Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Where did our immigration system come from?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Ian Sanjay Patel

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
13 August 2021

This week a controversial deportation flight took off for Jamaica. Legal challenges meant that only a tenth of the 90 people due to be deported were on the plane. The planned deportation included people whose lawyers said they had a right to stay in the UK under the Windrush rules, or who had arrived in the UK as children.Critics say that our immigration system is unnecessarily

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Fighting the climate crisis in the courts
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Tessa Khan

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
06 August 2021

With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re spending five episodes this series looking at pressing climate issues. In this episode we’re talking about taking the fossil fuel industry to court.
Last week, a government spokesperson said that we should freeze leftover bread and stop rinsing dishes before we put them in the dishwasher to tackle the climate

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: fast fashion
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Maxine Bédat

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
03 August 2021

With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re spending five episodes this series looking at pressing climate issues. In this episode we’re talking fast fashion.
Summer is here and Love Island is all over the telly. The show’s sexy singles are competing for big prize money, and the inevitable sponsorship deals with fast fashion brands like Shein, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing. But

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Greenwashing
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Alice Bell

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
02 July 2021

With the COP26 global climate conference coming up later this year, we’re going to spend the next five episodes of the podcast looking at some of the biggest climate issues – starting this week with greenwashing.
Last month 20 young people and scientists attempted to occupy London’s Science Museum. They were protesting the fact that a new exhibition on the climate crisis was being sponsored by Shell. Protestors accused Shell of using their

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: the Police Bill
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Zehrah Hasan and Becka Hudson

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
18 June 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Culture wars
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Hanna Thomas Uose and David Wearing

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
11 June 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: What will Biden’s America look like?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Kate Aronoff, staff writer at the New Republic

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
01 April 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Changing the rules of our economy to stop environmental breakdown
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Laurie Laybourn-Langton, co-author of the new book Planet On Fire, and NEF trustee

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
19 March 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: How can we make sure everyone has enough to live on?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by NEF CEO Miatta Fahnbulleh and Sonali Joshi, co-founder of Excluded UK

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
12 March 2021

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,

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: What’s Brexit done to fishing and farming?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by NEF Associate Fellow, Chris Williams

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
02 March 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Vaccine Nationalism
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Common Wealth’s Miriam Brett and Tahir Amin from the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
15 February 2021

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?

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Is outsourcing out of control?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by New Statesman’s Britain editor, Anoosh Chakelian and David Hall, founder of the PSIRU at the University of Greenwich

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
05 February 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Exposing the truth about modern slavery
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Emily Kenway, author of new book The Truth About Modern Slavery

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
29 January 2021

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Finding hope during and after the pandemic
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by researcher and author, Christine Berry and Farzana Khan, executive director and co-founder of Healing Justice London

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
01 December 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Should we work less after the pandemic?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Alfie Stirling, NEF Director of Research and Chief Economist, and NEF Principal Fellow Anna Coote

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
16 November 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Should we shake up taxes to recover from the pandemic?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Robert Palmer, executive director of Tax Justice UK and Anoosh Chakelian, Britain editor at the New Statesman

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
06 November 2020

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

Blog
This is your brain on neoliberalism
If you can’t afford to buy a new car or pay your rent, it’s your own fault – that’s what neoliberalism tells us. No wonder we’re in the midst of a mental health crisis.

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
26 October 2020

This is an article from the second issue of the New Economics Zine. You can read the full issue here
In 2006, Australian television writer and producer Rhona Byrne released The Secret, a DVD closely followed by a 268-page book with the tagline ​“Feel good. Change your life.” The Secret is based on the ​‘law of attraction’, which, she argues, all the great

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: the US election narrative war
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by communications expert and principle at ASO Communications, Anat Shenker-Osario

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
23 October 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: What’s going on with Brexit?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Marley Morris, Associate Director for Immigration, Trade and EU relations at IPPR

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
16 October 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Is competition killing us?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Michelle Meagher, author of new book, Competition is Killing Us and Grace Blakeley, staff writer at Tribune

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
06 October 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Can unions transform the economy?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Unions Renewed authors Alice Martin and Annie Quick

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
25 September 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Covid-19 and global capitalism
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by Dr Tobias Franz, Lecturer in Economics at SOAS and Shreya Nanda, Economist at IPPR

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
14 August 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: How do we win a green recovery?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by NEF Head of Environment and the Green Transition, Chaitanya Kumar and Fatima Zahra-Ibrahim co-director of Green New Deal UK

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
07 August 2020

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

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Where does conservatism go next?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by NEF CEO Miatta Fahnbulleh and Director of Research & Advocacy at Common Wealth Miriam Brett

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
31 July 2020

For most of the last decade, the Conservative government has said they want to cut government spending to balance the books as they rolled out austerity nationwide. But since the start of lockdown, something seems to have changed. The chancellor keeps saying ​“this is not the time for ideology” as he announces new, expensive schemes to keep the economy afloat.
So — what’s

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Can we avoid a tsunami of job losses?
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by NEF’s Alfie Stirling and Nikki Pound, TUC Policy and Campaigns Support Officer

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
22 July 2020

It feels like every day there are new dire predictions of the state of the UK economy and jobs. Last week we discovered that the number of paid employees in Britain has plunged by 650,000 since the start of the pandemic. As the furlough scheme winds down, the Office for Budget Responsibility says 1.4 million furloughed people are at risk of unemployment. And almost a third of

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: Do police and prisons keep us safe?
Ayeisha is joined by Dr. Adam Elliot-Cooper, research associate in sociology at the University of Greenwich and board member of the Monitoring Group

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
14 July 2020

At the end of June Keir Starmer said of Black Lives Matter protesters in an interview: ​“Nobody should be saying anything about defunding the police.” At the same time, the UK government announced four new prisons. Olympic athlete Bianca Williams has said she felt like ​“being black is a crime” after she was stopped and handcuffed by police while

Podcasts
Weekly Economics Podcast: The Hostile Environment during coronavirus
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith is joined by the JCWI’s Zoe Gardner and Akram Salhab from Migrants Organise

By
Ayeisha Thomas-Smith
03 July 2020

The end of June marked the anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush Generation in the UK, and sparked renewed conversations about the Hostile Environment. It’s been reported that UK immigration policies have stopped migrants from getting healthcare during the Covid-19 pandemic, despite a government exemption from immigration checks and fees. Just this week, MPs passed a new immigration bill