Weekly Economics Podcast

Throughout the spring, hundreds of thousands of people across the country marched, signed petitions, and spoke out against the catchily-titled Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Critics say the Bill would curb our freedom of speech and assembly by giving the police new powers to crack down on protest. The Bill was successfully delayed - but it’s due to resurface in Parliament next week. So what’s actually in the Police Bill? How will it affect Black and other people of colour? And why is the government pushing it through Parliament now? Ayeisha is joined by Zehrah Hasan, barrister, & founding member and director of Black Protest Legal Support and Becka Hudson, PhD researcher at UCL and Birkbeck, and criminal justice campaigner. -Read Who dreamt up the police bill? The police, of course by Same Knights https://novaramedia.com/2021/03/25/who-dreamt-up-the-police-bill-the-police-of-course/ -Find out more about Black Protest Legal Support and follow them on Twitter https://blackprotestlaw.org/ @blkpro

This week, the front page of the Daily Mail screamed “Outrage as Oxford students plan to axe queen”. In reality, a group of postgrads voted to take down a portrait of the queen in a single common room, in a single Oxford college, because of the portrait’s association with the UK’s colonial history. Whether it’s the interior decor of student common rooms or athletes taking the knee in support of Black Lives Matter, by the time you listen to this podcast, new outrages are constantly emerging. How did we get here? In the middle of a pandemic, why do these debates take up so much media space? And how should progressives respond? The Weekly Economics Podcast is back and for the first episode of the new series, Ayeisha is joined by Hanna Thomas Uose, principal consultant at Align and David Wearing, senior teaching fellow at SOAS and associate lecturer at Birkbeck. -Read the report "Divide and Rule: How the 'culture wars' are a reactionary backlash constructed to distract us, and how to respond" by NEON and Al

There’s a new president in the Oval Office and he’s ready to make some changes. Joe Biden wants the start of his presidency to be defined by rejoining the Paris climate agreement, vaccinating the country against Covid-19, and pulling the American economy out of a crisis. But will this be enough to tackle the problems that led to the Trump presidency? Is Biden too concerned about building bridges with the Republican Party? And is America finally ready to start taking the climate emergency seriously? In the final episode of this series, Ayeisha is joined by Kate Aronoff, staff writer at the New Republic, and author of the upcoming book Overheated: how capitalism broke the planet - and how we fight back. Kate's book is out in the UK on the 13th May: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kate-aronoff/overheated/9781568589473/?lens=bold-type-books ----- Music by Poddington Bear under Creative Commons license. Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comment

There are just eight months left until the UK hosts the UN Climate Conference. And despite Boris Johnson’s insistence that we will have a green recovery from the pandemic, in the last month there have been a number of climate related controversies, including around the construction of a new coal mine in Cumbria, the Leeds Bradford airport expansion, and plans to cut air passenger duty on domestic flights. Why can’t the economic status quo deal with the climate emergency? What has the fresh attention on climate actually achieved? And what can the pandemic teach us about the climate crisis? In this episode Ayeisha is joined by Laurie Laybourn-Langton, co-author of the new book Planet On Fire, and NEF trustee. -Planet on Fire by Mathew Lawrence and Laurie Laybourn-Langton is out on the 20th April, you can preorder a copy on the Verso website: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3702-planet-on-fire -Find out more about Laurie's work here: https://laurielaybourn.com/ -Head to the Common Wealth website to read abo

Last week a video circulated of 800 people queuing for a food bank in Wembley. Volunteers at the London Community Kitchen said that the number was not uncommon. In Rishi Sunak’s recent budget, he announced that the furlough scheme and the temporary £20 increase to universal credit would continue until the autumn. But even with these measures, it’s obvious that huge numbers of people in the UK are struggling. Furlough has held back a wave of unemployment - but what happens when the scheme ends? Will some jobs not come back after the pandemic? And what about the estimated 3 million people who’ve fallen through the cracks of the government’s Covid support? In this episode Ayeisha is joined by NEF CEO Miatta Fahnbulleh and Sonali Joshi, co-founder of Excluded UK. -For more on NEF's work around strengthening our social security system, head to our website: https://neweconomics.org/campaigns/living-income -More on info about Excluded UK available on their website https://www.excludeduk.org/excluded-uk-an-inclus

From the A-level algorithm scandal, to parents taking on YouTube, to making Facebook and Google pay for news, people are fighting back against the way big tech companies and governments use our data. So what are companies like Google and Facebook actually doing with our personal data? Is the pandemic being used to surrender our data to private companies? And what role can big tech workers and users play in fighting back? In this episode Ayeisha is joined by Duncan McCann, senior researcher at NEF, Carissa Veliz, associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford University and Cori Crider, lawyer, investigator and co-founder of Foxglove. -You can read more about Carissa's work, including a survey she did with Siân Brooke on privacy-related negative experiences, on her website https://www.carissaveliz.com/research -Read the article in Glamour Magazine on the risks of 'sharenting' https://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/article/child-privacy-social-media-risks -For more

We were supposed to have cast off the shackles of EU rules around farming and fishing. Brexit was sold as a ‘sea of opportunity’. And yet, tonnes of British meat have been left rotting at European ports, while Scottish fishers have had to make a 72-hour round trip to land their catch in Denmark. The PM has said these are just “teething problems”. But are they really? What’s it been like for UK fishers and farmers since we left the EU? And is there a chance we can use Brexit to make our food system better? In this episode, Ayeisha is joined by Chris Williams, NEF Associate Fellow. -To hear more from small-scale fishers on their hopes and concerns for the industry post-Brexit, watch this video: https://neweconomics.org/2018/10/fishing-after-brexit-voices-from-the-coast -You can also listen to Chris talking to fishermen about their experiences on this Radio 4 documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rm92 -Find out more about the Eastbourne Fishing Quay on our website: https://neweconomics.org/2020/0

By the middle of January, 49 wealthy countries had administered 39 million doses of the Covid vaccine. But the world’s poorest countries had only done 25 jabs, all of them in just one country: Guinea. Not 25 million, not 25,000 - just 25. Why can’t some countries get hold of the vaccine? Why are rich countries buying more doses than they need? And are we seeing the rise of ‘vaccine nationalism’? In this episode, Ayeisha is joined by Miriam Brett, director of research and advocacy at Common Wealth and Tahir Amin, co-executive director of Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge. -For more, read Common Wealth's report on what's wrong with our IP system: https://www.common-wealth.co.uk/interactive-digital-projects/ip-infogram -And Tahir's piece for Foreign Affairs is available here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-01-29/folly-hoarding-knowledge-covid-19-age ----- Music by Poddington Bear under Creative Commons license. Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Enjoying

Meagre food packages for kids on free school meals. A £22bn track and trace system that isn’t fit for purpose. And people asked to travel hundreds of miles for a Covid test. What do all of these things have in common? They’ve all been outsourced to the private sector. But why are these vital services being run by the private sector? Are the allegations of cronyism true? And who’s making money out of all this? Ayeisha is joined by New Statesman’s Britain editor, Anoosh Chakelian and David Hall, founder of the Public Services International Research Unit at the University of Greenwich. For more on this area, you can listen to a previous episode we did with Cat Hobbs, director of We Own It campaign, Hilary Wainwright, co-editor of Red Pepper magazine and Sahil Dutta from Goldsmiths University on Public Ownership: https://soundcloud.com/weeklyeconomicspodcast/public-ownership-20 ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The We

From Sports Direct warehouses to nail bars, awareness-raising campaigns warn that modern slavery is happening all around us. Over Christmas, fashion brand Boohoo cut ties with 64 garment suppliers in Leicester after it came out that factories were paying their workers as little as £3.50 an hour. And this month the foreign secretary said he would clamp down on companies who used forced labour in their supply chains. But how useful is the concept of ‘modern slavery’? What kinds of exploitation does it disguise? And what does it say about how we’ve designed our economy? For the first episode of a new series of the Weekly Economics Podcast, Ayeisha is joined by Emily Kenway, author of new book The Truth About Modern Slavery. Grab a copy of Emily's book, out now with Pluto Books: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341224/the-truth-about-modern-slavery/ ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The Weekly Economics Podcast is br

Joe Biden has defeated Donald Trump to win the US election. Test results from around the world suggest that a coronavirus vaccine is on the horizon. Over the past month there have been more bright spots than usual in a difficult, painful year. At the same time, with the number of coronavirus deaths at their highest since May, many parts of the country still subject to severe restrictions and unemployment skyrocketing, many of us are hesitant to declare that the worst days are behind us. So, how has this year affected our mental health? How can progressives stay well enough to fight for change? And have we forgotten how to feel hopeful? Ayeisha is joined by researcher and author, Christine Berry and Farzana Khan, executive director and co-founder of Healing Justice London. If you have been affected by anything discussed in this episode, you can contact the Samaritans for free at 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org/ Further reading/watching from this episode: -The Impact of COVID 19 on Disabled Wo

Setting up a desk area in the kitchen, Zoom call-induced headaches, or getting furloughed and paid to not do any work - this year has shaken up the world of work like never before. The pandemic has made us reimagine how work fits into our economy and our lives. So, with 79% of business leaders and nearly two-thirds of the public open to bringing in a shorter working week in light of the pandemic, should we be thinking more about working less? Could a shorter working week help us recover from coronavirus? Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Alfie Stirling, NEF Director of Research and Chief Economist, and Anna Coote, Principal Fellow at NEF to discuss their new book with Aidan Harper, The Case for a Four-Day Week. The book will be out on the 27th November, go to the Polity website to grab a copy https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509539642 ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions under Creative Commons license. Enjoying the sh

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has said that Britain faces new tax rises in the wake of the pandemic. But over the summer Labour’s shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds warned against increasing taxes during an economic crisis. Meanwhile, new research has found that increasing numbers of Tory voters are in favour of higher taxes. So, what do Labour and the Conservatives think about tax rises? Should we be changing the tax system during a recession? And if taxes do rise, who should be paying the most? Ayeisha is joined by Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice UK and Anoosh Chakelian, Britain editor at the New Statesman. -Find out more on Tax Justice UK's work on tax and public opinion here: https://www.taxjustice.uk/tax-and-public-opinion.html -Read the report Living on Different Incomes in London: Can public consensus identify a 'riches line'? https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/publications/can-public-consensus-identify-a-riches-line/ ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by

The US presidential election is less than a fortnight away - and Donald Trump and Joe Biden are pulling out all the stops to get the votes. But after a chaotic debate forced moderators to cut the candidates’ mics to stop them interrupting each other, it’s hard to get a grip on what messages they’re trying to get across. How have the different campaigns been selling themselves? Will Biden’s attacks on Trump be a winning strategy? And how should progressives be pushing for change? Ayeisha is joined by communications expert and principle at ASO Communications, Anat Shenker-Osario. Resources available at https://asocommunications.com/ and https://raceclassnarrativeaction.com/ ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and Chris Zabriskie under Creative Commons license. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find out more at www.neweconomics.org

Brexit - remember it? Way back in the distant past of 2019 it felt like it was all the newspapers could talk about. It might feel like it’s done and dusted, but the process is still rumbling on. We’ve got an Internal Market Bill that the government itself admits will break international law. MPs just voted through a Bill refusing to guarantee food and farming standards after we leave the EU. And apparently we’re moving the UK border to Kent. So, what exactly is going on? What will happen when the transition period ends on New Years Eve? And what does it all mean for the UK economy? Ayeisha is joined Marley Morris, Associate Director for Immigration, Trade and EU relations at the Institute for Public Policy Research. ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and Christian Bjoerklund under Creative Commons license. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The Weekly Economics Podcast is brought to you by the New Economics Foundation. Find

“We want to build back greener as we recover from Covid-19” - that was the message this week at the Prime Minister’s Conservative Party Conference speech. But in all the talk of wind turbines and technology, the place of care in our economic recovery didn’t really get a look in. Why is care often so overlooked when we think about the economy? And how would our lives change if we put care at the centre of our economic decisions? Ayeisha is joined by Jo Littler, Professor of Social Analysis and Cultural Politics at City University of London, Marion Sharples, Project Manager and Researcher at the Women’s Budget Group and NEF Senior Economist, Sarah Arnold. The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence is available on the Verso website https://www.versobooks.com/books/3706-care-manifesto Read the final report of the Commission on a Gender-Equal Economy https://wbg.org.uk/commission/ ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and Blue Dot Sessions under Crea

Our track-and-trace system will be “world-beating”. The development of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine is “months ahead” of its competitors around the world. This is how politicians and the media have been talking about our lines of defence against the coronavirus pandemic. But when facing up to a global problem that connects us all, why is competition the only language we have to talk about it? How has competition come to define our economy and society? What do we miss out on when we focus on competition? And is there a way out? Ayeisha is joined by Michelle Meagher, author of new book, Competition is Killing Us and Grace Blakeley, staff writer at Tribune and author of upcoming book, The Corona Crash: How the Pandemic will Change Capitalism. Grab a copy of Michelle's book https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/315/315772/competition-is-killing-us/9780241423011.html Grace's book is out on the 27th October https://www.versobooks.com/books/3723-the-corona-crash ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Beck

Amid the coronavirus crisis, the number of people becoming members of a union has skyrocketed. Unison reported 65,000 new members since the start of the year, and in the last six months, 50,000 people have joined the National Education Union. The TUC worked with the chancellor to create the furlough scheme, and teaching unions were partly responsible for the government U-turn over face masks in schools. It certainly looks like union influence has had a boost, as they fight against redundancies and for the health and safety of their members. But what about outside of the workplace? Can unions and their members change the rules of the economy? Ayeisha is joined by Alice Martin and Annie Quick, authors of Unions Renewed: Building Power in an Age of Finance. Grab a copy of the book at https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509539116&subject_id=2 ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Poddington Bear and David Hillowitz, used under Creative Commons licence. Enjoying the

It’s a cliche by now to say that Covid-19 has upended our economy. Industries have ground to a halt, and are only just beginning to start up again. Just this week the UK plunged into recession, with the worst drop in GDP of any G7 nation. But what about outside the G7? How have the effects of Covid ricocheted around the global economy? In the last few episodes we’ve heard how Covid-19 has affected government spending, unemployment, and the hostile environment in the UK. For this episode, we want to look farther afield at how the pandemic is affecting economies across the world - especially in the Global South. Ayeisha is joined by Dr Tobias Franz, Lecturer in Economics at SOAS and Shreya Nanda, Economist at the Centre for Economic Justice at the Institute for Public Policy Research. ----- Researched by Margaret Welsh. Produced by Becky Malone. Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Poddington Bear, used under Creative Commons licence. Enjoying the show? Tweet us your comments and questions @NEF! The Weekly Ec

We’re facing two global crises. We have scientific evidence for how to deal with both of them, but governments aren’t acting quickly enough. They both show how we are all more connected than we previously thought. And to tackle them will require massive changes in how we run our economy. The first problem is Covid-19. The other, though it’s fallen off the front pages, is as urgent as ever: the climate crisis. How do we keep climate in the picture? Should we bail out struggling polluting industries? And how can we make sure our Covid recovery is green? In this episode of the Weekly Economics Podcast, Ayeisha is joined by Chaitanya Kumar, Head of Environment and the Green Transition at the New Economics Foundation and Fatima Zahra-Ibrahim, co-director of Green New Deal UK. Read new NEF report on decarbonising the Bank of England's corporate QE programme here: https://bit.ly/30yURpe Vice investigation into company bailouts is available here: https://bit.ly/33HFtcd Write to your MP to stop blank cheque bailo