Reading/Listening/Watching the Year
My essential sources of news and opinion for the year ahead
Maybe I’m just getting old but it can be hard going making sense of events these days. I used to pride myself on my political instincts. They’re still pretty good but I can no longer rely on them as I might have in the past. I feel a much greater need to draw on the insights of others - and a wider body of opinion than I might have in the past. The world seems to have gone mad since 2016. As I discussed in my last piece, just yesterday, the madness has only intensified with the election hysteria of the last few months. So these have become indispensable guides for me as I’ve tried to grapple with the real forces that lie behind the trends and dynamics of our age.
Of course, I don’t agree with everything everybody says on the substacks, the podcasts, and the YouTube channels I subscribe to; nor in the magazines I read. Despite being a man of the left - albeit the non-orthodox left - I’ve always had more time for those of a ‘homeless’ political outlook. Going back to the old days when I first got interested in politics - back in the late 1980s - I was a supporter of an obscure far left group. Nevertheless, I was reading not only Das Kapital (though not, admittedly, in the original German). But also the likes of Harold Bloom, conservative critic of the Culture Wars that were even then raging in the USA. Soon enough they were heading for our own shores.
So I’ve always read widely, and more so as I’ve found myself drifting to the non-technocratic centre of politics. For what it’s worth, these are the go-to sources for me. There are others that I visit every now and then and hope to do so more often in 2025. But these are the places I frequently go for a take on current affairs, politics and the big issues of our time. Whether I agree or disagree with them, their writers or their interviewees, I know they’ll get me thinking - and sometimes give me a laugh too. Either way, I’m better informed having taking the trouble to engage. In no particular order, they are:
Roots and Wings with Frank Furedi
Triggernometry with Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster
Planet Normal with Liam Halligan and Alison Pearson
Last Orders with Tom Slater and Christopher Snowdon
The Current Thing with Nick Dixon
Fire at Will with Will Kingston
Inside the Lords with Claire Fox
The Red Hand Files with Nick Cave
Do let me know what you’ve been reading, watching or listening to, and maybe I’ll join you in engaging with them too in the New Year!
Image: David Martin