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Our guest this week was born in 1943, in what was then British India – modern day Pakistan. Unlike most, who have learned history through books and second-hand sources, he has witnessed first-hand a great deal of the 20th and 21st centuries. Tariq Ali founded Verso Books, the leading left-wing publishing house in Britain, as well […]
It has been a bellicose start to 2026, with the US army kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and threatening to annex Greenland, putting many more nations, including Mexico and Colombia, on high alert. On Downstream this week is investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald, who's best known for helping Edward Snowden's disclosures about the NSA's global surveillance […]
After ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood' on October 7th, a specific narrative quickly emerged and pervaded the entire Western mainstream media. Namely, that unprecedented horrors were committed against the state of Israel and that whatever way it responded was justified. Any deviation from this narrative was quickly shut down. In the intervening years, the British state has […]
Ash Sarkar and Aaron Bastani joined each other on 17th December for a special end-of-year Downstream, wrapping up the year in politics.
Norman Finkelstein is one of the west's leading anti-Zionist scholars. The son of Holocaust survivors, he has spent his life studying and critiquing Israel's assault on Palestine, decades before it became socially acceptable to do so. Yet despite having dedicated his career to it, by the day before Hamas' attack in October 2023, Norman had […]
After a Trip episode about the meaning of mainstream, this time the gang go deeper into ‘Mainstream' – that is, the new soft-left faction inside Labour. Yes, a festive episode about the inner workings of a political party! Don't say we don't spoil you. Jem, Nadia and Keir explain the emergence of Mainstream's ‘radical realists' […]
Nata e cresciuta a Novara, Ilaria Brustia ha 45 anni, vive a Milano, ma fin da bambina ha sempre avuto un legame profondo con la campagna, assorbendo il ritmo e i valori della vita contadina. Suo nonno, infatti, possedeva 60 ettari di terreno dove coltivava riso. Negli anni '90, nella cascina dei nonni, comincia a muoversi la seconda generazione: è Giovanni, il padre di Ilaria, a dare nuova energia all'azienda di famiglia. Già dirigente in una multinazionale a Milano, comincia a occuparsi della gestione dei terreni.Per Ilaria, però, in quegli anni la strada sembra portare altrove. Dopo l'università si trasferisce a Londra, dove rimane per sei anni, costruendo una vita lontana dalla campagna e dall'impresa di famiglia. È solo alla soglia dei trent'anni che sceglie di rientrare in Italia e affiancare il padre. Un ritorno che non è semplice: le due generazioni parlano linguaggi diversi, e i confronti, spesso accesi, segnano ogni scelta. Con il tempo, però, tra tentativi, compromessi e intuizioni, l'azienda trova un suo nuovo equilibrio. Ma nel 2019, la traiettoria si spezza: il padre si ammala e muore nel maggio del 2020. Per Ilaria, si apre una nuova fase della vita e dell'impresa, ed è proprio in quel momento di dolore che avviene il vero passaggio generazionale: Ilaria chiude alcuni progetti avviati precedentemente dal padre, investe in macchinari 4.0 e amplia la superficie coltivabile.Nella terza puntata della seconda stagione di Percorsi, Domitilla Ferrari ci porta alla scoperta di Riso Intrepido, non solo una nuova identità aziendale, ma un progetto collettivo che porta avanti i valori di famiglia con uno sguardo contemporaneo. Dalle risaie del nonno ai mercati internazionali, tra rotazioni colturali, nuovi terreni, volatilità dei prezzi e investimenti: dietro ogni scelta agronomica si nasconde un equilibrio economico da costruire. Per aiutarci a capire questa complessità c'è Eleonora Crestani, Hr Learning & Development Specialist di Banca Sella.
Since Hamas launched its assault on October 7th, 2023, the group has become synonymous with evil in large parts of the Western media. Condemnation has come at the expense of critical engagement with the group's actions, objectives, and history, leaving a vacuum that has been filled with racist assumptions and conspiracy theories. Tareq Baconi is […]
This is the audio of the Cosmostream of December 7th 2025 on Your Party with guests Bryce Bailey and Charlie Porter from the Democratic Socialists of Your Party. We cover the origins of Your Party, why the guests have chosen to intervene in YP and not the Greens and what kind of intervention they are performing and the kinds of politics they are looking towards. We also cover the contested process of formation of YP, the sects and factions involved, the intricacies of the founding conference and what kind of limitations it had as well as DYSP as a group and its principles. Core reading: Archie W commissioned by Novara media Ewan T on DSYP's vision for Your Party Ewan C on DSYP's structure Kieran G on DSYP's strategy Founding conference Background reading: Corbyn argues against a centralised party after the 2024 general election in an Guardian article Guardian article on one of the first of Collective's secret conferences: After Memorandum of Understanding takes over the party-building process from Collective, Andrew Feinstein and Jamie Driscoll outline their vision for a Party The big TWT factions: https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/10/22/democratic-socialists/ https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/10/22/the-democratic-bloc/ https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/10/22/organising-for-popular-power/ https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/10/22/trans-liberation-group/ https://prometheusjournal.org/2025/10/22/greater-manchester-left-caucus/ Socialist Unity Platform: https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1562/all-out-for-liverpool/ https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1564/ideas-unity-action/ Inacio on the crowdediting process: https://inacioinvita.substack.com/p/protecting-your-partys-crowdediting Founding Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk0FjNyvfgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UrxGlrFRpg
NEW LIVE SHOW! Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026. Presale tickets available at 11AM on 10th December – go to crossedwires.live and use the code CW26EARLY. After watching the Wicked sequel, Moya wonders if politeness is stopping us from seriously addressing women's shrinking bodies and changing faces. Are we allowing […]
Did you know that the standard of Google searches has actually gotten worse over recent years? Once you think about it, it makes sense. Highly effective search means fewer searches overall. And fewer searches means less ad revenue. The financial basis of Alphabet, which is Google's parent company, is, of course, digital advertising. Which means […]
Jem, Nadia and Keir debate the meaning of ‘mainstream' – something none of them could ever possibly be, of course. Is ‘woke' the new mainstream? Can there be a mainstream if we don't all have access to the same culture? Is Tommy Robinson shifting the Overton Window? Why is nonconformity associated with coolness? And who engineers […]
Whether you love or loathe his tactics, it's hard to deny the disruptive impact that Roger Hallam has had on British politics via the activist organisations he has led, Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil. He joins Ash Sarkar fresh from his latest stint in prison, where he wrote a treatise for Your Party that […]
The next two episodes of Reliability Matters will be all about contract manufacturing, an area that can make or break the reliability and success of a product. Mike Konrad's guest on this episode is Raymond Novara, founder and owner of East End Assemblies, a US-based contract manufacturer recognized for its focus on quality, customer service, and compliance with AS9100 and IPC standards. During our conversation, Raymond talks about key questions that every OEM should be considering: What are the best practices for selecting a contract manufacturer? What common mistakes do companies make when working with a CM—especially in communication and hand-offs? How can design-for-manufacturability feedback prevent problems down the road? What should customers know about transitioning from prototypes to volume production? And how can contract manufacturers help ensure long-term product reliability, not just passing initial tests? If you're an OEM evaluating partners, an engineer preparing to hand off a design, or someone interested in how contract manufacturers contribute to product reliability, this episode is packed with insights.
The next two episodes will be all about contract manufacturing, an area that can make or break the reliability and success of a product. My guest on this episode is Raymond Novara, founder and owner of East End Assemblies, a U.S.-based contract manufacturer recognized for its focus on quality, customer service, and compliance with AS9100 and IPC standards.During our conversation, I'll be asking Raymond some key questions that every OEM should be considering:What are the best practices for selecting a contract manufacturer?What common mistakes do companies make when working with a CM—especially in communication and hand-offs?How can design-for-manufacturability feedback prevent problems down the road?What should customers know about transitioning from prototypes to volume production?And how can contract manufacturers help ensure long-term product reliability, not just passing initial tests?If you're an OEM evaluating partners, an engineer preparing to hand off a design, or someone interested in how contract manufacturers contribute to product reliability, this episode is packed with insights.Raymond Novara's Company:East End Assemblieshttps://eastendassemblies.com
Support for the Green party in Britain has been steadily rising for the past few decades. However, few predicted that when Zack Polanski took office as Green party leader in September, membership would surge from 70,000 to 150,000 members in a matter of months. According to the latest polling, the party's share of the vote […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
After last week's episode on Parties, this time ACFM exposes the predicament facing Your Party, the new leftwing faction led by Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn. What expectations do leftwing voters have for Your Party? Does the Corbyn faction distrust the membership? Is Zarah a politician or a poster? And does ‘Yorp' stand a chance […]
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 […]
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 […]
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', […]
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? […]
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 […]
Economist, and former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis joins Aaron to discuss his most recent book Raise Your Soul: A Personal History of Resistance, a memoir about the women in Yanis' family who raised him, and gave him his political conscience. They discuss the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic, is patriarchy harmful to the perpetrators, as […]