What's Left? With Jovan + Freddie

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The Labour leadership crisis has gone nuclear with Health Secretary Wes Streeting resigning this afternoon, after a week of intense speculation of a coup following Labour's local elections drubbing.

We sat down with Phil Tinline, author of Ghosts of Iron Mountain and The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares, to dive deep into the chaos. Phil is an expert in both Labour history and conspiracy theories - coalescing here for a rich discussion on the polycrisis that has rendered the British state obsolete.

How can Labour make the case that they aren’t the Tories, with infighting and psychodrama returning from 2022-3? Do bond market jitters await?

Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:48 Britain's Permacrisis
12:09 Starmer's Leadership Challenge
20:53 Burnham's Manchesterism
30:57 Politics Love of Conspiracy Theories
39:04 Breakdown In Political Communication
48:45 Who is Labour for after the AI revolution?
56:35 British Cultural Identity
1:05:40 Conspiracy Theory vs. Reality
1:16:35 The Iron Mountain Conspiracy
1:23:30 Who Believes Conspiracies?
1:31:20 Reinvigorating the Social Contract
1:34:30 Reform, Donations and Accountability

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Skit Comedian Tom Nestor and host of podcast All Right Idiots joins us for a chat on livestreamers, chronically online extremists and the upcoming local elections.

After calling out Freddie for his cold approach game with viral streamer Gymskin, the boys invited Tom on the podcast to discuss the best way to get non-political audiences caring about the issues of our time...
Chapters 00:00 Gymskin + Freddie
09:25 Livestreaming Gone Mad
17:47 Right-Wing Comedians
22:04 Talking To Reform Voters
33:00 Corbyn, Polanski + Tom's Politics
38:00 Cancellations and Conspiracies
45:27 UK Groypers
53:39 Feeling Sorry For Isolated Young Men?
59:55 Jovan's RW Cancellation
1:05:40 Anti-White Prejudice
1:14:30 What Makes English Identity?
1:21:15 Immigration Debate 1:25:10 Greens + Local Elections
1:33:06 In Defence of Labour

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Has political imagination died? Having made a name for herself as a leftist short-form content creator, Louisa Munch has quickly become Instagram’s favourite Critical Theorist. Expert in applying canonical political texts to the chaos we see unfolding today, Louisa joins us for a meandering discussion on higher education, leftist utopia and the how to challenge the insurgent populist right.

In this conversation, we explore the concept of ‘nostalgia’ and the mythological way it is deployed by the radical right, to call for a return to a harmonious and tranquil past. This idealised vision of what has come before is a seductive construction for many Brits, who have felt the grandeur and richness of the UK fade over the course of their lifetimes. Who is to blame?

Many are deeply dissatisfied with our current Labour government, who have not upended the neoliberal economic consensus, opting for foreign investment given constraints in the omnipotent bond market. But without engaging our economic imagination, it seems that Britain is fatalistically condemned to managed decline, energising populist demands on either flank. Over and over again, elections are being won and lost on which candidate most represents the change that people want to feel to our socio-economic order. Sticking with the devil you know doesn’t seem very attractive if you think you’re on the road to Hell.

If neoliberalism is indeed in its final days, then the question is what will replace it? Louisa argues that the Left needs to be thinking in the future, striving to achieve an ideal of worker empowerment that is free from neoliberal constraint. But can critical theory, the analysis of power relations and how to challenge them, tell us what that ‘utopia’ should look like and how to get there in practice?

00:00 Intro
03:45 Alienation and Economic Migration
08:17 Can the Left Use Nostalgia?
16:22 Universalism and the Boomer Class
21:45 Is Critical Theory Just Left-Wing Meta-Ideology?
28:05 Is Questioning Power Emotive or Rational?
31:55 Cross-Cultural Nostalgia
36:45 Is University Delivering What Society Needs?
44:30 Immigration and Integration
49:04 Patriarchy, Misogyny and Grooming Gangs
56:04 Pink Ladies Movement
1:00:29 White Working Class Anxiety
1:07:35 Economic Growth and Zero-Sum Thinking
1:13:05 Solving the Poverty of Ambition
1:17:20 Beware Utopian Idealists?
1:25:04 Gramsci + Cultural Change
1:30:05 Is America Still Democratic?

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Back again with the biggest quandaries afflicting the modern progressive movement as political canon events unfold at breakneck speed!

I don’t think I’ve ever felt more jaded by the perpetual shock and awe chain reaction of geopolitics. We’ve decided to create a little bit of distance from the dizzying mainstream media cycle to consider the wider tensions that are at play, especially for a Left-wing political project. Who better to get in this discussion than Marxist economist Grace Blakeley, author of Vulture Capitalism.

Grace is one of the most salient commentators in the British Left movement, after being a key spokesperson during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader. Having left Labour in 2024, Grace has gone on to endorse her friend Zack Polanski and join the Green Party. But her leftism stands in contrast to some of the Greens most important economic positions, such as its cornerstone project to rejoin the European Union.

In this episode, we dive into the great challenges that face modern socialists, including the fear that accelarationism could facilitate a lurch to the hard right, rather than any hope of progressive revolution. We also cast our minds back to the historical conditions that have formed the present: namely capital’s triumph over collective bargaining power (RIP Unions), which was prefigured by Marxist economist Kalecki, a critic of the much revered social democrat economist John Maynard Keynes.

We also touch upon one of our favourite topics on this podcast, the deeply polarised working classes in post-imperial nations. Grace laments the lack of a ‘class for itself’, a working class who understands their “real” collective interests. The question, of course, is what are those objective interests - are any of them cultural, what makes them ‘true’, and how do we ascertain them?

As always, please don’t forget to drop us a follow on @wtf_is.left and please consider supporting the show on Substack!

Chapters

00:00 Intro
03:17 The End of Corbynism
07:47 Should the Greens Want To Rejoin The EU?
14:17 Can You Trust The State?
20:20 Democratic Capitalism vs Democratic Socialism
25:50 How Keynes Led to Thatcher
32:30 Imperialism and Labour Aristocracy
39:40 Progressives and Protectionism
45:10 Can Greens Succeed Where Corbyn Failed?
56:04 How Liberalism Defeated Communities
1:02:10 Manosphere and Neoliberalism
1:06:30 Need for Cultural Revolution
1:10:20 Influence of David Graeber
1:14:23 Is Socialism in its Infancy?
1:18:30 Moving From Labour To The Greens

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Early Access to Ad-Free Extended Interviews
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LIVEs with Jovan + Freddie
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Articles + Exclusive Content
**********************************************

When Asim agreed to do this podcast, I messaged all my bros from school days immediately. Asim's character Chabuddy G, of 'People Just Do Nothing' fame, was one of the biggest cultural influences on those hazy days. In the playground, we used to spit Chabuddyisms over a bit of 2 touch, while deep cuts of UK Garage (Peven Everett pls stand up) blared off an iphone speaker. If Reform was talking about a nostalgia to this past, maybe I'd get on board.

Asim has gone onto a stellar career in acting and screenwriting since his debut on the BBC. But it's his expertise in crossing the weather veins of cultural commentary with British character humour, that made him the perfect guest for our podcast.

Never shy to wind up pearl-clutchers on the left or right with his exciting inversions of stereotypes, Asim encapsulates the type of comedy that we believe can heal the UK. His jokes are rich in cheek and healthily inclined to the absurd.

So isn't it ironic, that as we sat lamenting the script-written transformations of once-idealised creators into right-wing grifters, all I felt was a glowing appreciation to be sat with one of my heroes - and him be exactly what I cracked him up to be.

If reality has indeed become satire, grab your popcorn and find some of your favourite people to laugh with. We must, at the very least, enjoy the show.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:30 Ending The Wasteman Life
11:42 Desperate For Male Validation
17:15 Making The Racists Laugh
22:04 Baiting Out Grifters
30:01 Finding Common Ground
40:22 Escaping Echo Chambers
47:17 What Figure Could Unite the Left?
54:15 How Powerlessness Fuels F@scism
1:03:30 Class, Agency and Finding Success
1:12:15 Staying Grounded
1:18:20 Ethics Of Chabuddy G
1:22:03 Privatisation of Water + Dirty Business
1:29:30 Comedy Is The Great Equalizer