Novara Media

4.8 (1.3K)
POLITICS
UPDATED TWICE WEEKLY

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.

11 HR AGO

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

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 […]

1h 27m
6 DAYS AGO

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

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, The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Labour Together and the Crisis of British Democracy. He tells Ash Sarkar about the cache of leaked emails that revealed the […]

1h 28m
3 NOV

Downstream: Putin’s War in Ukraine Has Ancient Roots w/ Serhii Plokhy

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 […]

1h 38m
27 OCT

Downstream: The West Misunderstands Iran w/ Vali Nasr

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 […]

1h 31m
22 OCT

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

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 […]

45 min
20 OCT

Downstream: What Really Changed on 7th October w/ Ahmed Alnaouq, Yara Eid and Tareq Baconi

Just over two years after the beginning of the genocide in Gaza, and just days after the announcement of a ceasefire, Aaron Bastani spoke to three Palestinian writers in front of a live audience at EartH in Hackney. Ahmed Alnaouq is the host of Palestine Deep Dive and the co-founder of ‘We Are Not Numbers’, […]

1h 1m
19 OCT

ACFM Trip 55: Parties

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 them? Do parties work by drawing people together, or by excluding the uninvited? And should a political party have anything in common with a dance party? […]

1h 51m
13 OCT

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

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 […]

1h 36m

See All (306)

Aaron Bassani

Host
Ash Sarkar

Host
Carl Cattermole

Host
James Butler

Host
Michael Walker

Host
Oonagh Ryder

Host

4.8

out of 5

1,288 Ratings

Excellent

27 Jul

rockandorrollz

Great journalism, really interesting guests, pertinent subject matters. Definitely a more decolonial media outlet, refreshing.
London centric

6 Aug

JamieO1983

All subjects are discussed through the prism of gentrified London. You need to get out of your bubbles and maybe hire a working class host based in the North. A case in point - Ash and Eliza talking about the “inheritocracy” as two people who have respectively inherited money to buy a place in London and an actual London house means they have a very rare and privileged experience compared to most people in the UK. I couldn’t take the discussion seriously.
The Rest is Slop

21 Jun

LenBurr

Supported by members, not corporate advertising. Indefatigable
Enlightened

22 Apr

Paul CB

Insightful, tells it as it is, holds all to account. Great journalism.

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.