In the run up to the local elections, and following his recent piece on the care crisis, James Butler joins Tom to discuss some of the other problems facing the UK, and what the two major parties are promising to do to alleviate (or exacerbate) them.
Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/sorrystate
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Oct 29
How Prediction Markets Work
According to their boosters, prediction markets such as Polymarket or Kalshi are ‘global truth machines’; their detractors say they’re just a glorified form of gambling. Either way, they’re zero-sum games with, as Geoff Mann put it recently in the LRB, ‘few winners and many loser ... Show More
1 h
Oct 24
Ulysses: James Joyce's properly obscene book
Tom McCarthy, writing in the LRB, described James Joyce's Ulysses as a ‘heavy book, a book full of weight, a fallen book’; a ‘properly obscene book’; ‘a book in which the central stake is the coming into being of the book itself’; a book for which ‘people should desist, once and ... Show More
53m 35s
Oct 22
How Fredric Jameson became Fredric Jameson
Perry Anderson once wrote that in Fredric Jameson’s account of postmodernism, ‘the vocation of Western Marxism has reached its most complete consummation.’ Praising the ‘spacious rhythms’ of his ‘complex, yet supple syntax’ and ‘sudden bursts of metaphoric intensity’, Anderson al ... Show More
53m 25s
May 2017
NS#210: Stooge and Stable
Helen is away this week, so Stephen is joined by Senior Writer, Anoosh Chakelian, and Citymetric Editor, Jonn Elledge. Together they explore how Theresa May's latest EU dealings are less strong-and-stable, and more "like being in a car with a drunk driver". Then discuss which can ... Show More
21m 18s
May 2023
PMQs Unpacked: You Owe Me Dinner
<p>Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer battle it out over migration, inflation and apprenticeships. </p><br><p>Matt, Tim Shipman and Lara Spirit pause and unpack the exchanges, and Tim makes a bet on Boris Johnson's name cropping up. </p><br><p>Plus: Columnists Alice Thomson a ... Show More
1h 3m