The Tea with Myriam Francois

Are the Silicon Valley bros working to dismantle democracy?

For years, Silicon Valley sold us a vision of technological utopia. Now, behind the promises of AI, immortality and space colonisation, some of its most powerful figures are funding surveillance, buying political influence and building private territories beyond democratic accountability. Welcome to the age of tech feudalism, where citizens are reduced to subscribers and digital serfs.

This week on The Tea, we're joined by one of the leading voices exposing Silicon Valley's political footprint, investigative journalist and political strategist Gil Durán, who, in h...

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How much did the Americans know about what Israel was doing in Gaza — and why did the weapons keep flowing?

As evidence of atrocities mounted, the US kept arming Israel. Warnings were ignored, officials resigned, and Biden’s “red lines” were crossed again and again without consequences. So what was really happening behind closed doors — and who was calling the shots?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by award-winning diplomatic correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed, whose explosive new book, Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s...

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Is capitalism destroying democracy — and why can’t we seem to stop it?

As billionaire wealth soars to record highs and public trust in capitalism collapses, the ultra-rich are turning unprecedented fortunes into political power. As more countries slide toward authoritarianism, are we witnessing a crisis of democracy—or the inevitable consequences of a system designed to concentrate wealth and power?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by one of the world's top political economists, Jason Hickel, author of the acclaimed best-selling book Less Is More...

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Can protests really bring about political change?

From Palestine solidarity marches to Gen Z uprisings, from France and Spain to India and Brazil, millions are taking to the streets to demand change. But can protest turn into political power?

Over the past decade, mass movements have challenged governments and shifted public opinion. Yet turning that collective energy into lasting political change has proved far more complicated. What happens when people take to the streets, but power remains firmly elsewhere?

This week on The Tea...

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Are we on the verge of an AI apocalypse, or is Silicon Valley using doomsday fears to distract us from the damage AI is already doing?

Tech insiders and Big Tech CEOs warn that superintelligence could wipe out humanity. Meanwhile, AI is already fuelling warfare and environmental destruction, with zero accountability. If the very people warning us about AI’s dangers also stand to profit from it, is existential doom a genuine warning or the ultimate marketing strategy?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by pion...

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Are we headed for another Cold War?

Four years into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, almost half a million people have been killed, rebuilding Ukraine could cost $588 billion, and there's still no clear endgame.

And as the battle of narratives intensifies, the drumbeat for war is getting louder across Europe. Question that narrative and you risk being labelled a Russian propagandist. But is war really inevitable? And what happens when we start treating it that way?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by ve...

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What if the institutions created to stop genocide are helping to enable it? Gaza lies in rubble. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed, including thousands of children. Israel has seized more territory, while the prospect of an end to the occupation remains as distant as ever. And yet, after years of investigations and international rulings, the machinery of global justice is paralysed. So where is international law when it's actually needed?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by scholar and author Dr Norman Finkelstein, whose la...

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What if tech companies had more power over your life than your own government?

Big Tech isn't just business anymore. Silicon Valley now runs its own foreign policy. Over 60 countries have opened diplomatic missions there to negotiate with tech companies as if they were nation-states. AI CEOs sit at the same tables as world leaders. And the revolving doors between government and Big Tech are spinning faster than ever.

This week on The Tea, former diplomat Dr Jennifer Cassidy, Lecturer in Diplomacy and Technology at the...

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Is the AI apocalypse real or is Silicon Valley selling us a story?

We're told AI could destroy jobs, outsmart humanity and even turn against us. At the same time, it's cracking 50-year-old scientific problems and pushing new drugs into human trials.

So are we living through a genuine technological revolution that could transform humanity or is apocalyptic rhetoric fueling one of the biggest bubbles in tech history?

This week on The Tea, we're joined by bestselling author Cory Doctorow to cut through the...

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“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” You’ve probably seen those words plastered across a thousand sunset photos. What you certainly haven’t seen is the Islamic world that gave birth to them.

Rumi is the best-selling poet in America. Yet the Rumi embraced by the West is a very different figure from the Muslim mystic who wrote the poetry a Rumi detached from Islam and the Quran, stripped of the faith that shaped his work.

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This wee...

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Who really rules the world?

For decades, the global order had a clear centre. After the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower while liberal democracy was proclaimed history's final destination. That story is now dead.

As Western power cracks and the global economy reels from the fallout of the Iran war, the real winners are hiding in plain sight — mega-corporations more powerful than the states that host them. They profit from war no matter who wins. They're not just close to powe...

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For decades, China was presented as the authoritarian rival to the West: censored, controlled and fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy. But that story is now more complicated.

As trust in US leadership declines, China's technology and culture are gaining influence worldwide. Is China challenging the West — or quietly shaping its future?

This week on The Tea, we're joined by journalist and bestselling author Yi-Ling Liu, founding China editor of Rest of World. In her debut book, The World Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese In...

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Six months into the catastrophic US-Israeli war on Iran, Washington's stockpiles are severely depleted, oil and food prices are spiralling globally, and the Middle East is being rapidly reconfigured. Trump promised a quick victory, but the conflict has plunged the world into economic chaos—while war profiteers and elites on both sides cash in.

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, former New York Times war correspondent, and bestselling author Chris Hedges. Drawing on decades of reporting from conflict zones, he breaks down the terr...

Can workers take on the world's biggest corporations — and win?

For decades, corporate power seemed untouchable. But a new generation of workers is fighting back. From Amazon to Starbucks, a new generation of organisers is challenging some of the world's most powerful companies—and winning.

This week on The Tea, we're joined by legendary labour organiser and bestselling author Chris Smalls, the man behind Amazon's first-ever independent labour union. In his new book, When the Revolution Comes, he reveals what it really takes to challenge corporate power—and why the fight is far from o...

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The internet promised freedom. But has it delivered?

When the World Wide Web launched, it promised a borderless world of knowledge, connection and freedom.

More than three decades later, a handful of tech giants control vast parts of our digital lives—shaping what we see, what we remember, and even how we think—while the internet has become an engine of censorship and surveillance.

This week on The Tea, we're joined by the woman rewriting the history of the internet. Mindy Seu is a te...

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What if your favourite video game was spying on you?

Gaming isn't just entertainment anymore. With more than 3.5 billion players worldwide, it's become one of the most powerful cultural battlegrounds on Earth. From Beijing and Moscow to Riyadh, Washington and beyond, governments are investing billions in gaming—not just for profit, but to shape narratives and influence young audiences.

This week on The Tea, we're joined by leading video games expert and author George Osborn to expose how states, corporations and political movements are turning the games we...

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Was the creation of the state of Israel really the only answer to antisemitism?

Nearly three years into Israel's genocide in Gaza, support for Israel has fallen sharply across much of the Western world. And as old political certainties begin to fracture, more people are asking questions that once seemed almost impossible to ask. Was Zionism inevitable? Were there other visions of Jewish freedom? And what can these forgotten traditions tell us about the future?

This week on The Tea, we’re joined by award-winning artist an...

Is AI really getting smarter than us or are we falling for the biggest myth in tech?

AI is transforming the way we work, think and create. As machines begin outperforming humans in more tasks, the race to AGI and even superintelligence is often treated as inevitable. But is it? Or are we buying into Silicon Valley's biggest story?

This week on The Tea, we are joined by one of Britain's sharpest voices on the human impact of technology, Anne-Marie Imafidon CEO of Stemettes and trustee at the Institute for the Future of...

Capitalism isn't in crisis. It is the crisis.

Rising inequalities. Endless austerity. Genocide. Permanent war. Climate collapse. AI-driven job losses. For best-selling author and economist Clara Mattei, these aren't failures of capitalism—they're the system working exactly as designed.

This week on The Tea, Mattei joins us to challenge one of the most powerful assumptions of our time: that there is no alternative. Drawing from her new book, Escape from Capitalism, Mattei argues that capitalism isn't natural or inevitable. It has always depended on political intervention, economic precarity, and the violent suppression of al...

Say these three words in Britain today and you could face up to 14 years in prison.

The words are: "I support Palestine Action." 

Following the group's proscription under UK terrorism law, expressing support can now constitute a serious criminal offence.

This week on The Tea, we're joined by Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori to examine one of the most controversial political decisions in modern Britain. Why has Palestine Action been placed in the same legal category as ISIS and neo-Nazi organisations? And what does that mean for democracy, civil liberties and t...

Has feminism gone too far? Across Western democracies, nearly 60% of Gen Z men now say men face more discrimination than women. Some call it backlash. But the data points to a generation of young men increasingly shaped by algorithm-driven content that distorts feminism, women’s rights, and the meaning of equality itself.

So what’s really driving this shift? This week on The Tea, we’re joined by bestselling author and feminist activist Laura Bates to unpack the growing backlash against feminism, the rise of the so-called manosphere — and the emerging “womanosphere” — and how algorithm-driven radicalisation is reshaping i...

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Eight months on from the so-called ceasefire in Gaza, the headlines may have moved on — but Israel's assault has not. The siege remains. The starvation continues. The displacement continues. The destruction continues.

This week on The Tea, we speak to Dr Mads Gilbert, the award-winning Norwegian doctor and long-standing advocate for Palestinian liberation. Having worked in Gaza for decades, Gilbert offers a devastating account of what he describes as a deliberate campaign of deprivation — one designed to destroy the very foundations of life.

Water and food supp...

If free speech is the foundation of a free society, what happened this week raises a disturbing question: are we sleepwalking into fascism?

Our guest this week, political commentator and founder of The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur, was barred from entering the UK, alongside Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, after criticising Israel, in a move that has sparked alarm over the future of free expression itself.

When does criticism of a state become "a question of public order"? Who gets to decide which opinions are acceptable? And why are some voices increasingly being shut...

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America has learned nothing from its wars. Not Iraq. Not Afghanistan. Not 9/11. And now, with Iran, the cycle is repeating itself. For 23 years, Michael Scheuer served inside the CIA. In this week’s episode of The Tea, he joins us to pull back the curtain on what he calls America’s “imperial hubris” — a foreign policy driven by arrogance, endless intervention, and political capture.

From Israel’s influence on Washington to the failures of the War on Terror, Scheuer argues the US keeps repeating catastrophic mistakes — while the cost is paid in blood...

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What happens when one of the most dangerous political theories of our time goes mainstream?

This week in San Diego, two teenagers opened fire at a mosque, killing three people, in an attack reportedly tied to a manifesto driven by “Great Replacement Theory”— the belief that immigrants, Muslims, and minorities are “replacing” white populations.

But San Diego is not an exception. From Christchurch and El Paso to Buffalo, the GRT has become the ideological spine of modern mass violence.

In this episode of The Tea, histo...

AI is being sold to us as an oracle, objective, neutral, inevitable. But when corporations and governments present predictions as facts, what they often demand is obedience.

We’re living through a golden age of surveillance. As monitoring reaches levels once associated with totalitarian regimes, the question becomes unavoidable: how much surveillance can a democracy sustain before it ceases to be one?

This week on The Tea, Oxford Associate Professor Carissa Véliz, a leading voice on the ethics of AI, joins us to cut through the noise. AI isn’t just forecasting the f...

International law is supposed to be the final guardrail against impunity. So what happens when that system itself comes under attack?

From Donald Trump openly dismissing the very idea of international legal norms to unprecedented sanctions imposed on senior ICC officials, the message is unmistakable: international law applies — until it threatens power.

In this episode of The Tea, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan joins us for an exclusive interview on what happens when those tasked with enforcing justice become targets themselves.

Recently cleared of misconduct allegations, he now faces renewed sc...

Across Western democracies, the political map has shifted. The left is losing its base. The right is gaining ground — and owning the narrative.

In the US, Republicans have gained millions of voters in recent years, while Democrats have lost ground. Across Europe, radical right parties are now regularly polling above 20%, winning government roles and reshaping mainstream politics.

So what’s really happening? Is this a failure of the left or something deeper?

In this episode of The Tea, we’re joined by veteran political commentator Ana Kasparian to unpack the growing disill...

A company with intelligence ties, Palantir, writes a manifesto for a new republic - while quietly embedding itself inside the state…This isn’t a dystopia.

From the rise of figures like Donald Trump to the normalisation of unelected power brokers like Jared Kushner, the concentration of wealth, media, tech, and state power has never been tighter.

The mask is slipping. Power isn’t pretending anymore.

In this episode of The Tea, we are joined by investigative journalist and author Matt Kennard to lift the veil on how corporate power has mo...

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When the system breaks, what happens to resistance?

A court rules Palestine Action’s proscription unlawful. Arrests should stop. They don’t. Power shifts, reverses, and reasserts itself. This isn’t dysfunction. It’s how power operates—entrenched, unaccountable, and built to resist challenge.

In this episode of The Tea, we sit down with hip-hop le...

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What if everything you've been told is "normal" is actually making you sick, physically, emotionally, morally?

We live in a culture where corporations deliberately engineer addiction for profit, where systemic oppression is dressed up as idealism. A culture that runs on denying emotional suffering. That keeps us addicted, so we never stop to look at what's really...

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Is World War III on the horizon? From skyrocketing energy prices to food shortages and nuclear threats, the chaos in the Middle East is threatening to trigger a global economic meltdown. The US is trapped—fighting Israel's war with no exit strategy in sight. As tensions escalate, are we witnessing a calculated master plan, or are we sleepwalking into disaster?

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"Truth isn't shared anymore. It’s manufactured."

For a decade, the script has been the same: Iran is "two weeks away" from a nuclear weapon. Is this a fact, or a decade-long disinformation campaign designed to sell an illegal war? From AI-generated war footage to bot networks swinging European elections, the "Disinformation Machine" is the most dangerous we...

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Corruption. Endless wars. Distruction. Propaganda. Empires don’t fall from external enemies — they rot from within. So, are we witnessing that collapse in real time?

From Iran to Gaza to Venezuela, the mask is slipping. The myth of a benevolent empire, spreading democracy and human rights, has crumbled. What’s left is what’s always been there: dominati...

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A sitting President named thousands of times in the Epstein files. Powerful figures across the globe involved in a web of crimes so vast and brazen that they may qualify as crimes against humanity, says the UN.

Yet the FBI declares the case closed. The DOJ insists there’...

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Is US Christian nationalism fueling a holy war in the Middle East?

As Israel and America target Iran, US troops are told that Donald Trump has been “anointed by Jesus” to ignite Armageddon — and Netanyahu is quoting scripture to justify bombs.

From the White House to the battlefield...

Thousands of peaceful protesters arrested. A direct-action group branded “terrorist.” A UN official sanctioned. ICC judges attacked.

We were told the rule of law would keep us safe. So why does it increasingly look like a system where power protects power?

This week on The Tea, we sit down with Tayab Ali — lawyer and director of the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians — about the growing clash between the rule of law and what he calls a “rules-based order.”

From the “unlawful” proscription of Palestine Action to the arrest of peaceful protesters, from UK citizens...

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The Epstein investigation may be officially closed. But the power structure that made it possible is still intact — and still protecting itself.

Politicians, academics, billionaires, royals - and even a sitting president, cited thousands of times - are among those named. Claims of abuse, trafficking, shady deals, even cannibalism — but for the FBI, “there is nothing to see he...

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The 2026 Epstein revelations have sparked a global legitimacy crisis, shaking political systems worldwide and causing a cascade of resignations, including here in the UK, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, a shadowy figure named Morgan McSweeney.

So who is Morgan McSweeney, and how did his think tank, Labour Together, engineer a fundamental transformation of the Labour Pa...

The global fashion industry churns out over 100 billion garments a year — 10 times more clothes than there are people on the planet. But fast fashion isn’t just cheap clothing. It’s colonial supply chains, algorithmic manipulation, and a Race to the Bottom, designed to extract wealth from workers, water, and culture in the Global South — all to enrich a handful of corporations.

In a world where housing, healthcare, and stability are out of reach, buying cheap clothes can feel like the only form of relief available. We’re told fast fashion is “affordable and accessible,” but the truth is t...