Novara Media
Novara Media is an independent media organisation addressing the issues – from a crisis of capitalism to racism and climate change – that are set to define the 21st century.
Episodes
March 18, 2024 • 94 mins
Peter Hitchens is an author and journalist whose contrarian takes on drug policy, education and foreign policy have found him occupying a singular place in the British media – with his brand of conservatism often angering audiences who would consider themselves staunchly conservative. He sat down with Aaron to discuss grammar schools, Gaza and Britain’s […]
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March 17, 2024 • 80 mins
From fecal transplants to the yoghurt-industrial complex, we’ve never been more absorbed in the workings of our gut. But can we trust it? Nadia, Jem and Keir investigate the mysterious connections between mind and body, reason and instinct. How did capitalism separate our minds from our bodies? Is a belief in intuition filling the gap […]
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March 13, 2024 • 72 mins
Researching Black British history “often feels like a rescue effort, a race against time,” writes Jason Okundaye. In his first book, he narrates the mingled histories of seven astonishing lives in the Black gay community of South London during the 1980s. The narrative he pieces together from oral history, archival research and even gossip (a […]
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March 11, 2024 • 77 mins
Major General Charlie Herbert has stood out in recent months for his vociferous condemnation of Israel’s war on Palestinians. His media appearances have proven vital in synthesising a moral and strategic critique of war in which civilians are treated in a manner he characterises as unprecedented. He sat down with Ash to talk about serving […]
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March 7, 2024 • 56 mins
Less than 20% of the promised levelling-up projects for England have been completed. The problem lies not only with the current government, but with the whole way the UK’s political system is set up, with its whips and Lords and not a constitution in sight. So say Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram, the mayors of […]
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March 4, 2024 • 117 mins
Gary Stevenson went from being Citibank’s most profitable trader to one of the world’s most incisive critics of the financial system. Gary sat down with Aaron to discuss the lightbulb moment that led him away from trading, why economists can’t predict anything and why the UK middle class is doomed.
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March 1, 2024 • 71 mins
As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the question of what Russia is really thinking remains as crucial, and mysterious, as ever. To paint a picture of the current political climate, Richard Hames talks to Tony Wood, author of Russia Without Putin and an assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado […]
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February 26, 2024 • 70 mins
Yanis Varoufakis is an economist and author who served as Greek Finance Minister in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crash. Since then, he has become one of the most sought after public speakers on the left. He joined Aaron Bastani for an IRL edition of Downstream at EartH in Hackney, North-East London to […]
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February 25, 2024 • 102 mins
Last time on ACFM, the gang explored the impact of UFOs on politics, from deep-state conspiracies to the Posadists. But to really understand how aliens influence our thought – and what our belief in E.T. says about ourselves – we have to go to the movies. In this Microdose, Keir, Jem and Nadia sweep through a […]
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February 22, 2024 • 59 mins
The 2000s in Britain was a decade of education, regeneration, falling inequality and Dizzee Rascal. But beneath the fleeting prosperity lurked a culture of cruelty. It was palpable in politicians’ disdain for single mothers, in the media’s vilification of chavs, and in TV producers’ obsession with pointing and laughing at just about everyone – but don’t […]
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February 20, 2024 • 17 mins
Bernie Sanders needs no introduction. Ash caught up with the senator to talk about his new book ‘It’s OK To Be Angry About Capitalism’, the speed of political change and whether what is happening in Gaza constitutes a genocide.
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February 19, 2024 • 91 mins
Yousef Alhelou has spent the four or so months since October 7th covering the Israeli assault on Gaza through his Instagram account. In that time, his audience has grown by hundreds of thousands. Aaron sat down with Yousef to talk about international law, the genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity in it.
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February 15, 2024 • 89 mins
As Israel extends its bombardment of Gaza into Rafah – a supposed safe zone where 1.7 million Palestinians are seeking refuge – the limits of the “laws” of war seem horribly apparent. Following South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ last month, legal scholar Rob Knox joins Eleanor Penny to offer an urgent account of […]
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February 8, 2024 • 57 mins
Certain historians and politicians like to claim that the British Empire was “on balance” a good thing. Slavery was evil, they admit, but abolition was good. Racism was wrong, but free markets are desirable. In his new book Empireworld, journalist and historian Sathnam Sanghera rejects this “balance sheet” reading of history in order to wrestle […]
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February 5, 2024 • 57 mins
Should there be a cap on how much wealth one person can have? If we’re serious about tackling poverty, the answer can only be yes, says Ingrid Robeyns, author of Limitarianism: The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Robeyns tells Ash Sarkar what a wealth cap could do for the world, how the global north is living […]
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February 4, 2024 • 85 mins
Should the left care about the existence of aliens? The ACFM gang explore the impact of UFOs on political thought in this Trip. Keir, Jem and Nadia discuss the connections between UFO conspiracies and right-wing thought, why some communists think aliens will bring about world revolution, and whether Fermi’s paradox means we’re not alone, with […]
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January 29, 2024 • 100 mins
Twenty years ago, it was taken for granted that on average, people globally were shrugging off the shackles of organised religion. The world was destined for secularism. But with demographics trends in many countries pointing towards a growing religious population and with secular liberal politics failing to offer solace from falling living standards, we should […]
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January 25, 2024 • 84 mins
This episode was first released in November 2021. In the bestselling book The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, archaeologist David Wengrow and the late anthropologist David Graeber offer a radically different story of our social evolution. Drawing on groundbreaking research gathered over a decade of collaboration, the book challenges just about everything […]
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January 22, 2024 • 88 mins
We are in a drastically different world from the one most of us grew up in. This has been proven by the rapid escalation in the events in the Middle East over the last six weeks. No longer are we in a world where, essentially, the US run the show. And this has huge global […]
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January 21, 2024 • 72 mins
Music has the uncanny power to stir up big feelings, which makes it an obvious vehicle for political statements of hope, anger, despair, or how to cast your vote. In this Microdose episode to accompany ACFM’s recent Trip on Protest, Jem takes us through 60 years of plugged-in protest music – no strumming folkies or […]
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