It's Bloody Complicated - A Compass Podcast

This week, we spoke to  Natasha Walter:  feminist writer, founder and director of Women for Refugee Women and author of Living Dolls and A Quiet Life.We talked to Natasha about what motivated her to write Living Dolls, and how she moved out of journalism to found the charity Women for Refugee Women. After 14 years at WFRW, Natasha had plenty of stories to share with us and wasn’t afraid to dig into the frictions and frustrations of her work."It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the show (https://www.compassonline.org.uk/podcast/)Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

We’re delighted to welcome academic, author, social commentator, and human cartographer Danny Dorling to the podcast this week.The conversation roamed over many topics, from Biden and Covid, to Finland and Extinction Rebellion.  We discussed in particular Danny's three latest books:  Rule Britannia (written with Sally Tomlinson) , Slowdown, and Finntopia (written with Annika Koljonen).Some key points from the discussion:Reflections on Biden's victory in the US election from the point of view of British and European progressives.  (It's more relief than happiness).Just as the aftermath of wars tend to see reductions in inequality, there's a chance that the Covid-19 pandemic could force some non progressive players into backing progressive policies.Why is geography such a brilliant subject, and why has it produced so many interesting progressive thinkers?We're in the middle of a global slowdown in terms of economic growth, population growth, and innovation.  Why is this a good thing?Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world, and comes in the top three for many other global indicators.  Why is that?  (Clue: it has something to do with a progressive alliance)The automation revolution is already well underway in our workplaces.  What role will as Basic Income play in our future societies?Why has Covid stimulated the debate around inequality in a way that austerity could not?Why Labour must cooperate with other parties if they want to regain power in the next decade.And much more. "It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every other Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcast Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

On 5th November 2020, we hosted this very special transatlantic edition of It’s Bloody Complicated – outside of our usual fortnightly schedule –  to talk to three people with direct experience in building capacity and infrastructure that demonstrates a different kind of doing politics.Roge Karma is a researcher and reporter at Vox, where he produces The Ezra Klein Show podcast and writes about policing, political polarization, and democracy reform.Manu Meel is passionate about empowering young people and advocating for civic engagement. He serves as the CEO of BridgeUSA, a national organization that is investing in the future of democracy. His work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other media platforms.Joan Blades is a co-founder of Living Room Conversations, an open source effort to rebuild respectful discourse across ideological, cultural and party lines while embracing our shared values. She is the co-author of The Custom-Fit Workplace, winner of a Nautilus book award in 2011, and The Motherhood Manifesto, which won the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize in 2007.All three talked about their experiences of building a better way of doing politics, and what that has looked and felt like over the past few months.At the time of recording, the final result of the 2020 US election was still up in the air - which we refer to a few times in the conversation.  "It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every other Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

This week’s live podcast formed part of Build Back Better: How?, a 10 day series of conferences about how we can make the good society after Covid-19 a reality.Universal Basic Services, a guaranteed income floor, the 4 day week, and reform of the banking system:  we discussed some of the biggest, most exciting ideas around for rethinking our approach to work, money, and how we use our time.It’s clear that current financial models are serving fewer and fewer people than ever, as society discovers itself on a treadmill that drives vast fortunes for a small few, and economic instability, environmental destruction, and burnout for the rest. The most important work is widely acknowledged to be the lowest paid, and in the case of care work it is often not paid at all. A threadbare and incomplete welfare state leaves many living in an exhausting state of permanent precarity. Our banking system isn’t working for most people, and is complicit in rising inequality, and environmental degradation.Joining us were very special guests Anna Coote (Principal Fellow at NEF), Will Stronge (Director of Research at Autonomy), and Fran Boait (Executive Director of Positive Money), and Stewart Lansley (author of Basic Income for All: From Desirability to Feasibility). "It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every other Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcast Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

The Scottish Labour Party’s decline has been severe. How – if at all – can it claw back something like the support it once enjoyed? With 51% of Labour voters now backing independence, how should Scottish Labour respond? Join us as we discuss Scottish Labour, Independence, the SNP and the possible break-up of the UK with Scottish commentator and political author Gerry Hassan. Gerry is a regular contributor to Compass, and in his most recent blog for Compass suggests the formation of a new Labour Party in Scotland as a solution to these problems. Listen to this week’s episode to delve into all things Scotland, Labour, and so much more. "It's Bloody Complicated"  is moving now to fortnightly calls, and will be recorded every other Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the show (https://www.compassonline.org.uk/podcast/)Support the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

This week we were joined by Ed Miliband.Ed is best known as leader of the Labour Party but his political career goes way beyond that. In his podcast "Reasons to be Cheerful" he uses the wealth of his experience to discuss the big ideas that we need to transform society.In this fascinating and far-reaching conversation we dig into those ideas. We dissect everything from the lessons learned from the 2015 election defeat to the Green New Deal and his views on Universal Basic Income."It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

Long before Covid hit, it was evident to many that the UK was hurtling towards a crisis of Care. Now we simply cannot deny that the way we think about the way we care for our most vulnerable – who does it and how we value it – is deeply flawed. We urgently need a new politics of Care.This week on the podcast we were joined by three authorities on the state of Care right now: Madeleine Bunting author of Labours of Love, Jo Littler author of The Care Manifesto and Alex Fox (CEO of Shared Lives) "It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

Could proportional representation renew our democracy? On this week’s episode we’ll be focussing on electoral reform, and exploring what it could mean to have a different voting system in the UK. With a panel of guests from the heart of the struggle to get PR on the agenda again, including Klina Jordan from Make Votes Matter, we’ll be digging into the what, why and, most importantly, how of all things PR."It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

This week we were joined by Matthew Taylor, writer, broadcaster, and CEO of the RSA. Matthew was one of a cabal of four back in the early 2000s who helped invent Compass.In a wide ranging discussion, we cover the origins of Compass, his time as head of Tony Blair’s Policy Unit, what’s going on at the RSA and what the future holds for all Progressives."It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice. 

It’s safe to say that Corbyn’s leadership divided opinion within the Labour Party, and the aftershocks of those divisions are still keenly felt today.It’s also clear that Labour has much to learn from the experience of Corbynism – both good and bad – and attempts to scrap everything and move on could end up fracturing the party even more.This week we spoke to Laura Parker (former Momentum national co-ordinator), Jeremy Gilbert (writer and researcher), and Bea Campbell (Green writer and activist) about lessons from the Corbyn era that Labour needs to learn."It's Bloody Complicated" is recorded every Tuesday at 6pm BST. Become a Compass Member to join our live recordings and bring your questions to our guests: https://action.compassonline.org.uk/podcastSupport the showEnjoyed the podcast and want to be a live audience member at our next episode? Want to have the chance in raising questions to the panelist?Support our work and be a part of the Compass community. Become a member!You can find us on Twitter at @CompassOffice.