Excerpt: /212/ Three Articles: Middle-Class Anxieties

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ba6dn-10c96c9 On net-zero, CCP nanny state, and optimised dating.   We start off discussing the HBO series "The White Lotus" before tackling three articles on middle-class anxieties: climate change and pressures on UK living standards; the Chinese state's crackdown on…

/204/ Three Articles: People’s Republic of Fleeing

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7xbrq-109384d On Chinese investment, Swiss democracy, and fleeing from Afghanistan. In this Three Articles, we discuss flight or departure in various ways: China opening the gates for its huge savings to spill onto world markets; Switzerland leaving (or remaining outside)…

/200/ The World In One Country ft. Many Guests

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-9d7f7-10761db On world history, 1900-2020. For our 200th episode special, we pose the question: "If you had to study the history of only one country from 1900-2020, and thereby understand the history of the whole world, which would you pick?"…

Excerpt: /192/ Three Articles: Pandemic (Dis)Satisfactions

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ttqse-10321f3 On consequences of the pandemic + important local election results in Spain & UK.   We start off by discussing the telling results of some recent local and regional elections: in the UK, Labour continues its drift to becoming…

UNLOCKED /179/ The Hobbyist Left ft. David Swift

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ivqvz-1008eca How to address the political problems of leftwing parties today?   Liverpudlian historian David Swift argues that the problem is hobbyism - people for whom politics constitutes their identity rather than expressing their interest in social and political change.…

/187/ The Huge Package State ft. Anton Jäger

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-jwdtt-1008d7a On cash welfarism and state investment. Plus regionalism in Belgium & the UK. Anton Jäger is back on the pod to discuss the emerging 'transfer state'. We examine Biden's massive trillion-dollar spending plans and ask if this means we're…