What's Left? With Jovan + Freddie

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Babe wake up, new PM just dropped!

Since we launched this podcast, politics has been lurching from crisis to crisis. Yet again, Britain has a new leader. Our 5th in 4 years, our 7th in a decade. It can’t go on like this, surely?!

This week we have a special episode with Paul Nowak, the General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress, the national umbrella organisation for trade unions in England and Wales, representing nearly 6 million workers.

Founded in the 19th century, The TUC has a storied history. Agitating for greater rights and protections for workers, Trade Unions have guaranteed the weekend, sick pay and holidays.

As the relation between capital and labour is rewritten by new tech, we forget our Union heritage at our own peril. Collective bargaining has been at the core of progressive change. Without it, we are at the mercy of vested interests.

For many historians, Margaret Thatcher won a decisive victory over agitating Unions. Union memberships drop from over 50% to 22% today.

But now, memberships are rising again as workers realise the threat ahead. Oligarchy has returned. Tech is taking jobs. And democracy itself appears to be on the line.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:00 Union Members For Farage
06:05 Burnham’s Change Agenda
11:01 Getting Britain Building Again
17:36 Can Burnham Take On Vested Interests?
23:42 Employment Rights vs. Farage’s Crypto Interests
29:05 Populist Right Hypocrisy
36:30 Ending Neoliberalism
42:03 Fixing the Unproductive State
48:52 Can the Union Movement be Reactionary?
53:37 Left-Wing Talent Pipeline
59:54 Trades vs. Universities
1:05:34 Reindustrialising Britain
1:13:16 Lifelong Educational Reform
1:20:20 Can The State Afford Radicalism?
1:25:10 Youth Unemployment and Mental Health

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Are we more American than European? Has the UK's future been fatalistically forged? New Statesmen Editor and Brexit Historian Tom McTague offers an account of the real trade offs faced by the British establishment.

Too often, politics resorts to a conclusion of managed decline. A despondent shrug. Are we suffering from learned helplessness? A belief that it’s now too hard to create the change our society is yearning for?

History does not work like that. A radical contingency of events might present as inevitability. But in McTague’s chronicle of Britain’s topsy-turvy relationship with the Europe and its Union, one thing stands out: it is never over.

So perhaps the Pro-European Left needs to channel their inner Declan Rice (“It’s not done!”). Maybe it isn’t - maybe the dream of Britain as an integral player in the EU need not be abandoned.

But if that is to be the unwritten Post-Brexit story, the #FBPE brigade need to get real. Why did Britain choose to leave?

One answer is to lament the brainwashing of the right-wing press, the outsized influence of Cambridge Analytica and the weather on the day (it was raining for both teams, Ty!).

But another answer, one that cuts deeper, would argue that this is a profound civilisational question. One that must arrest the hard realities of geopolitical competition, like a British moth to an American flame.

In the end, it is about money and it is about power. How much hard power should Britain give up to be able to choose its own destiny? Is it even possible to decouple from the American empire? What control is really open for us to wrest back, after all?

Some of these questions we attempt to answer. But the diagnosis is clear: if we want to keep the welfare state, things are going to have to change.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
02:11 Is Farage Closer to Power or Failure?
08:37 Unpredictability of the Next Election
14:28 Where’s the Left’s Dominic Cummings?
18:18 Why the Starmer’s Project Failed
23:32 Reindustrialisation and the AI Revolution
28:42 Tech Regulation and British Sovereignty
35:05 The Populist Right’s Civilisational Project
40:01 Restoring the Left’s Radical Tradition
44:35 A Federal Europe or an Imperial America?
51:32 Can Middle Powers Create an Alliance?
58:82 Britain’s Post-Brexit Ambitions
1:03:19 A Left-Mythology on English Identity
1:10:58 Enoch Powell’s Impact on The Modern Right
1:14:00 A Future For European Integration?

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Another heatwave just dropped so we’re here with our first in-depth convo on the climate crisis, joined by one of the world’s biggest eco-influencers, Michael Mezz.

After studying economics at Stanford, Michael decided to hold onto his soul and become an activist to prevent ecological collapse. Remember folks, the magic circle law firm / big 3 consultancy isn't the only way.

In this episode we explore the major shift in green politics: away from classic environmentalism and towards a social media friendly left-populist economics. In particular, we discuss the decline in the ‘green growth’ agenda and the rise of the ‘degrowth’ or ‘post-growth’ political economy, pushed by thinkers like Jason Hickel (who has featured on Michael's podcast).

What would reality look like if we exited the perennial treadmill of infinite growth? If such a future is possible how can it happen?

Our objections to degrowth models centre on the global top-down application of such economic theories. Is a wholesale rewiring of the global economy a fantasy untethered from the hard realities of geopolitical competition?

We also examine challenges around the Jevons Paradox (that energy efficiency creates greater throughput rather than reducing emissions), whether China is making a moral or expedient green transition and why green economists can’t escape the attraction of modern monetary theory.

The question the left has to answer in the face of radical global uncertainty and multipolar competition over energy, security and tech, is who benefits from our system?

A world of automation beckons under a canopy of ecological collapse and mass suffering. The old world has certainly died and a new world struggling to be born. Let's hope it's not on Mars.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
04:14 Polanski and Eco-Populism
11:20 Zarah Sultana Hypocrisy
12:11 Internationalism vs. Nationalism
17:42 Has ‘Green Growth’ Failed?
26:02 Why Eco-Socialists Want ‘De-Growth’
30:55 Does De-Growth Make Sense?
40:44 China’s Electrodollar vs. US Petrodollar
49:50 The Challenge of Declining Living Standards
57:20 Global Anti-Imperialism
1:00:54 Debating Modern Monetary Theory
1:05:22 Wealth Taxes and Democratic Capitalism
1:17:45 Is Populism De Facto Bad?

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Green Industrialist and Labour Party mega-donor Dale Vince is beefing with Energy secretary Ed Miliband, as speculation around Andy Burnham's Chancellor nomination reaches fever pitch.

Vince, in typically bombastic style, intervened in the Times to argue that Labour should 'scrap Net Zero'. Yep, you read that right.

Is Britain's most divisive 'Eco Tycoon' reneging on his lifetime commitment to environmentalism?

Of course not.

Vince is arguing that a number of policies within 'Net Zero' amount to a waste of public money, zeroing in on carbon capture and heat pump subsidies. He says that Reform UK's attack line against Net Zero is cutting through as families face stubbornly high energy costs, which look set to rise after Trump's reckless war against Iran.

Conveniently for Vince, this intervention coincided with Burnham's first major speech outlining his policy direction if he becomes Prime Minister.

Centring on increasing devolution, Burnham has committed to reindustrialising Britain - which could run into conflict with Labour's highly ambitious green transition to a net zero energy grid by 2030.

Subsequently, Miliband has been the subject of unprecedented Union endorsements and denouncements as Burnham weighs up his choice for Chancellor. Not only is Miliband too ideological for the right-wing press, it appears he's no longer the man for Dale Vince either.

Their beef hinges on Miliband's failure to fully commit to Vince's flagship policy of 'breaking the link', decoupling expensive gas pricing from all other energy pricing... Let us know what you think in the comments.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:25 Dale's Beef With Ed Miliband
05:23 'Breaking the Link' between Gas Prices and Electricity
09:05 Carbon Capture Racket
12:30 Dale vs. Nuclear Energy
16:19 In Defence of Nuclear Buildout
20:15 Why Isn't Britain's Grid Working?
24:19 Is Dale Protecting His Business Interests?
28:56 Air Conditioning Rollout vs. Climate Activists
31:21 Does Burnham Have a Mandate for Change?
33:20 Will Vince Remain a Donor if Burnham Reindustrialises?

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Emily Lawford's viral New Statesman cover story 'Meet the Angry Young Women' created huge waves of online discourse, undulating from the radical TikTok Left to the extreme Right on Elon Musks's brainwashing algorithm.

Polling from Merlin Strategies found that Gen-Z women were feeling extremely pessimistic,about their future, young men and our politics. Why?

We thought there was no one better to ask than our own resident (self-annointed) angry young woman and friend of the show, Tilly Middlehurst (a.k.a. BlondePraxis).

Is the anger justified or misplaced? Is the pessimism motivating or paralysing? Do these two young women agree on the causes... and the solutions?

Apologies for issues with the sound/video quality, one of our cameras overheated :( Appreciate your patience with us as we improve over time x

Chapters
00:00 Emily's Viral 'Angry Young Women' Article
04:59 Tilly’s Response
10:02 Is the ‘Femosphere’ as Dangerous as the ‘Manosphere’?
16:36 Is Gen-Z Feminist Pessimism Justified?
20:27 Do Young Women Misperceive Injustice?
27:04 Which Gender is More Negative About the Other?
36:42 Biological Essentialism and Reactionary Feminism
44:30 Politicising the Fertility Crisis
51:40 Anti-Feminist Global Conspiracy?
55:26 Gym Influencers vs. Manosphere
1:03:43 Has Social Media Catalysed Polarisation?
1:13:47 Identity, Community and Free Speech
1:21:57 Tommy Robinson’s Unite The Kingdom Rally
1:26:30 Migrant Violence Against Women and Girls
1:36:10 Reaction to Emily’s New Statesman Article