The Lowdown from Nick Cohen

2024 - That was the year that was!For a moment, tune out of Cliff Richard and Slade Christmas hits and Fairytale of New York, and instead tune into The Lowdown from Nick Cohen as he chats over the shitshow that was 2024 with Lowdown stalwarts Nick Tyrone @NicholasTyrone & Tim Walker, @ThatTimWalker on a whole list of topics including Trump, Gaza, Ukraine, Brexit, the bungling of a new new Labour government.Lowdown awards for key people and events of 2024Guests Tim and Nick hand out special Lowdown awards for the key people and events of the year including Biggest Bore of the Year, Hero of the Year, Worst event of the Year, Happiest event of the Year and Biggest disappointment of the YearRead all about itRead Tim Walker's Substack column A Point of View. Tim, an established Fleet Street columnist and journalist, has written several plays including Bloody Difficult Woman about Gina Miller's brexit legal battle with Theresa May. He has a new political play in the new year on Radio 4.Nick Tyrone is an author, activist, policy advisor and commentator and keen observer of the Tory party whose Substack column as Neoliberal Centrist Dad - nick.tyrone.substack.com - is a must read for those of us desperate for the return of sanity to our national political discourse.Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

Nick Cohen chats to Peter Oborne, Conservative commentator, reporter and author extraordinaire about the growing threat posed to the UK by the radical right in politics, press and from the other side of the Atlantic.Labour and Tory failure to tackle Farage is driving Reform surgeSomething died inside Peter Oborne @OborneTweets when he saw Sir Keir Starmer recently bound across the floor of the House of Commons to talk to Nigel Farage. Neither Labour nor the Tories seem prepared to take on Farage - not on the failed shitshow of Brexit nor on his negative message on immigration. "What an extraordinary state of affairs!" says Peter. adding, "It's shattering. I mean, Farage is, is a bigot.  His finances and the way he runs his sort of, his party, astonishing, full of dreadful people who shouldn't be seen in public, and yet somehow, it's very like Trump, that is, and they cannot find a way of tackling him or seem not even to want to."Labour has lost focus by listening to focus groupsPeter had high hopes before the election of Sir Keir Starmer, believing his working class background and record of solid achievement before entering politics helped made him an attractive political force But he now says of the PM, "he comes over as a nothing somebody's blown around by the wind". Peter believes the Labour government's current timidity is driven by an addiction to focus groups - something it shares with the Tories." He adds, " it's one of the sicknesses of our time."The extremist far-right former "Tory press" is getting madder & madderPeter says Tory party is now "a vehicle for thoroughly unpleasant people and who don't understand what Britain is about" and that he same can be said of the press that used to identify as Conservative. He says, "They [right wing press] flourish by going after vulnerable minorities they're wrong about almost everything."We must stand up against insidious takeover of BritainPeter is disturbed by Trump toady Elon Musk's threat to fund Reform, saying "what is happening here is indeed a takeover of Britain, culturally, socially, politically, and there's a massive attempt to do it economically by the United States. And it's only just started." The UK should tell these extremist far right forces to "get lost", Peter adding, "we're now moving into a world, an authoritarian world, which wants to destroy liberal democracy."Peter Oborne is an associate editor for the Middle East Eye . His latest book published by Simon & Schuster is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is wrong about Islam Nick Cohen's @ latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

Nick Cohen chats with Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate about the fight against the forces of online hatred and extremism that pose such a threat to western values, democracy and civilisation. What can the West do to face down the out-of-control moguls who control the social media giants and profit from a tidal wave of digital hate and extremism?A lost truth leading to authoritarianismSocial media is destroying the truth and the currently chaotic information system is leading to authoritarianism. Imran says, "The information ecosystem has evolved in recent years and has been entirely commercially driven and has been without the consent of people - quite often - forced upon us." Imran adds people should have the ability to force change on the social media giants.Social media giants profit hugely from hate - & driving people to extremesConspiracy theories, extremist views, disinformation. misinfomation and outright lies are increasingly dominating social media more and more. Imran says extremist political movements were "benefiting from mobilising conspiracy, theory communities, hate communities, and that wasn't just happening in the U.S. You know, the lazy assumption is this is a Trump thing. It's not." He adds, "What social media platforms have done have taken... those fringe ideologies, [&] churn them into the mainstream."The West has failed to Musk & social media moguls to accountImran is one of the few to have taken on by Elon Musk and survived to tell the tale! Back in March, Imran comprehensively defeated Musk in the courts when a U.S. judge threw out attempts by the Trump boot-licker to gag Imran's CCDH organisation. But, so far, the West hasn't been as determined to take on the Leviathans of digital. "It is because of a lack of will and a lack of confidence, I would argue, amongst European and United States, lawmakers, that we have failed to hold them accountable'", Imran tells Nick, adding, "that's in part because, you know, this is difficult for us. We are true believers in Britain and in the United States in freedom of speech."Feeble or no regulation leaves us all exposed to digital hateImran says the local deli is subject to far more regulation than online social media moguls and that has ledt us all exposed to thr abuses of social media power as we saw in the U.S. presidential cam paign when. Elon Musk flagrantly put X, formerly TWITTER to the service of Donald Trump. Imran asks "How on earth can it be that social media platforms are the only businesses in America that are not subject to negligence law or any kind of scrutiny whatsoever?"Imran Ahmed founded the CCDH in December 2017. He frequently appears in the media as an expert in online malignant behaviour (identity-based hate; misinformation; extremism; fake news; trolling; and social media). Imran is a trustee of the charity, Victim Support. He was appointed to the Steering Committee of the UK Government's Commission on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force in April 2020, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond. 

Nick Cohen chats to Lowdown favourite - the brilliant Guardian columnist & author Rafael Behr - about the gloomy outlook for the world with Donald Trump threatening the end of the world order for the West that has weathered 80 years of post-war crises - alongside a rampant radical right at home that is trying to delegitimise Labour's mandate to govern.Danger to Tories in being pro-TrumpRafael says - of the danger posed to Kemi Badenoch's Tories - that if they go ahead and throw in their lot with Trump and his crazed MAGA nationalists, "I think they [the Tories & Reform] underestimate the extent how far into mainstream, unpolitical, quite small "c" conservative Britain, a kind of visceral suspicion of America actually goes even before you've got Trump there." Farage of course already has, as Nick, put it - putting his buddy Trump's interests ahead of the UK's.Starmer needs to be be more assertive & aggressive with the RightRafael @rafaelbehr and Nick @NickCohen4 (and sometime's Raf's dog, who, BTW, inot on X!) discuss the current depressing domestic political scene with the radical right frantically trying to present the Labour government as having no mandate to govern despite a huge 170+ seat overall majority. Rafael says there is "an absence of swagger" about the Starmer government, adding, "these guys, they really are the government. And I think they need to assert that a little bit more."The failed revolution of brexit makes Labour's job even tougherRafael @rafaelbehr believes that the failure of brexit has led to the current atmosphere of political malaise, adding "all of the  emotional and political capital that you can spend - [and-sic] all the you can make of a population for sacrifice in pursuit of a broader national goal - was squandered by Brexit as a fraudulent revolution." It means, adds Rafael, that "there will not be a day when Nigel Farage is on UK Bank Notes and the 23rd of June is our national holiday and there will be monuments to Jacob Rees Mogg and, and Boris Johnson."Rafael's recent book Politics: A Survivor's Guide: How to stay engaged without getting enraged is published by W.F.Howes Ltd and available at Amazon and in all good bookshops.Support the show You can also read his wonderful columns in the Guardian.Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.

Nick Cohen @NickCohen4 - chats about the British radicalised right will respond to the 2nd coming of Donald Trump with Nick Tyrone - the author, activist, policy advisor and commentator and keen observer of the Tory party whose Substack column as Neoliberal Centrist Dad - nick.tyrone.substack.com - is a must read for those of us desperate for the return of sanity to our national political discourse.Reform will be the main UK "we love Trump" party Nick @NicholasTyrone says Nigel Farage - the leader of The Reform Party - is already the "We love Trump" party and betraying the UK's real interests over Trump will trouble Farageists even less than the calamity they inflicted on the country through Brexit. Nick says, I think that Farage would very much like to be the sort of equivalent of Trump. I think in this country, it will be a lot harder for Farage to do that.... we don't have a presidential system." The only problem is that Bits generally don't care for Trump and his very "un-British" and preposterous levels of arrogance.This leaves the Labour government forced to work with the incoming Trump kakistocracy - through gritted teeth - and the Liberal Democrats as the avowedly "we hate Trump" party. As for the Tories, led - for now - by the unimpressive Kemi Badenoch, Nick says all this Trump-mainia leaves the Tories rather out on a limb as the party of "we like Trump, but not as much as Reform and Farage,"Farage has bigger chance of being PM than BadenochDisturbingly, Nick does not believe Badenoch and the Tories will appeal to young male voters, many of whom are being politically radicalised by far right messaging on social media, while Trump's victory will significantly help Farage and Reform in the UK. "The problem for Starmer will be if Farage can really make the breakthrough," Nick says, adding,"I think people are underestimating how possible it is for Farage to become PM. That's what I think. I genuinely think, like, the chances of Farage becoming PM are much higher than Badenoch ever being PM. Much higher." Nick still believes Starmer - as things stand - has the best chance of winning the next election.Trump will pump up Farage & extremist nut jobs of the far rightBoth Nicks agreed that Trump and his peculiar billionaire fan-boy Elon Musk will be doing all they can to pump up Farage/Reform and far right nut jobs like Tommy Robinson who are much more in line with their thinking than the UK Tory party. Brexitist demands for U.S - UK trade deal will remain on fantasy shelfNick also ridicules that hardy perennial fantasy of the radicalised Tory/Reform pro-Brexitists - the UK-U.S. trade deal: "This fantasy that like Trump loves Britain so much that he's going to offer a trade deal that is of a kind that America has never, ever, ever done with any nation in its history is mad, particularly when you think of Trump being 1.), a protectionist himself, America first, all that, and then 2.), his entire personality, even going back before politics, which was around, you know, screwing the other guy over and getting a great deal."Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond. 

In the 2nd of a 2-part interview, Nick Cohen asks author, academic & commentator Yascha Mounk where next for Trump and his MAGA cult following? Already the President-elect is creating his cabinet of freaks, buffoons and creeps. Trump has already been humiliated in his original choice for Attorney-General - the firebrand former Congressman Mat Gaetz - who's now crashed and burned amid a flurry of lurid sex and drug claims.So, already Trump's predictably bizarre cabinet choices are causing deep alarm - for example his decision to make ex-Democrat congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard his intelligence chief. Gabbard has been accused of being a sympathiser of both Syria's and Russia's dictators - Bashar Al Assad and Vladamir Putin.Yascha tells Nick he doesn't think Trump is senile - he sees Trump as definitely the same man as he was back in 2016 - except older and if anything more radical. So what can we expect from a second Trump presidency? For sure, the next four years promises a bumpy ride for the United States and the rest of the world, with an expected U.S.- led trade war and a betrayal of Ukraine, with the trashing of NATO thrown in for good measure..Yascha says "you normalise Trump, you normalise the extraordinary ... this is not a coherent figure. Let's put it as politely as I can. This is a chaotic figure. This is a figure who makes no sense in charge of the most powerful nation on earth and, and in a sense attempts to kind of rationalise him rather miss the point." In many ways, Trump is a more scary figure than he was back in 2016 when he was still openly hated by many Republicans. Yascha says He has four years of experience. I don't believe he's senile. And I think when you look at how, the beginning of his, transition has gone, he is very organised, very disciplined, not tweeting about random things, making short video announcements about the policies he's going to pursue."Yascha is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Persuasion Substack - @JoinPersuasion - and also has his own Yascha Mounk Substack column. A man of many talents, Yascha hosts his own podcast, The Good Fight. Yascha's latest and highly acclaimed book - The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time - is published by Penguin. A political scientist, Yascha is also Professor of Practice at the School of Advanced International Studies of John Hopkins University in the U.S.Nick Cohen's @NichCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond.