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A crash course into the issues essential for understanding the word today. For access to full episodes, support to the show at https://www.patreon.com/crashcoursepod Scripting & Presenting: Michael Walker Production & Editing: Lewis Bassett & Patrick Heardman Sound Design: Patrick Heardman Graphic Design: Jacek Zmarz Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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In the second part of my conversation with Vincent Bevins we discussed the arab spring and the fall of the Soviet Union. The conversation includes Vincent giving a really useful explanation of the rise and fall of the Egyptian revolution, and me making a tentative case for small-c conservatism. **This is a free preview of a paid episode. To listen …
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Vincent Bevins is one of my favourite authors - and a good friend of mine - so I knew when I got him sat down in a room our conversation good go on for a long time. I wasn't wrong. This is the first part of a three hour conversation where we discuss his latest book "If We Burn: The Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution" . In this episode I tell…
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In my first crossover episode with Novara FM I spoke to Nick Bano about his new book "Against Landlords". Nick also wrote a recent piece in the Guardian which caused controversy due to Nick's unusual claim that Britain doesn't need to build more houses. I fundamentally disagree with Nick on that point, hence this became a bit of a debate! You can r…
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**This is free preview of a members only episode. To listen to the full interview sign up at patreon.com/crashcoursepod** As Israel bombards Gaza, the Tory Party have used anti-war protests as an excuse to whip up a moral panic about British muslims. To discuss the long history of Tory animosity towards muslims - and the broader ideology that sees …
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** This is a free preview of a paid episode. To listen to the full interview sign up at patreon.com/crashcoursepod ** Events since October 7th have shown the strengths and weaknesses of international law. On the one hand, differing attitudes to Russia and Israel have shown the West's commitment to international law to be paper thin. On the other, c…
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**This is a free preview of a longer paid episode. To listen to the full show visit patreon.com/crashcoursepod** I've taken a break from the Palestine series on this episode to interview an expert on another topic that has fascinated me this month: The election of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Bukele has been criticised by human rights groups for lo…
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** This is a free preview of a longer paid episode, to access the whole interview visit patreon.com/crashcoursepod ** Is the West's unconditional support for Israel thanks to the existence of a powerful Israel lobby? I spoke to Hil Aked about Britain's Israel lobby, and its activity during the war on Gaza. Hil Aked is author of "Friends of Israel: …
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**This is a free preview of a longer paid episode. You can access the full show at patreon.com/crashcoursepod** Yemen is the poorest country in the Middle East. The Houthis were a Yemeni group of rebel outsiders. Yet they now have the entire West on the ropes with their blockade of the Red Sea. I spoke to Beirut-based writer Séamus Malekafzali for …
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***This is a free preview of a paid episode. To listen to the full hour subscribe at patreon.com/crashcoursepod*** Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen are all part of the Iran-led "Axis of Resistance" which poses the biggest challenge to Israel in the Middle East. I spoke to Trita Parsi about the surprising history of Israe…
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Earlier in the year I started a series on Migration which I put on hold to focus on the Gaza War. This was going to be episode 2 of that series. It's with Jonathan Portes, who was a very senior civil servant in the New Labour years and is now a Professor of Political Economy at Kings College London. We discussed the history and economics of immigra…
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**This is a free preview of a longer paid episode. To subscribe, visit patreon.com/crashcoursepod** Andrew Feinstein is a campaigner and author who grew up in apartheid South Africa and became an MP for the ANC. Andrew is also jewish, and has spent extensive time in Israel-Palestine, so I couldn't have found a better placed guest to discuss the con…
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**This is a free preview of a paid episode - to listen to the full conversation sign up at patreon.com/crashcoursepod** For my sixth episode on the Gaza War I interviewed Jon Lansman on the Labour Party and Israel-Palestine. Jon is a long-time stalwart of the Labour left who ran both of Jeremy Corbyn’s successful leadership campaign, and I've known…
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I spoke to Ben Judah from the Atlantic Council about how the U.S. sees the Gaza War. This is a free version of a longer episode. To listen in full sign up at patreon.com/crashcoursepod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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From Balfour to Braverman, Britain has consistently backed Israel in its war on Palestine. To discuss why, I was joined by David Wearing Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex. This is a free version of a longer episode - to listen to the full show subscribe at patreon.com/crashcoursepod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva…
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Since 1948, the relationship between Israel and its arab neighbours has gone from open hostility, to accommodation and collaboration. I spoke to Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Chair in Modern Arab History at the University of Houston, about Egypt and Jordan's role in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and how that can inform our understanding of the current Gaz…
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For my second episode on the Gaza War I spoke to Gilbert Achcar about his recent article outlining two possible endgames for Israel in its war on Gaza. One of his scenarios is based on annexing Gaza, and the other involves a return to the peace process. Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese socialist academic and writer. He is a Professor of Development Stu…
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I've taken a break from the migration series to do an emergency episode on the war in Gaza. I was joined by author Ben White and human rights advocate Andrew Kadi to discuss the longer-term origins of the Gaza War, and how that might inform what happens next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.…
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For the first episode of my series on migration I spoke to immigration and asylum specialist Lou Calvey. We discussed the rise of small boat crossings, how the asylum backlog got so large, and why the home office isn't fit for purpose. Lou brings a wealth of experience both from the policy world, and from practically supporting asylum seekers, whic…
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Hello Crash Course listeners! First of all, a big apology from me. This feed has been way too quiet over the summer, but I will make sure its much more active over the coming months. I'm lining up a full series on immigration, both to debunk Tory scare-mongering and to explore what a genuinely human migration system might look like. In the meantime…
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At the height of the pandemic, I hoped the experience would lead us to build a more equal society when the covid crisis had subsided. I had World War 2 as an analogy. Gary Stevenson made a different prediction. He believed that the government response to the pandemic - and in particular - the decision to print billions of pounds, would lead to high…
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Dr. Bill Hanage is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Co-Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Since the outbreak of covid-19, there's been no-one I've trusted more to give me a balanced and objective account of the course of the pandemic. In this conversation we discuss whet…
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As the UK launches its inquiry into the handling of Covid-19, at Crash Course we're asking a slightly different question: Did Covid-19 change the world? In this series I'll be speaking to scientists, economists and international experts to assess if and how covid-19 transformed society, for better or worse. In this first introductory episode I spea…
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In part two of my conversation with Joshua Craze we discuss the rise of Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (widely known as Hemedti). He explained how the two generals have used threats of violence as a means to undermine democracy, and how their falling out has placed Sudan on the brink of civil war. To support the podcast and access…
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If you’ve watched the news over the past four weeks you’ll probably know there’s a crisis in Sudan. You’ll likely also know that the UK and other Western nations have been struggling to evacuate their citizens, and you might have been told the conflict is a power struggle between two leading generals. However, if you’ve been relying on mainstream n…
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*** This is the first part of a 1hr40min episode. To listen to the whole thing sign up at patreon.com/crashcoursepod *** To wrap up the first series on rent I sat down with Aaron Bastani and Gary Stevenson. This was an incredibly enjoyable and very broad conversation, and over more than 90 minutes we touched on many of the themes raised throughout …
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Throughout this series we've been clear that to solve our rental crisis we'll need a lot more council homes. But what's it like to be responsible for building them, and how can councils build more homes in a time of austerity. To answer that question I spoke to my good friend Councillor Aydin Dikerdem, who is the cabinet member for housing in the L…
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Continuing on the theme of solutions to the housing crisis I interviewed economist Shreya Nanda about the Georgists and the YIMBYs. Georgists follow the ideas of the 19th century thinker and reformer Henry George and support a land value tax. YIMBYs (which stands for Yes In My Backyard) think the way to get out of the housing crisis is to build, bu…
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Duncan Weldon is an economist, author, and all round excellent communicator. He appeared on an earlier episode about London's crazy post-pandemic rents, but I also sat him down for a conversation about the politics and economics of the housing market more generally. We discussed how house prices got so high, whether more supply would solve the rent…
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Vienna is consistently ranked as the city with the highest standard of living in the world and - not coincidentally - 60% of the Viennese live in social housing. To discover the secret of Vienna's housing success I spoke to the broadcaster Kirsty Lang who wrote a brilliant piece on Vienna in the FT last December. To listen to the full episode - and…
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Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Happen", Peter Apps explains in precise detail the decisions - made both by businesses and government - that allowed it to happen. I felt very privileged to interview Peter on what is a really well researched and thought provoking book which, as well as being absolutely damning of our political class, gives a moving acco…
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Do private landlords play any useful social function? Should they be able to do whatever they want with their properties? And is it morally okay for a landlord without any increased costs to hike their tenants' rent? Greg Tsuman is President of the National Association of Residential Letting Agents and a landlord of three properties. We didn't agre…
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The rental crisis means tenants are paying ever higher proportions of their incomes to landlords, and I for one am not too pleased about paying for someone else's mortgage just because I can't afford a home of my own. So what is the moral status of landlordism? And how bad are landlords in Britain? I spoke to a landlord, and two people who's job it…
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In her excellent book "Big Capital", Anna Minton explains how the influence of international finance has intensified the housing crisis in London, including by setting the scene for the displacement of thousands of families via estate demolitions. I was lucky enough to sit down with her for a discussion of the ideas in that book, and I think this b…
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For decades renters in London have been forced to pay extortionate prices for insecure homes. But in 2022 the situation got dramatically worse. In this episode you'll hear from a flat hunter about the current nightmare that is looking for a place in live in the capital, and to an estate agent and an economist who explain how we got here. Featuring:…
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John Boughton is the author of Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing. In this interview we were able to go into much more detail than we managed to fit into the first episode of Crash Course. Themes included... The development of council housing before WW2 The shift from council housing being aspirational to being demonised The ori…
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On the first episode of Crash Course, Michael Walker speaks to four experts to help explain why his rent is so high. The answer will involve forays into the economics of rent, the history of social housing, the financial reforms of Margaret Thatcher, and the politics of gentrification. Featuring: Laurie MacFarlane, Co-Author of Rethinking the Econo…
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Are you sick of paying sky high rents for zero security? Well, this is the podcast for you. On the first season of Crash Course, Michael Walker explores why renting is such a nightmare in Britain, and what can be done to fix it. Along the way, you'll hear from tenants on the frontline of Britain’s rental crisis, to the experts who know how change i…
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