Politics Theory Other

Digital Sovereignty and resisting the tech giants w/ Cecilia Rikap

In today's episode Cecilia Rikap - an expert in the political economy of science and technology - speaks with Paris Marx (host of the excellent Tech Won't Save Us podcast). Cecilia and Paris discussed the subservient approach that Keir Starmer's Labour government has taken to tech policy and how willing Starmer has been to give tech companies whatever they want. They went on to discuss global dependence on US tech monopolists, and the concept of digital sovereignty in the context of the allia...

Understanding Iran-China relations w/ William Figueroa

Expert on China-Iran relations William Figueroa joins PTO to talk about the relationship between China and Iran in the wake of the twelve day war between Iran and Israel. We chatted about why China's backing for Iran has been - and is likely to continue to be - relatively limited as China balances support for Iran with its other interest in West Asia. We also talked about the extent to which Xi Jinping and the Chinese leadership are happy to see the US bogged down in the Middle East, and we s...

Owen Hatherley responds to listener questions

Owen Hatherley returns to respond to the excellent questions sent in by listeners. Topics included the prospect of a new left party in the UK, housing policy under Keir Starmer's Labour government, and Ian MacDonald's 1994 book Revolution in the Head. Owen also responded to a couple of questions following up on our recent episode on the Manic Street Preachers.

Thanks to everyone who sent in a ques...

Fake work and Y2K w/ Leigh Claire La Berge

In 1998 Leigh Claire La Berge was hired by a major communications conglomerate, where she worked alongside employees of the soon to be disgraced Arther Anderson (the auditor of companies involved in high profile corporate fraud such as WorldCom and Enron). Leigh Clare and her colleagues were tasked with working on the problem of Y2K - also known as the millennium bug - when it was predicted that the turn of the millennium would cause computer systems to fail - with potentially catastrophic co...

Aftermath of the Israel-Iran war w/ Séamus Malekafzali

Journalist Séamus Malekafzali joins PTO to talk about the aftermath of the Israel-Iran war. We chatted about where the cessation of hostilities leaves the two states militarily, and whether Iran's strategy of reliance on ballistic missiles and a loose regional alliance was wholly misbegotten or just poorly implemented. And we talked about why the Trump administration shifted from their red line of opposition to the weaponisation of Iran's nuclear programme to the hardline Israeli position th...

Interregnum - the US strikes Iran w/ Richard Seymour

In the latest episode of Interregnum, PTO's show within a show with Richard Seymour - we talked about the US strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. We discussed whether the Israelis may be disappointed that the strikes were not more expansive in scope, and whether or not Donald Trump has revealed himself to be a Neocon foreign policy hawk in the mould of George W. Bush. And we also talked about how Iran might retaliate and Richard gave his opinion on the responses of European leaders to t...

Listener questions for Owen Hatherley

Following our recent episode on the Manic Street Preachers, Owen Hatherley will be returning to answer your questions. You may like to ask Owen something specifically on the Manics, pop culture more broadly, the recent Pulp reunion (Owen is the author of an excellent book on the group), or something on Owen's w...

Israel's war on Iranian society w/ Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi joins PTO to talk about his recent article in the New Left Review on Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran. Eskandar explained why he sees Israel's goals as not being confined to destroying Iran's nuclear programme, but also - and more importantly - the de-development of Iranian society and the balkanisation of the country. We also talked about how Iran is weathering I...

Owen Hatherley on the Manic Street Preachers

Owen Hatherley returns to discuss his New Left Review article on the Welsh guitar band, the Manic Street Preachers. We talked about the particular appeal the group seemed to hold for working class kids from non-metropolitan backgrounds in the 1990s, and about the forbearance and occasional embarrassment that is the lot of fans who've followed their work in the subsequent decades. We also talk...

Gaza, China's energy transition, and the fascism debate w/ Richard Seymour

In the latest episode of Interregnum, Richard Seymour discusses the abrupt increase in Western criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza and why we're finally seeing that heightened opprobrium in this moment. We went on to talk about how to understand the Trump administration's tariff policy and whether there's more rationality at play than is commonly supposed.

We also discussed the energy transition in China, amid the news that for the first time China's emissions have fallen, despite r...

The India-Pakistan conflict w/ Radhika Desai

Radhika Desai returns to PTO to talk about the latest round of violence between India and Pakistan, following the terrorist attack that killed 26 tourists in Indian administered Kashmir on April 22nd. We discussed the situation in Jammu and Kashmir since 2019, when the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi revoked the territory's special status under the Indian constitution and brought it under direct rule amid a wave of violent repression. We also talked about fears in Kashmir about ...

Natasha Lennard responds to listener questions

Natasha Lennard returns to answer your questions on - amongst other topics - the escalation of the Gaza genocide, the prospects for a federal ban on abortion in the United States, and whether we are seeing the emergence of a distinctly liberal brand of transphobia in the US.

Thanks as ever to everyone who sent in a question and for your continued support for the show. 

Listener questions for Natasha Lennard

Next week recent guest Natasha Lennard will be returning to answer your questions. You may like to ask something regarding the conversation we had on the Democrats under Trump 2.0. Natasha has also recently been writing on the US administration's war on migrants, how American universities 2025-04-30 10:00:17 +0000 UTC View Post

Where do US-China relations go from here? w/ Jake Werner

Jake Werner on US-China relations in the context of the trade war. We discussed why Donald Trump has dialled down his rhetoric over tariffs, and why the term "decoupling" hardly captures the severity of what a breakdown of the economic relations between the US and China will look like. We also talked about the prospects of increased military tension, and whether we can expect the development of proxy wars between the two powers as the relationship between the US and China deteriorates further...

Israel's renewed offensive w/ Amjad Iraqi

Amjad Iraqi returns to PTO to discuss the Israeli offensive in Gaza - following on from Israel's violation of the ceasefire in late March. We spoke about why the ceasefire was always likely to be violated, the eroding support for continuation of the war within Israel (as the war increasingly comes to be seen as a way of shielding Benjamin Netanyahu from corruption charges) and about the increasing number of Israeli reservists not reporting for duty. We also talked about the deteriorating situ...

Quinn Slobodian responds on tariffs, trade wars, and Trump

In today's episode, Quinn Slobodian returns to answer questions sent in by listeners in response to our recent episode on Quinn's new book, Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right. Quinn responded to listeners regarding the elements of the Trump programme that can be characterised as being within the lineage of neoliberalism (and those that decidedly can't), the objectives of the trade war, the "Mar-a-Lago accord" and the prospects of a deliberate weakening of th...

Listener questions for Quinn Slobodian

Quinn Slobodian will be returning next week to answer your questions. You may like to ask something related to our recent episode. Alternatively, you might like to ask Quinn a question related to some of his recent articles - including on 2025-04-04 13:00:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Hayek's bastards w/ Quinn Slobodian

Quinn Slobodian returns to PTO to talk about his new book Hayek's Bastards: The Neoliberal Roots of the Populist Right. Whilst politicians and thinkers of the new right are typically characterised as fierce opponents of neoliberalism, Quinn explains how the emergence of the populist right developed through a split within the neoliberal movement itself. We talked about the intellectual development of the new right, why their neoliberal heritage is often ignored, and how their racism a...

Whither the Democrats? w/ Natasha Lennard

Natasha Lennard joins PTO to talk about her recent writing on how the Democrats are making sense of their electoral defeat in November and how the mainstream of the party is adopting conservative social policy while flirting with far-right activists and influencers. We also talked about the enduring and ever more bizarre democrat obsession with civility and bipartisanship.

Ambushed in the Oval Office? w/ Richard Seymour

In the latest episode of Interregnum Richard comments on the the fallout from the calamitous meeting between Donald Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky, and JD Vance. We discussed whether the Ukrainian president was the victim of a pre-meditated ambush at the White House, the extent of disjunctures and continuities between the second Trump presidency and prior administrations, and we also talked about how Europe and Britain are responding to the apparent breakup of the post-war international order...

The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat w/ Hannah Proctor

Hannah Proctor joins PTO to discuss her book Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat.  Amongst other aspects of the book, we discussed the practice of Maoist self-criticism and its influence on the American and European New Left, the accounts of women involved in the 1984-85 miners strike following its defeat at the hands of the Thatcher government, and about the Paris Commune of 1871 and the fate of the communards who were exiled to the French penal colony in...

Richard Seymour answers listener questions (part two)

Richard responds to some more questions sent in by listeners. Topics include: The future of the US healthcare system, how the Gaza genocide will be remembered, and how the left should navigate questions of consumerism and over-consumption.

Adam Tooze responds to listener questions

Adam Tooze returns to answer the many excellent questions sent in by listeners. Topics covered included the US tech sector's rapprochement with the Trump administration, Elon Musk's war on the the US administrative state, how the EU will respond to the threat of US tariffs, and what the prospects are for prosecuting a serious reforming social democratic programme in the light of failures such as the Syriza government in Greece or the Francois Mitterrand administration of the early 1980s in Fr...

Adam Tooze questions

On February 5th Adam Tooze will be returning to PTO to respond to listener questions. You may like to ask Adam about his most recent PTO episode on the likelihood of a US war with China, something else on the new Trump administration, or a question on his recent fascinating and provocative talk, Polycrisis and the...

Richard Seymour responds to listeners' questions (part one)

Richard returns to answer more questions - including on the Gaza ceasefire, bible study in American schools, and what might be learned from Mexico's Morena party.

Gaza's future w/ Muhammad Shehada

PTO is joined by the Palestinian writer and analyst Muhammad Shehada. In our conversation we talked about the humanitarian situation in Gaza after fifteen months of war and genocide. We also talked about the military capabilities of Hamas and why Israel was unable to inflict a total defeat on the group. We dicussed how the Trump administration will relate to Israel, and finally Mohammad shared his thoughts on the effects of the international solidarity movement during the genocide. Our conver...

Listeners questions for Richard Seymour

For the latest episode of Interregnum - PTO's show-within-a-show, Richard Seymour will be responding to more listeners' questions. You may like to ask Richard about the implications of the recently announced ceasefire in Gaza, the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump and the role of Elon Musk in the administration, or the devastating California wild fires. As always, Richard is happy to respond on any other topic of your choosing. We'll be recording on Tuesday morning so please do try and se...

A crisis in credibility - Labour's economic programme

Will Davies joins PTO to talk about his recent article in the London Review of Books on the UK government's economic agenda. We discussed the policies that Labour has adopted in its attempt to break out of the low growth and low productivity rates that have characterised the UK economy in recent years. We also chatted about the extent to which the Starmer-Reeves project emulates and diverges from the Biden administration's economic policies, and the left de-risking critique of s...

Richard Seymour responds to listeners' questions

In today’s episode Richard Seymour responds to listener questions on the overthrow of Assad in Syria, the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the significance of widespread public sympathy for Luigi Mangione. We also talked about “normie socialism”, a Soviet counterfactual, and what books Richard has been reading this year. As always, thanks to everyone who sent in a question and for your continued support.

Listeners' questions for Richard Seymour

As previously mentioned, I've been unwell so there won't be any regular PTO episodes for the rest of December but I did want to do something for PTO supporters so I will be recording a listeners' questions episode with Richard on the 18th. As usual, feel free to ask a question on the topic of your choosing - though you may like to ask something related to the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the collapse of the French government, or the failed attempt to impose martial law in South Kor...