New Economics Podcast New Economics Foundation

This spring, swimmers in Kent were told to avoid ten beaches in the county due to sewage leaks. Public outrage at sewage pouring into our rivers and beaches has so far focused on water companies. But is someone else to blame? The pipes that carry sewage in Kent are not owned by Southern Water, or even Kent County Council. They belong to a massive Australian asset management firm that most of us have never heard of.

Asset management firms are not household names, but they’ve come to own our energy systems, hospitals, schools, and even the pipes that supply our drinking water. So who are these shadowy companies? What even is asset management? And why are they buying up the things we need to keep our society going?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by political economist and economic geographer Brett Christophers to discuss his new book Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World.

Grab a copy of the book here: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2985-our-lives-in-their-portfolios-why-asset-managers-own-the-world

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Music by Chad Crouch and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Produced by Becky Malone, Margaret Welsh and Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The New Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

The friend who has to cancel plans to look after their elderly mum. The colleague who leaves their phone on loud so they don’t miss a call about their disabled child. The neighbour you’ve barely seen since their partner’s diagnosis. We’re surrounded by people who are dealing with the challenges of caregiving, but they often go unseen.

According to Carers UK, there could be over ten million people providing unpaid care in the UK. We’ll all have to care for someone or be cared for over the course of our lives. So why are the challenges caregivers face so overlooked? And how can we build a system that supports their wellbeing?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by writer and activist Emily Kenway to discuss her new book Who Cares: the hidden crisis of caregiving and how we solve it.

Grab a copy of the book, out now: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/who-cares-the-hidden-crisis-of-caregiving-and-how-we-solve-it-emily-kenway/5956477?ean=9781472288486

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Music by Chris Zabriskie and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Produced by Becky Malone, Margaret Welsh and Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The New Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

As the chancellor stood up in Parliament to present his spring budget in March, half a million people went on strike to demand better from their bosses. Teachers, junior doctors, Tube drivers, civil servants and more all walked out of work, in the biggest day of strike action in over a decade.

As the strikes rumble on into another summer, how can workers keep up the momentum? Will new legislation make it harder to fight for better pay and working conditions? And should more of us be trying to unionise our workplaces?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by workplace organiser Lydia Hughes and researcher Jamie Woodcock, authors of Troublemaking: why you should organise your workplace.

Grab a copy of Troublemaking: Why You Should Organise Your Workplace – out now www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2889-troublemaking

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Music by Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Produced by Becky Malone, Margaret Welsh and Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The New Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

Nurses struggling without PPE, the frantic search for hospital ventilators, even the dreaded ping from NHS test-and-trace. To most of us, these memories represent some of the worst of the Covid pandemic. But for a select few companies, they were an opportunity to make millions.

Consultancy firms won over seven hundred million pounds worth of government Covid contracts to do things like run the test-and-trace system and vaccine rollout. This February, ministers dropped restrictions on Whitehall spending on consultants, allowing these firms to potentially rake in millions more.

So why is the government so dependent on consultants? Whose interests do they serve? And how worried should we be about their effect on public life?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Rosie Collington, co-author of 'The Big Con: How the Consultancy Industry Weakens Our Businesses, Infantilises Our Governments and Warps Our Economies'.

Grab a copy of The Big Con out now https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451193/the-big-con-by-collington-mariana-mazzucato-and-rosie/9780241573082

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Music by A. A. Aalto and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Produced by Becky Malone, Margaret Welsh and Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

You can’t paint your walls, you can’t have a pet, you can’t guarantee you’ll have somewhere to live in six months time. Millions of us are paying sky-high rents but struggling to make a home in a housing system where safety and security takes second place to landlords’ profits.

Some private tenants face mould and broken boilers but daren’t complain. According to Shelter, complaining to your landlord about conditions in your home more than doubles your chance of being evicted.

How did private renting become so prevalent? Why are the rights of tenants so weak? And what does this mean for our ability to make a home?

Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Vicky Spratt, housing correspondent at the i and author of Tenants, and Kieran Yates, journalist and author of the upcoming All the houses I’ve ever lived in.

Further reading:

- Grab a copy of Vicky's book Tenants https://profilebooks.com/work/tenants/
- Kieran's book All the houses I've ever lived in is out on the 27 April https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/All-The-Houses-Ive-Ever-Lived-In/Kieran-Yates/9781398509832
- Kojo Koram's book Uncommon wealth is available here https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/kojo-koram/uncommon-wealth/9781529338652/
- Find out more about about the Joseph Rowntree Foundation's work on home-owners and poverty https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/home-owners-and-poverty

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Music by Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Produced by Becky Malone, Margaret Welsh and Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

On a sunny day in January, a ghostly figure covered in green ribbons appeared on a moor in south-west England. It was a person dressed as Old Crockern, the guardian spirit of Dartmoor. He was greeted by 3000 people who had gathered to protest a court ruling that took away the right to wild camp in the area. It was the biggest countryside access protest in living memory.

The ruling reignited a long-running concern over land in England: who owns it? And who is allowed to use it? The aristocracy and landed gentry still own around thirty per cent of English land, and half of England is owned by less than one per cent of the population.

How did we get here? What does land ownership have to do with wealth and power? And is there another way?

Ayeisha is joined by Nadia Shaikh, naturalist, conservationist and land justice activist with Right to Roam and Frances Northrop, associate fellow at the New Economics Foundation.

Further reading:

- Find out more and get involved with Right to Roam https://www.righttoroam.org.uk/
- Listen to the Land for Who podcast series sharedassets.org.uk/resources/land-for-who-land-justice-podcast-series
- Find out more about the Ecological Land Cooperative https://ecologicalland.coop/
- Read the Sold from Under You investigation https://council-sell-off.thebureauinvestigates.com/

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Music by Chad Crouch and Podington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence.

Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. With thanks to Katrina Gaffney.

Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF!

The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org