reaction from the public, the media and politicans.

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters
Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching "ACFM".

Produced by Matt Huxley.

ACFM Microdose: The Joy of Fascism

Of all the unseen forces that shape human society, could death be the most powerful? The ACFM crew take a leftwing look at mortality in this Trip, asking how capitalism has altered our approach to the inevitable.

Jem, Nadia and Keir discuss how industrialised workers were taught to prepare for death, why powerful men are obsessed with their legacies, why we failed to ritualise or remember the Covid dead, and the fear of being desensitised to killing.

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".

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ACFM Trip 46: Death

Disruption is a byword for success in the tech industry, but when it affects our daily routines – say, because Just Stop Oil are slow-marching down the high street – disruption becomes nothing short of criminal.

In this Trip, Jem, Nadia and Keir try to make sense of the harsh sentences handed down to climate activists this year while unpacking the political uses of disruption and the 'creative destruction' inherent to capitalism.

Along the way they discuss music from Björk, Disrupters and Stormzy and chew on ideas from economist Joseph Schumpeter, Nick Land and the Communist Manifesto.

Books: Joseph Schumpeter / Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari - A Thousand Plateaus / Erik Olin Wright - How To Be An Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century / Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels – The Communist Manifesto / Michał Kalecki - Political Aspects of Full Employment

Music: Disrupters - Shelters For the Rich / Stormzy - Vossi Bop / Joe Ariwa and the Tricksters - Disruptive Dub / The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction / Janelle Monaé - Tightrope / Björk - Declare Independence

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ACFM Trip 47: Disruption

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

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.

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ACFM Microdose: The Communist Manifesto

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.

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

The gang convene for a milestone 50th Trip episode all about acid – as a drug, a music genre, a political concept, a mental tool and a thought corrosive. Nadia, Keir and Jem look back on six years of the podcast to decide if ‘acid’ is still a useful way of thinking about leftwing politics.

With music from Tricky, Pink Floyd and Phuture, they discuss anticapitalism, Acid Corbynism, Rimbaud, acid rock, Terence McKenna, mind-body dualism and plain old LSD.

Follow our Spotify playlist of all the music discussed on ACFM and subscribe to the ACFM mailing list to get weirder and leftier.

Music: Jimi Hendrix – ‘Purple Haze’ / Thatcher on Acid – ‘Sitting’ / Pink Floyd – ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ / Boredoms – ‘Acid Police’ / Phuture – ‘Acid Tracks’ / D Mob – ‘We Call It Acid’ / Funk, Inc. – ‘The Better Half’ / Tricky – ‘Overcome’

Books: Mark Fisher – K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings / Mark Fisher – Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures / Jay Stevens – Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream

ACFM Trip 50: Fifty Shades of Acid

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

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 – pledge your support from as little as £1 a month: https://novara.media/support

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