Novara FM: New Cities, Old Scams
Will NEOM ever be built? Historian Quinn Slobodian explores the hi-tech metropolises of the future with Richard Hames.
Tag: inequality
Analysis: Who is the Rewilding Movement’s Green Utopia For?
Maozya Murray
‘Rewilding’ - the process of restoring wilderness areas - is flavour of the month. But at its worst, it's creating more problems than it solves, argues Maozya Murray.
Downstream: The Plan Is to Make You Permanently Poorer | Aaron Meets Gary Stevenson
In 2011, while working as a City trader, Gary Stevenson joined the ultra rich with a single bonus cheque. Not long after he was named one of Citibank’s highest performing traders worldwide. Stevenson made millions for his employer by betting on one thing: that the British and American economies would fail to recover from the […]
Analysis: Why Do Tories Love Crypto?
Peter Howson
Rishi Sunak has ordered the Treasury to mint NFTs. Matt Hancock is a "crypto expert", apparently. How to explain the overlap between Tory boys and crypto bros? Pete Howson offers an answer.
Feature: How Putin Bribed Russia’s Peasant Army Into a War They Don’t Want
Liza Smirnova & Alexey Sakhnin
Three-quarters of Russians are city-dwellers. Yet the army today looks almost the same as it did under the tsars, write Alexey Sakhnin and Liza Smirnova: peasants in overcoats.
Opinion: A Few New Bus Lanes Won’t ‘Level Up’ the UK – But Upping the Minimum Wage Might
Ell Folan
Michael Gove’s levelling up white paper makes a mockery of our country’s enormous regional inequalities, argues Ell Folan.
Analysis: Poor Brits Live Much Shorter Lives. What Can We Do?
Ell Folan
The least privileged people live nine years fewer than the most. Ell Folan looks at why, and what can be done.
Opinion: The Land-Hoarding Elite Should Be Paying the Rest of Us Rent
Philip Goff
It’s time to radically overhaul how we think about property rights, argues philosopher Philip Goff. We need a universal rent.
Opinion: Shoplifters of the World, Unite!
Seth Wheeler
Ever stolen Christmas presents for your family? You stand in a long tradition of working-class pilfering – but proletarian shopping could be stronger with collective organisation, argues Seth Wheeler.
Opinion: The Tories’ New ‘Community-Powered’ Plan Is a Cynical Power Grab
Bertie Russell, Keir Milburn & Kai Heron
The Tories' recent proposal for a new era of 'community-powered Conservativism' is an audacious, though ultimately hollow, bid to park tanks on the left's lawn.
Opinion: The Tories’ Levelling Up Agenda is Just Thatcherism for Towns
Joe Duffy
A new report by a rightwing thinktank on "unleashing investment" in the north of England provides a grim insight into how the government may convert its Brexit majority into an even more sinister political settlement under the guise of concern for regional equality, writes Joe Duffy.
Downstream: Can Capitalism Solve Its Crises? Interview With Mariana Mazzucato
What can the Apollo Missions teach us about dealing with the major crises of the 21st century? And why are politicians so eager to dwell on caricatures of the public rather than engage in problem-solving – from climate change to housing and education? Aaron Bastani speaks to author and academic Mariana Mazzucato to find out.
Downstream: Why Has Britain Failed on Covid? Richard Horton
A year after the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic, with Britain enduring more than a 100,000 deaths since, a number of major questions remain unanswered. Why was the response of the UK among the worst in the world? How is it possible that the death toll of countries in Europe and North America […]
Analysis: The Rich Are Skipping the Vaccine Queue. What Are We Going to Do About It?
James Meadway
The coronavirus vaccine was never going to be entirely immune from market forces. But if we’re going to recover from this pandemic, or prevent another, we must radically rethink how we share the fruits of our scientific labours, writes James Meadway.
Novara Live: Racism Review: Spiked
Munira Mirza is to lead the government’s racism review. Are the Tories trolling anti-racism campaigners? Plus, Joshua Virasami on the police crackdown on BLM protestors, Laura Pidcock on shielding, and Matt Hancock claims Marcus Rashford’s victory as his own.
Opinion: Inequality Is Worse Than We Were Told, and Our Tax System Has Been Covering It Up
Grace Blakeley
For a long time British voters have felt as though inequality is too high, but rightwingers have had a standard reply to the general public: you’re wrong. In fact, it was the figures that were wrong and peoples’ instincts that were right, writes Grace Blakeley.
Opinion: An Unprecedented Economic Crisis Is About to Hit the Global South. We Must Cancel Debts Now
Grace Blakeley
Economic turmoil is about to hit the global South, as the instability of a global pandemic sends investors fleeing. Wealthy nations must write off debts immediately, argues Grace Blakeley, to avoid catastrophe in the world's poorest countries.
Opinion: Coronavirus Will Expose the Vast Inequality Between the Global North and South
Grace Blakeley
The coronavirus pandemic has shown that rich countries can spend without limit to meet the needs of their populations. But poorer, less powerful countries quite literally can't afford to play by those rules, argues Grace Blakeley.