Best New Reads Podcasts (2024)

1
The UK’s leading romance fraud specialist 46:13

9M ago46:13

46:13

How did one detective take on an international network of romance fraudsters? This episode was written Stuart McGurk and read by Will Dunn. The commissioning editor was Melissa Denes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

1
The great private school con 29:19

12M ago29:19

29:19

They no longer have a stranglehold on Oxbridge and would lose tax breaks under Labour. So what is elite education really selling? At the Labour Party conference in Liverpool in October, the Independent Schools Council hosted a forlorn drinks reception: not one of the more than 40 MPs showed up. ‘We are not the enemy,’ one private school headmaster …

1
How Rishi Sunak became the first Silicon Valley prime minister 22:27

1y ago22:27

22:27

On 2 November 2023, Rishi Sunak closed his global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park by interviewing the richest man on Earth, Elon Musk. The mood was deferential (the PM towards the tech billionaire). Was Sunak eyeing up a post-politics job in San Francisco, some wondered, or calculating that Musk’s Twitter might be an effective campaigning tool c…

1
Israel, Hamas and the unravelling of the West 16:11

1y ago16:11

16:11

What might be the long term impact of the Israel-Hamas war on global alliances? In this week’s audio long read, the New Statesman’s contributing writer John Gray reflects on three weeks of bloodshed, beginning with the massacres of 7 October, and their wider consequences. An escalating conflict will empower Iran and Russia, he writes, as well as st…

1
Has your AI therapist got your back? 21:53

1y ago21:53

21:53

In May this year, an American woman sought the help of a chatbot on an eating disorders website. The bot, named Tessa and running on an evolving, generative AI, advised her to start counting calories. Perhaps she should get some calipers, it suggested, to measure her body fat. When it emerged that Tessa had given similarly dangerous advice to other…

1
How Britain became a dangerous place to have a baby 23:54

1y ago23:54

23:54

What are the roots of today’s maternity crisis? Recent research by the Care Quality Commission has found a “concerning decline” in England, with over half of maternity wards rated substandard. Donna Ockenden’s review of Shrewsbury and Telford maternity trust found that, between 2001 and 2019, 201 babies and nine mothers had died avoidable deaths. I…

1
A year inside GB News: "We’re going to disrupt" 47:35

1y ago47:35

47:35

For today’s Audio Long Read we’re bringing you one from our archives, which is suddenly extremely prescient. This week GB News is in the spotlight once again, this time for broadcasting misogynist comments made by Laurence Fox about a female journalist, Ava Evans. The channel has suspended Fox, along with host Dan Wootton, and has apologised for br…

1
The philosopher and the crypto king: Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion 36:12

1y ago36:12

36:12

At the time of writing, the crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried is due to stand trial on 3 October 2023. He stands accused of fraud and money-laundering on an epic scale through his currency exchange FTX. Did he gamble with other people’s money in a bid to do the maximum good? In this week’s long read, the New Statesman’s associate editor Sophie M…

1
How Chile (almost) democratised Big Tech 22:18

1y ago22:18

22:18

Fifty years after Salvador Allende was ousted, might his greatest legacy be his battle with the emerging tech giants? On 1 August 1973, a seemingly mundane diplomatic summit took place in Lima, Peru. But there was nothing mundane about its revolutionary agenda. The attendees – diplomats from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – aspired to c…

1
The prime minister and the AI that solved the climate crisis 22:49

1y ago22:49

22:49

After the extreme heat of summer 2024, which saw children stretchered out of their exams, Britain’s prime minister calls a press conference in Westminster Hall. He has one eye on life after office (skiing in Aspen, a big gig in Silicon Valley), but before he leaves, he wants to unveil something truly ground-breaking: a large language model that has…

1
Summer of Light: a new short story by Jonathan Coe 20:22

1y ago20:22

20:22

In the summer of 1924, a highly regarded painter falls – or is he pushed? – into the canal while celebrating his exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Two young women are heard running away into the night. In this dazzling new coming-of-age story first published in the New Statesman’s summer issue, the award-winning novelist Jonathan Coe explores the …

1
Escaping Eden: life after the Plymouth Brethren 43:11

1y ago43:11

43:11

For those who leave the ultra-conservative Christian sect, separation comes at great personal cost. The New Statesman’s assistant editor Pippa Bailey had always been curious about the Plymouth Brethren, ever since discovering that her maternal grandparents had left the group in the 1960s. What might her life have been like if they stayed? Who were …

1
In defence of counterfactual history 23:13

1y ago23:13

23:13

What if the rush to war in 1914 had been averted? What if the Berlin Crisis of 1961 had led to nuclear war? What if the liberal revolution of 1848 had been successful? A new exhibition in Berlin considers a series of momentous what-ifs, an intriguing addition to the canon of counterfactual history. In this week’s long read, the New Statesman’s cont…

1
What Simone De Beauvoir knew about loss, by Ali Smith 21:41

1y ago21:41

21:41

The novelist Ali Smith first came across the work of Simone de Beauvoir in an Inverness bookshop, aged 18 or 19, and was instantly compelled by her “tough, troubling” prose. In this week’s long read, Smith reflects on De Beauvoir’s 1964 memoir A Very Easy Death, a slight, visceral book about her estranged mother’s death. What happens when an existe…

1
George Monbiot: how I escape climate despair 15:53

1+ y ago15:53

15:53

There is one question the environmental journalist and author George Monbiot is asked more than any other: how do you cope? When your job is to report on the climate crisis, where do you find hope? Monbiot’s answer is a very personal one: he goes sea kayaking – alone, often far off the coast, with (if he’s lucky) a pod of dolphins or a flock of she…

1
The 1922 committee: inside the Conservatives’ assassination bureau | Audio Long Read 26:51

1+ y ago26:51

26:51

The Conservative Private Members Committee, informally known as the 1922 Committee (or the ’22), is the Tory confessional, its trade union and backbenchers’ common room. If that makes it sound chaotic (and it sometimes is) it is also the assassination bureau that felled Margaret Thatcher, and, more recently, three prime ministers in four years: The…

1
How Saudi Arabia is buying the world 36:33

1+ y ago36:33

36:33

When Saudi cinemas reopened in 2018, for the first time in 35 years, they screened the Marvel movie Black Panther. Many saw parallels between the kingdom and the fictional world of Wakanda, as crown prince Mohammed bin Salman unveiled ambitious plans for modernisation and an economy that would diversify away from oil, investing in futuristic projec…

1
The Spanish election reveals the future of Europe 22:10

1+ y ago22:10

22:10

Since 2018, prime minister Pedro Sánchez has led a surprisingly durable and impactful Spanish government, implementing progressive policies such as improved rights for abortion, transgender people and migrants. His coalition government has repositioned Spain as a European “pivot” state, a bridge between north and south, east and west. Its economy i…

1
Is male fertility in freefall? 21:54

1+ y ago21:54

21:54

In recent decades, studies have shown a significant decline in sperm quality and count. The average sperm count has fallen by 62% since the 1970s, impacting male fertility – a factor that is often overlooked in the broader conversation about parenthood and the declining birth rate in developed countries. In this engrossing long read, New Statesman …

1
What we learned from the Wagner mutiny 16:17

1+ y ago16:17

16:17

On June 23 the New Statesman’s contributing writer Bruno Macaes visited Ukraine’s head of military intelligence Kyrylo Budanov in Kyiv. They discussed the progress of the war, Russian propaganda (Budanov had been declared dead or dying), the 2022 Nord Stream attack and Russian plans for an attack on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Just three hour…

1
A warning from the godfathers of AI 30:27

1+ y ago30:27

30:27

On 31 March this year, the British scientist Geoffrey Hinton resigned from Google, where he had directed AI research for a decade. Artificial intelligence, he argued, had reached the point where it could rapidly surpass human intelligence, and potentially take control: it was now an existential risk. One of the three ‘godfathers of AI’, Hinton won …

1
The risky rise of medical self-diagnosis 22:59

1+ y ago22:59

22:59

Recent years have seen a proliferation of health charities in the UK, raising awareness and funds - but also contributing to impossible demands on the NHS. Is too much self-diagnosis creating unnecessary anxiety, and even leading to harmful interventions? How sick are we really? In this week’s long read, the New Statesman’s medical editor Dr Phil W…

1
How did parenthood become an unaffordable luxury? 23:41

1+ y ago23:41

23:41

The UK is now one of the most expensive places in the developed world to have a baby. Our childcare costs are the highest, with a full-time nursery place for a two-year-old costing £15,000 a year (and much more in London). A recent survey found that six in ten women who have an abortion cited childcare costs as one of their reasons, while one in fo…

1
How the rich got richer: welcome to the age of ‘greedflation’ 26:57

1+ y ago26:57

26:57

In a bid to curb inflation, the Bank of England has raised interest rates 12 consecutive times – but the cost of goods continues to rise. The poorer have been hit hardest, as the price of household staples such as bread and milk rockets. Meanwhile some of the world’s biggest corporations have been “rebuilding their margins”: Starbucks increased its…

1
Inside the Conservative party’s radical right 30:16

1+ y ago30:16

30:16

May 2023 saw two significant gatherings of the Tory right: the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) in Bournemouth, and the National Conservative Conference in London. The latter was organised by the US-based think tank the Edmund Burke Foundation, and drew heavily on its ideas about family, faith and the failures of globalism and liberal ind…

1
‘It’s a state of terror’: inside Haiti’s descent into chaos 26:27

1+ y ago26:27

26:27

In May 2023, the UN reported that 600 people had been killed in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince in the previous month alone – victims of gang violence and the near total collapse of law and order. In April the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned that insecurity in the country had “reached levels comparable to countries in armed conflict” …

1
Why Liverpool bet big on Eurovision 17:16

1+ y ago17:16

17:16

Liverpool has a rich musical history, from the Beatles to Echo and the Bunnymen, and beat six other British cities to become the 2023 host of Eurovision. Can the annual jamboree of geopolitics and high camp help the city overcome recent scandals? In this entertaining long read, the New Statesman’s culture writer Kate Mossman visits the city and mee…

1
Inside the mind of King Charles III 39:57

1+ y ago39:57

39:57

Since 1993, the king has been visiting a village in deepest Romania – once a year, alone. He owns two houses there, and is revered by the locals, for whom he has installed a sewage system and worked to protect their traditional way of life. What draws him there? In this fascinating and deeply reported long read, New Statesman commissioning editor W…

1
The slow, sad death of the print newspaper 26:42

1+ y ago26:42

26:42

The freelance journalist Tim de Lisle is a lifelong newspaper addict, and still buys two papers a day, three at weekends. In this elegy to their demise, he tracks his own love affair with them, from a schoolboy in search of the football results, to sports reporter, music critic and media studies lecturer. Is the future of news entirely digital, or …

1
Xi, Putin and the new world order 25:53

1+ y ago25:53

25:53

In the postwar world, Stalin and the Soviet Union wielded greater power over Mao Zedong's new communist China. Today, following China’s rise as an economic superpower and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is Beijing that has the upper hand – and on whom Russia’s future depends. When Xi Jinping arrived in Moscow for a three-day visit in March 2023, he…

1
Confessions of a philosopher: Bryan Magee’s final interview 22:21

1+ y ago22:21

22:21

As a philosophy student in the 1980s, the New Statesman’s editor-in-chief Jason Cowley learned more from Bryan Magee than from any seminar or lecture. Magee’s 1987 BBC television series The Great Philosophers, described by one critic as “two boffins on a sofa”, examined some of life’s most recondite questions in an accessible way. Magee was also a …

1
Inside the migrant revival of British Christianity 19:51

1+ y ago19:51

19:51

According to the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the face of British Christianity is changing rapidly. London is now home to the greatest concentration of African churches outside Africa – many of them in bingo halls and warehouses, schools and community centres, where they also serve as social and charitable hubs. Outside the capi…

1
Why Taiwan is already under attack 22:22

1+ y ago22:22

22:22

In January 2023, a leaked memo from the US air force general Mike Minihan revealed that he expected to be at war with China over Taiwan by 2025. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had raised the stakes, as had Beijing’s consistent refusal to rule out military action. But is a full-scale invasion the real threat, or is the territory’s struggle for indepen…

1
Are we headed for another banking crisis? 20:48

1+ y ago20:48

20:48

After a series of bad bets on the post-pandemic economy, California-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) lost 60% of its value on the evening of 8 March 2023, and $42bn in withdrawals the following day. Its collapse triggered panic across the US, and in Europe, where Switzerland’s second-largest lender Credit Suisse (already dubbed ‘Debit Suisse’) was a…

1
The long shadow of the Iraq War: how one town honoured Britain’s fallen soldiers 1:02:30

1+ y ago1:02:30

1:02:30

It started as an accident of geography: after one RAF runway closed, the bodies of British soldiers killed in action were repatriated from Iraq and Afghanistan to RAF Lyneham and then through the Wiltshire market town of Wootton Bassett, on their way to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. From April 2007 until August 2011 the town became the sit…

1
The long and stupid decline of the British university 22:23

1+ y ago22:23

22:23

Once the envy of the world, British universities are being hollowed out by a managerial class, argues Adrian Pabst, a New Statesman contributing writer and professor of politics at the University of Kent. Instead of intellectual excellence and civic responsibility, the emphasis is increasingly on “churning out graduates who will serve the interests…

1
The strange death of moderate conservatism 25:51

1+ y ago25:51

25:51

Much ink has been spilled in recent years on the woes of centre-left parties across the West – some of it prematurely, as Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, Australia’s Anthony Albanese and perhaps soon Keir Starmer in Britain can attest. The bigger and quite possibly more lasting story of political decline, however, is on the centre-ri…

1
The rise and fall of Nicola Sturgeon 21:28

1+ y ago21:28

21:28

The New Statesman’s Scotland editor Chris Deerin has been reporting on the SNP since 1996, when as a young political correspondent he sparred with its then leader Alex Salmond. The party was then an outlier, with only three Scottish MPs to Labour’s 49. Just over ten years later, in 2007, Salmond became first minister and appointed a shy, ambitious …

1
Can literature teach us how to grieve? 18:02

1+ y ago18:02

18:02

When her mother died Johanna Thomas-Corr, the literary editor of the Sunday Times, fretted that she was misremembering her somehow. “I kept reaching for my own figures of speech, only for them to writhe out of my hands,” she writes. “Writing about her was easy: she was so distinctive. But writing about my relationship with her – this was a slippery…

1
The great housing con: why the coming crash will rewrite the UK economy 26:30

1+ y ago26:30

26:30

Every year since 2009 new records have been set for UK house prices, and every year people have asked how long the market can continue to defy gravity. But this year is different. Mortgage rates have risen steeply, while the cost of living accelerates; the past four months have seen the longest sustained drop in property prices since 2008. And it’s…

1
“Nothing prepares you”: a journey through Ukraine at war 16:46

1+ y ago16:46

16:46

In late January 2023 the New Statesman’s Bruno Macaes travelled to the front lines in Ukraine. In the Donbas, in the east, he found scenes of total devastation – levelled villages and burned forests, the remaining residents “walking the streets like ghosts”. At the front the Russian army is sending wave after wave of troops in the hope of making th…

1
Lea Ypi on mothers, the motherland and the cruelties of UK immigration 13:32

2y ago13:32

13:32

In November 2022 Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, told parliament that the south coast of England faced “an invasion” of small boats. “If Labour were in charge,” she said, “they would be allowing all the Albanian criminals to come to this country.” Since then, others have suggested that the nearly 200 unaccompanied children found to have gone …

1
A doctor’s prescription for saving the NHS 20:20

2y ago20:20

20:20

In south-west England, where Phil Whitaker practises as a GP, his colleagues have frequently resorted to driving critically ill patients to hospital – because there are no ambulances, or because the queue for emergency care is typically eight hours long. In January 2023 the Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimated that 500 patients were dying…

1
The good social network: what Twitter could learn from the coffeehouse 23:04

2y ago23:04

23:04

As Twitter and Facebook stumble through Elon Musk’s takeover and Mark Zuckerberg’s insistence on the metaverse, questions abound about the future of social media. What sort of news and discussion should it host and encourage? What should be its attitude to participation, networking, user rights and free speech? What should be its business model? Wh…

1
From the archive: Trotsky in Mexico; Angela Carter on the maternity ward 18:18

2y ago18:18

18:18

In a second archive edition of the audio long read, we bring you two classic magazine articles. In the first, the then editor of the New Statesman, Kingsley Martin, visits Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1937, where the Russian communist revolutionary was the guest of the artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo (here referred to only as “Rivera’s wife”, tho…

1
From the archive: when HG Wells met Josef Stalin 42:43

2y ago42:43

42:43

HG Wells’s interview with Stalin in 1934, and the debate that followed, was one of the most striking episodes in the history of the New Statesman. Wells – the novelist and socialist famous for science fiction such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds – used the interview to try to coax Stalin into a more conciliatory position, challenging …

1
Then Later, His Ghost: a Christmas story by Sarah Hall 34:08

2y ago34:08

34:08

It is 23 December, some time in the future, and a storm rages outside the house. Inside there are supplies and an expectant mother sleeps. Is it safe to venture out and fetch her gift? In this post-apocalyptic story the novelist and short story writer Sarah Hall (The Electric Michaelangelo, Burntcoat) imagines a mysterious landscape ravaged by weat…

1
Karl Ove Knausgaard: a personal manifesto on the art of fiction 19:52

2y ago19:52

19:52

Why do we read? In this essay, the Norwegian author explores meaning and purpose in the novel, from the work of Claire Keegan to Dostoevsky and DH Lawrence. The form’s power lies in its openness, he writes, its capacity to defy the absolutes of politics, philosophy or science: “It pulls any abstract conception about life… into the human sphere, whe…

1
A brief history of “woke”: how one word fuelled the culture wars 45:03

2y ago45:03

45:03

Speaking in the House of Commons on 18 October, the Home Secretary Suella Braverman denounced the opposition to her proposed Public Order Bill as “the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”. The next day, she posted her resignation letter on Twitter. It had been a busy 24 hours in the war on woke. On TalkTV, Piers Morgan had bemoaned the rise of t…

1
World Prince: what drives Emmanuel Macron’s global ambitions? 29:42

2y ago29:42

29:42

If Europe today has a dominant leader, it is Emmanuel Macron. He has big, deeply thought-through ideas about his country's role in Europe and the world, and grand ambitions for enhancing it. Following his re-election as French president in April, he is now secure in office until 2027. And having lost his legislative majority at elections in June, h…

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