CONTENT WARNING: This episode involves discussion of sexual assault

Daniel Sloss is a Scottish comedian who has sold out shows around the world, appeared on Conan shitloads of times and has two specials on Netflix. I’m also lucky enough to consider him a friend.

Daniel’s latest show X deals with toxic masculinity and his personal response to an incident involving the sexual assault of a friend. It’s a funny and thoughtful response to gender politics, call-out culture, sexual violence and #MeToo. In this conversation (recorded back in March), Daniel and I have a frank and at times tricky conversation about how to navigate this kind of terrain, the ethics of writing offensive and dark comedy and how we can all try to make the most of this cultural reckoning with the widespread scourge of sexual misconduct.

We also have a few laughs.

I’m keen to hear any and all feedback on this episode: my email is [email protected]

You can be a hero in this world and support this show by becoming a Patron now if you like

ENOUGH is on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival NOW! 9pm at the Monkey Barrel, pay to reserve a ticket or Pay What You Feel on exit

Then ENOUGH is at the Soho Theatre from Monday September 2nd

Check out my new podcast with Audible, What’s the Story?

@daniel_sloss

Daniel’s show X is at the Fringe for three nights only

danielsloss.com

Cause of the Week: Rape & Domestic Violence Australia (rape-dvservices.org.au), Rape Crisis Scotland (rapecrisisscotland.org.uk) 

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James Ball is a journalist and the current Global Editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. He worked with WikiLeaks on the Iraq War documents leak in 2010 and was part of The Guardian team that helped published the Edward Snowden sneaks about the NSA.

Last week I sat down with James in a London heatwave to reflect on Boris Johnson becoming PM, stockpiling for a no-deal Brexit, the way bullshit works in today’s politics, the anti-Semitism scandal in the British Labour Party and the plight of Julian Assange.

You can be a hero in this world and support this show by becoming a Patron now if you like

ENOUGH starts at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival tomorrow night! 9pm at the Monkey Barrel for the rest of the month

Then ENOUGH is at the Soho Theatre from Monday September 2nd

I’m on the latest episode of The Bugle with Andy Zaltzman & Nato Green

@jamesrbuk

jamesrball.com

James’ writing at The New Statesman

James’ writing at Buzzfeed

James’ writing at The Guardian

James’ speech Bathing in Bullshit, 2017

ARTICLE: Inside the strange, Paranoid World of Julian Assange by James Ball

ARTICLE: Chelsea Manning is in jail. Our silence is shameful by James Ball

ARTICLE: Labour says it will would end the welfare freeze (BBC NEWS)

ARTICLE: The Strange Case of Julian Assange by Bernard Keane

Cause of the Week: Overgate Hospice (overgatehospice.co.uk) 

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Corey White is a comedian and writer with a pretty remarkable personal story. His memoir The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory is a funny, dark and brutally honest account of being raised in a violent working class home, being put through the harsh foster care system, struggling with issues of sexual identity and drug addiction and eventually becoming the comedian and man he is today.

Here Corey and I compare notes on our very different childhoods and discuss issues of class, being a member of the lumpenproletariat, the welfare state, outrage, the case for a UBI and “fusionism”.

Woahhh how cool you can support this show by becoming a Patron please radical, man! 

Then ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August (next week) and the Soho Theatre in September

@MrCoreyWhite

The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory through Penguin

An extract from the book

Corey’s event at the Moonee Ponds Library on Monday July 29th

ARTICLE: Corey White on childhood trauma, foster care and comedy: ‘It’s a factory for the insane’ 

Corey on Q&A discussing incentivised contraception

Cause of the Week: The Pajama Foundation (thepyjamafoundation.com)

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Former Greens senator and lifelong campaigner Lee Rhiannon has been fighting on the Left since she was fifteen years old.

Almost a year on from stepping down as a Senator for NSW after losing preselection to Mehreen Faruqi, Lee talks to me about being spied on by ASIO from the age of seven, being raised by socialist parents, the state of the union movement, just how badly neoliberalism has knocked around the Left, the tensions that continue to frustrate the Australian Greens and how the party can find a better way of reaching out to working people.

Woahhh how cool you can support this show by becoming a Patron please radical, man! 

I’m doing a preview of ENOUGH at The Bill Murray in London on Tuesday July 23rd

Then ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and the Soho Theatre in September

@LeeRhiannon

leerhiannon.org.au

ARTICLE: Outgoing Lee Rhiannon urges Greens to resist ‘careerism and bullying’

ARTICLE: Enemies within as Greens are caught in civil war

Cause of the Week: Frontline Action on Coal (frontlineaction.org)

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Playwright, commentator and activist Van Badham is back on the podcast after she joined me in July of 2015.

Since then Van has been a passionate advocate for the re-election of a Labor government and a scathing critic of The Australian Greens. I was keen to dig further into her thinking on that and ask her what she thought went wrong in the 2019 federal election (the answer might surprise you). Van mounts a vigorous defence of Labor’s policies here and explains why she sees it as the major hope for the socialist Left in Australia.

Plus also you will hear her dog barking in the background.

Woahhh how cool you can support this show by becoming a Patron please radical, man! 

I’m doing two previews of ENOUGH at The Bill Murray in London on July 16th & 23rd

Then ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and the Soho Theatre in September

@vanbadham

Van’s Facebook page

Van’s play Banging Denmark at the Sydney Opera House

Van’s opinion pieces:

Labor’s support for tax cuts is an unfathomable betrayal of principle

Australian Labor led centre-left parties into neoliberalism. Can they lead it out?

Labour has a chance if it replaces Corbyn. Look at Australia in 1983 

Time to hail Hillary Clinton – and face down the testosterone left

How I fell out of love with the Greens: a personal story about the Labor Party

The ALP National Platform 2018

ARTICLE: Van Badham’s defence of Hillary Clinton is insufferable right wing crap by Sarah Garnham

ARTICLE: Van Badham’s defence of Clinton is preposterous by Michael Brull

ARTICLE: It wasn’t Bob Brown who lost the election, it was the Labor Party by James Norman

ARTICLE: How Australia’s Labor Party Lost an Un-Loseable Election by Daniel Lopez

Cause of the Week: The Australian Labor Party (alp.org.au) 

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Josh Bornstein is an employment and IR lawyer at Maurice & Blackburn and the director at the Australia Institute.

He’s been increasingly concerned about the level of control that Australian employers have gained over their employees’ freedom of speech and expression. So when it comes to the case of Israel Falou, he’s been (controversially) outspoken about the legal ramifications for workers if we accept that your boss can fire you for saying the wrong thing.

Here Josh and I take the time to flesh out his argument on this, how one can unequivocally condemn what Falou said but still object to him losing his job and what the implications for this saga might be for anti-discrimination protections moving forward.

Be the change you want to be in the world and support this show by becoming a Patron please

ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and the Soho Theatre in September

@JoshBBornstein

joshbornstein.com.au

ARTICLE: Cricket Australia’s Angela Williamson won’t be the last fired for having an opinion by Josh Bornstein

ARTICLE: Sacked for speaking your mind? Don’t expect the free speech brigade to help by Jason Wilson

ARTICLE: Integrity – it’s all Greek to the hypocrites of the Right by Josh Bornstein

ARTICLE: With Israel Folau the church demands a kind of free speech that keeps gays in the firing line by David Marr

ARTICLE: Everyone Is Wrong About Israel Falou by Lane Sainty

Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas

Cause of the Week: The Centre for Future Work (futurework.org.au)

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Jeremy Poxon is a social security activist and the media officer for the Australian Unemployed Workers Union. His spicy twitter account regularly draws attention to the plight of unemployed and underemployed people in Australia, from those living on Newstart to people on Work for the Dole to folks just trying to survive in the gig economy.

Here Jeremy explains exactly how organising unemployed workers in a union works, why capitalism is antithetical to the idea of (actual) full employment, why Labor’s centrism SUCKS BUTT, what’s involved in a jobs guarantee and what an Australian Green New Deal might look like.

Be the change you want to be in the world and support this show by becoming a Patron please

ENOUGH is on in Collingwood in Melbourne this Friday & Saturday night

ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and the Soho Theatre in September

@jeremypoxon

unemployedworkersunion.com

progress2019.org.au

jobguarantee.org

ARTICLE: Australia Needs A Green New Deal, Not More Centrism by Jeremy Poxon, Jon Piccini and Tash Neenan

ARTICLE: What Good Are Billions of Surplus Dollars When People Are Starving? by Jeremy Poxon

ARTICLE: The demerit system is ruthless social policy, designed to keep the poor powerless by Jeremy Poxon

ARTICLE: Living on Newstart: ‘I don’t eat every day. That saves some money I guess’ by Gay Alcorn

Cause of the Week: The Unemployed Workers Union (unemployedworkersunion.com)

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Something a little bit different for you this week: highlights from a live performance of A Rational Fear at Queensland’s inaugural Climate Week.

There were jokes and songs and facts about the impending climate crisis, featuring myself, Dan Ilic, Melinda Buttle, Steph Tisdell, Lewis Hobba, Prof. Hilary Bambrick and Bridie Connell & Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd. Enjoy.

You can support this show by becoming a Patron which would be very very nice of you

ENOUGH is coming to Newcastle this Friday night

Then Sydney on Saturday night

Then Geelong and Melbourne later in the month

ENOUGH is coming to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August and the Soho Theatre in September

@ARationalFear

A Rational Fear on Soundcloud

ARationalFear.substack.com

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