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Bricks & Banter"The one where we had not one, but two special guests!!"Send Bricks & Banter a text message!We are back! In the first episode of Series 2, Tom and Laura sit down with friends Natalie Moore and Mike Leeman who are Managing Partners / Directors of their own successful conveyancing law firms. We ask them what makes their firms successful, what challenges they face, and of course we have some fun!! Tune in to listen and understand what it takes to establish a thriving and growing conveyancing practice.Many thanks to our sponsors Rowlinsons Solicitors and Bell Lamb & Joynson SolicitorsFol...
2025-02-1757 min
The Hated and the DeadEP125: Keir StarmerKeir Starmer has been the leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020. This makes him Leader of the Opposition, and - if the polls are to be believed - Britain's next prime minister. Amid a revolving door of prime ministers, Brexit, and the pandemic, Starmer’s rise from leader of the weakest Labour Party since the Second World War to being in poll position in the race for Downing Street has taken many by surprise. It’s also left a public clamouring for more information about who this man is, what makes him tick, and what he beli...
2024-05-0551 min
Don't Panic GeocastEpisode 382 - "A world without attenuation would be unbearably noisy"What can we get from mining the moon? Should we? Who can do it? Why should we do it? That and more in this week's show!
Fun Paper Friday
Do we live in 3D? Can you prove it?
Morley, Tom. "A simple proof that the world is three-dimensional." SIAM review 27.1 (1985): 69-71.
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2024-03-1646 minThe Hated and the DeadThree regimes in a changing WorldIn a special episode of the podcast, I speak to three former guests about the divergent fortunes and trajectories of the governments in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Russia. In Turkey, Erdogan is emboldened following an election victory unexpected in some quarters; in Saudi Arabia, MBS is cautiously reforming the country's domestic and foreign policy in a bid to extend its longevity; in Russia, Vladimir Putin's regime is seemingly on the verge of collapse. My guests for this episode are: Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies, Steven A. Cook; New York Ti...
2023-07-2353 minThe Hated and the DeadEP92: Rauf DenktashRauf Denktash was the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus from 1983 until 2005. Given its crucial geopolitical position in the Eastern Med, Cyprus has been contested by different powers for centuries. In the modern day, this contestation occurs between Greece and Turkey, something compounded by the fact that Greeks and Turks both lived on the island and make up the Island’s two largest ethnic groups. In 1974, following a Greek-backed coup on the island, Turkey annexed the Northern half of Cyprus, and established the Republic over which Denktash presided for more than two decades.Li...
2023-07-161h 16The Hated and the DeadEP91: Khorloogiin ChoibalsanKhorloogiin Choibalsan was the leader of Communist Mongolia from 1939 until 1952. Known as "The Stalin of the Steppe", his life changed in 1933 when he agreed to become Stalin's lackey under the threat of execution for supposed collusion with Japanese spies. This led Choibalsan to execute three percent of the Mongolian population in Purges commensurate with Stalin's. His career offers a fascinating insight into the character of Stalin, and also poses an interesting question as to how small countries such as Mongolia often have to settle for partial independence, if they wish to be free at all. ...
2023-07-091h 08The Hated and the DeadEP90: (The Rather Less Horrible) James CallaghanJames Callaghan was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom between 1976 and 1979. He is also the only person to have held the UK's four Great Offices of State: Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, and Prime Minister. This episode is the next in the "Rather Less Horrible" Series, where my guest and I discuss politicians less unpleasant than most of the others on the podcast, but whose careers still hold important lessons. Callaghan's time in power is a lesson in collective leadership; having kept his Labour Government together in a time of high in...
2023-07-0247 minThe Hated and the DeadEP89: Metropolitan AmfilohijeAmfilohije Radović was Metropolitan- a high ranking position in the Orthodox Church- of Montenegro and the Littoral from 1990 until his death in 2020. Amfilohije was a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which also wields considerable influence in Montenegro. Serbia and Montenegro were joined in federation until 2006, when Montenegro voted to become an independent country. He was one of the key figures in a cultural conflict intrinsic to Montenegrin politics: should the country be a loyal ally of the Government in Belgrade, perhaps ruled by it directly, or should it govern its own affairs? Amfi...
2023-06-251h 05The Hated and the DeadEP88: Muhammadu BuhariMuhammadu Buhari served as the President of Nigeria between 2015 and 2023, having left office three weeks ago. Buhari is a longstanding character in Nigerian politics, having run for President five times, and led the country as a military dictator in the 1980s. The administration of Nigeria is made almost impossible by the intertwined issues of ethnic, linguistic and religious division, corruption, terrorism, poverty and population pressures. By the standards of Nigerian politicians, Buhari came to power with relatively good intentions to reform the state, and did not engage in the corrupt activity that ensnared so many others.
2023-06-181h 05The Hated and the DeadEP87: Dragan ČovićDragan Čović is one of the most powerful politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosnia's political system, the most complicated anywhere in the World, is designed to give the country's three ethnic groups- Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats- equal representation in government. This sounds reasonable- until one considers that Croats only make up 15% of the population. Čović is the man who has, for over twenty years, manipulated the political system to extract benefits for the Croats. My guest today would wager that the Bosnian Croats, who are Catholic, are much more powerful than the Muslim Bosniaks, who repres...
2023-06-111h 07The Hated and the DeadEP86: Christopher HitchensChristopher Hitchens was an Anglo-American writer, journalist, literary critic and essayist. Not a thinker who one can characterise easily, the one thing linking all Hitchens’ writing and his utterances- he was a formidable debater- was his opposition to totalitarian thought. This often sparked controversy- especially his views on Islam and his support for the War in Iraq- but for all the descriptions of him as a shallow contrarian, the authenticity of his opposition to totalitarian ideologies cannot be denied. My guest today is Alex O’Connor. Alex is the founder of the Cosmic Skeptic YouTube chan...
2023-06-041h 02The Hated and the DeadEP85: Józef PiłsudskiJózef Piłsudski was the founding father of modern day Poland, and the country’s most significant political figure from its formation in 1918 until his death in 1935. Initially a committed democrat who wished to see a Poland free for ethnic minorities to live in, Piłsudski eventually decided that his fellow Poles were not enlightened enough to accept his vision of a free and multi-ethnic Poland, and ruled effectively by decree after 1926.But Piłsudski’s story is much more than a simple case of fledgling democrat turned dictator; indeed, his leadership of Poland reveals...
2023-05-281h 12The Hated and the DeadEP84: Robert MuldoonRobert Muldoon served as prime minister of New Zealand from 1975 to 1984. His direct, bullying style of leadership, which he claimed represented “government of the ordinary bloke”, made waves across the world, and is reminiscent of the tactics of modern demagogues like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro. Muldoon also represented a New Zealand still intertwined with Britain, its former imperial master, and closed off to the rest of the World. That New Zealand has since largely died, and the country has become more liberal, more open and more culturally at ease with itself. In this sense, Muldoon’s story...
2023-05-071h 03The Hated and the DeadEP83: Pablo IglesiasPablo Iglesias was the Second Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 2020 until 2021. For the first time, my guest and I take a look at a figure from Europe’s modern left: Iglesias was the leader and co-founder of anti-austerity party Podemos- "we can" in Spanish. Although Podemos and Iglesias did not topple the Socialist Party and sweep to power as Syriza did in Greece, they have entered government alongside them, and to some extent have been successful in shifting Spain’s economic policy leftward. Iglesias, whose rather petty infighting and sniping quickly alienated many Spaniards from him, has...
2023-04-3056 minThe Hated and the DeadEP82: Francisco Macías NguemaFrancisco Macías Nguema was the 1st President of Equatorial Guinea from 1968 until his execution in 1979. His wooden public appearances, punctuated by rambling and spasmodic outbursts, often explained away as kookiness, were in fact suggestions of something else: that Macías was completely mad. Suffering from hallucinations and paranoia, Macías’ fear of assassination led him to murder perhaps as much as a third of the population of Equatorial Guinea. Some of the anecdotes my guest tells about Macías in the conversation you’re about to hear are totally unbelievable. My guest today is the journ...
2023-04-2358 minThe Hated and the DeadEP81: Rafael TrujilloRafael Trujillo was Generalissimo of the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. The violence deployed by his regime was extraordinary, with Trujillo’s men murdering an estimated 30,000 Haitians in a matter of weeks in 1937, not to mention thousands of Dominicans across three decades, in what my guest today describes as the violence of the Trujillo plantation. Trujillo’s story, and indeed the story of the Dominican Republic, can be read as a story of domination, perhaps suffocation, by the United States. The image of the United States as the Great Satan in the World, which can only...
2023-04-1658 minThe Hated and the DeadEP80: Helmut KohlHelmut Kohl served as Chancellor of West Germany between 1982 and 1990, and as Chancellor of Germany between 1990 and 1998. The story of German reunification, which Kohl presided over, is the focus of today's episode. In thirty years, Kohl’s West Germany, divided and incomplete, has become the powerhouse of Europe, rebuilding Eastern Europe after the Fall of Communism and becoming master of the Euro. But despite this, Germany has also become more internally polarised, more unequal, and more anxious about its place in the World. In this sense, Germany is a sort of microcosm for the entire We...
2023-04-0957 minThe Hated and the DeadEP79: Andrés Manuel López ObradorAndrés Manuel López Obrador, referred to hereafter as AMLO, has been President of Mexico since 2018. AMLO's redistributive, pro-development populism has proven highly attractive in a country which seems perennially stuck between the rich world and the poor one, with the President promising to instigate the Fourth Great Transformation in Mexican history. How has that gone? Underwhelmingly might capture it. Mexico today is not a disaster society by any means, but AMLO hasn’t really vanquished the idea that Mexicans remain in between the rich world and the poor world at all. Whilst hardworking, there is a gr...
2023-04-021h 00The Hated and the DeadEP78: Saddam Hussein20 years on from the Iraq War, we look at Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq from 1979 until 2003. The 2003 Invasion, and the lead up to it, represents how poorly figures at the top of government can understand their counterparts and the countries they lead. The US did not understand Iraq well at all; but an important second part to that statement that is often glossed over is that Saddam really didn’t understand the US, either. If he had, he, or his regime, might still be in charge of Iraq today. I hope that this episode gives peop...
2023-03-261h 09The Hated and the DeadEP77: Andrej BabišAndrej Babiš is the Czech Republic's richest man, and served as prime minister from 2017 until 2021. He was also the losing candidate in this year's presidential election, which to some extent ended up being one of those contests known for the person who lost it, rather than who won. Babiš’s premiership, far from the runaway modernising success he promised, was dominated by scandals focused on alleged conflicts of interest. To some, he also signified a dilution of the Czech Republic's support for Western institutions.Babiš was no longer prime minister by the time the War in Ukr...
2023-03-191h 03The Hated and the DeadEP76: Rupert MurdochRupert Murdoch is the most famous media mogul of the last fifty years. Australian by birth but American by citizenship, he owns The Sun, the now defunct News of the World, the New York Post, Twentieth Century Fox and the Wall Street Journal. Amid the rise of social media, the vice-like grip that he once had over celebrity gossip and media through print seems to have diminished. His reputation in the UK was nearly destroyed following the phone hacking scandal in 2011, and for left-wing opinion on both sides of the Atlantic, he remains lucifer in the flesh.
2023-03-121h 01The Hated and the DeadEP75: Edward VIIIEdward VIII reigned as King of the United Kingdom for 325 days in 1936. He is the only British monarch to voluntarily renounce the throne, a decision which eventually led to the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth II. The reason why 1936 was a year of three Kings was Edward’s infatuation with American socialite Wallis Simpson. Among royal observers, Edward VIII has become a shorthand for a monarchy in crisis, and for dereliction of duty. But is this fair? Was Edward badly treated? Would it have been a good thing for Britain to keep hold of a King wh...
2023-02-261h 00The Hated and the DeadEP74: The Kosovo SerbsThere is little about the Western Balkans that its inhabitants agree on. Land, language, religion and belonging are all contested between Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians and Albanians, who live beside one another, next to borders they don’t always recognise. One such group is the Kosovo Serbs; a largely Orthodox Christian group who live in Kosovo but identify with and are loyal to Serbia, often putting them at odds with the Albanian Muslim majority. For centuries, the Serbs have seen Kosovo as their homeland, and see the replacement- their word, not mine- of Serbs in the region by Alb...
2023-02-191h 04The Hated and the DeadEP73: Anwar SadatAnwar Sadat was the President of Egypt between 1970 and his assassination in 1981. Sadat changed Egypt utterly during his time in power, recognising Israel and aligning with the US following the anti-colonial rule of Nasser. The about-turns made by Sadat during his 11-year presidency make him one of the post-1945 World’s most controversial figures, and he ultimately paid for his cosying up to Israel with his life. But did his actions make Egypt more stable and more prosperous? This is the question at the heart of today's episode.My guest for today’s conversation is Stev...
2023-02-1255 minThe Hated and the DeadEP72: Charles HaugheyCharles Haughey served as Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland three times between 1979 and 1992. His career, saddled by accusations of helping the IRA, extraordinary financial irregularities and infidelity would make Donald Trump flush an even darker orange. Like Boris Johnson, Haughey is a demonstration that charm, wit and immense intelligence count for little in politics without strong moral and ethical foundations. My guest for this conversation is Gary Murphy. Gary is associate professor of government and Head of the School of Law at Dublin City University. In 2014, he was asked by Haughey’s son Sean to wri...
2023-02-051h 09The Hated and the DeadEP71: Zulfikar Ali BhuttoZulfikar Ali Bhutto was the leader of Pakistan from 1971 until 1977. Zulfikar took power in Pakistan at one of the lowest points in its history; the secession of East Pakistan in 1971, now Bangladesh, had called into question the basic concept on which Pakistan had been founded that the Muslim peoples of South Asia should live in one country. Bhutto, a Western educated leftist, sought to reinvigorate his bruised Islamic country by uniting it around socialism. The fact that he only ruled Pakistan for five and a half years should probably give you an idea as to how this w...
2023-01-291h 02The Hated and the DeadEP70: Nursultan NazarbayevNursultan Nazarbayev served as President of Kazakhstan from 1991 until 2019. He remained a backseat driver until last year, when Kazakhstan’s biggest protests in decades finally put an end to Nazarbayev’s 35-year rule. Nazarbayev oversaw his country’s transition to independence and capitalism, and established strong relations with the United States and China. Temporarily at least, he established some semblance of order over a country many denied was coherent enough to survive, given that ethnic Russians actually outnumbered Kazakhs at the country’s founding. On the other hand, Nazarbayev had a record in elections most dictator...
2023-01-2959 minThe Hated and the DeadEP69: Kim CampbellKim Campbell served as prime minister of Canada for just 132 days in 1993, when she led her Progressive Conservative Party to catastrophic defeat in an election; the governing party won just two seats at the 1993 election. Campbell's premiership bears some superficial resemblances with that of Liz Truss time in charge of the UK, and the British Conservatives seem set for a terrible election defeat at the next election here. What can they learn from Campbell's experience?My guest for today's episode is Daniel Beland, a political scientist who works at McGill University in Montreal.
2023-01-2252 minThe Hated and the DeadEP68: Thaksin ShinawatraThaksin Shinawatra served as prime minister of Thailand from 2001 until 2006. For a while, Thaksin looked to be the future of Thai politics during the final years of the ageing King Rama IX. However, the military, seeing Thaksin as a threat to the future of the monarchy, instigated a coup against Thaksin’s government in September 2006.Whilst Thailand’s civilian government is technically able to govern without interference from the monarchy, Thai politics actually resembles a constant tussle between the monarchy, backed up by the army, and the civilian government. Thaksin is probably the most significant figure on the...
2023-01-151h 04The Hated and the DeadEP67: Juan PerónJuan Perón served as the President of Argentina between 1946 and 1955, and again for nine months just before his death in 1974. Despite dying nearly half a century ago, he still largely defines Argentine political discourse, and even many policy debates still revolve around whether single policies are sufficiently "peronist". This bizarre state of affairs is made stranger still by Perón's distinctly mixed record as leader, presiding over a considerable fall in Argentina's economic prospects. The question of why this is the case is the central topic of today's episode. My guest for this conversation is...
2023-01-081h 01The Hated and the Dead2023: A Year of Global Malaise?In an end-of-year special, I invited back three of my guests from 2022 to discuss new developments in their areas of interest: the COVID protests in China (Aaron Friedberg), the Scholz chancellorship in Germany (Oliver Moody), and the new ceasefire in Ethiopia (Martin Plaut).Out of these discussions emerges a common thread that the World is in a state of real flux heading into the New Year. The prospect of the USA, China and Russia simultaneously struggling likely means fewer conflict resolutions, longer downturns and higher prices. With recession hammering developed and developing economies, and inflation throwing question...
2022-12-3055 minThe Hated and the DeadEP66: Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 until 1964.Unexpectedly coming to power after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev inherited a country victorious in World War II and possibly on the road to world domination, but which had also been ripped apart by decades of terror and purges. Khrushchev, in an act of immense political courage, derided Stalinism and closed many of Stalin’s labour camps, undeniably making the Soviet Union a more tolerable place to live. Whilst the 1950s saw technological advances and foreign policy successes, Khrushchev’s detractors, always uneasy abou...
2022-12-211h 03The Hated and the DeadEP65: Zviad GamsakhurdiaZviad Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian nationalist leader who served as his country's first independent President from 1991 until 1992. Under him, Georgia became a hellish place, ripped apart by civil war, organised crime and militia violence. Sadly, Gamsakhurdia cannot be acquitted in all of this as a placeholder- his commitment to an ethnically homogenous Georgia, in a part of the world anything but, was always going to lead to problems. Gamsakhurdia’s own life ended in a Tblisi bunker in 1993, probably by suicide, and is a rather sordid reflection of how Georgia’s own utopian dream for its future died...
2022-12-181h 02The Hated and the DeadEP64: Paul KagamePaul Kagame has been President of Rwanda since 2000. He can be blamed more than any other person for the unsatisfactory way in which the 1994 Rwandan Genocide has been remembered, both inside Rwanda and across the World. Kagame has centralised power around himself, painting himself as the man who stopped the terrible events of 1994 in their tracks, and telling Rwandans that only he can bring stability to a country that in most of our lifetimes tore itself apart in the worst way imaginable. As my guest today tells us, this is not only fatuous, but worse, th...
2022-12-111h 03The Hated and the DeadEP63: George OrwellGeorge Orwell is perhaps the most important journalist and writer of political fiction of the twentieth century. Though he only lived to 47, dying of tuberculosis in 1950, he did more in half a century than most would in three of four lifetimes. Reluctantly signing up, and then ceasing to be, an imperial officer in Burma, voluntarily entering destitution in Paris, and fighting for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell was never afraid to stare suffering and desperation right in the face. He was also never one to run with a crowd; of all Orwell’s firmly hel...
2022-12-0452 minThe Hated and the DeadEP62: Leonard LeoLeonard Leo is an American legal activist who has done more than any other person to shift the United States Supreme Court to the political right. Pivotal in the selection and confirmation of all six conservative judges currently sitting on the Court, Leo could be seen as ground zero for the Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which has jeopardised abortion rights in the US. The Supreme Court, whose role it is to ensure that legislation passed by Congress is constitutional, is increasingly becoming the final word in US political life. Therefore, the liberal-conservative balance o...
2022-11-2757 minThe Hated and the DeadEP61: Sepp BlatterSepp Blatter served President of FIFA, football's international governing body, between 1998 and 2015. To mark the beginning of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, my guest and I take a look at his time in charge of the world's most popular sport. The irony of the Qatar decision is that Blatter didn’t actually want the World Cup to go there; instead, he lost control of the corruption that had infested world football governance for decades prior. Amid some of the other things currently going on in the world, many might claim that focusing on something as t...
2022-11-2054 minThe Hated and the DeadEP60: Angela MerkelAngela Merkel served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 until 2021. This impressive tenure makes her the second longest-serving Chancellor since the Second World War.Merkel’s time in power was characterised by a series of major crises. Over Merkel’s sixteen years as Chancellor, the World became a much scarier and more unstable place. This conversation deals mainly with Merkel’s handling of four crises: the 2008 financial crisis, the 2015 migrant crisis, and the relationship with two troublesome world powers, Russia and China. Whilst she steered Germany through this period, many have criticised Merkel for merely attempting to mana...
2022-11-131h 05The Hated and the DeadEP59: Lech and Jarosław KaczyńskiThe Kaczyński Brothers, Lech and Jarosław, have exerted considerable influence over the politics of Poland for more than twenty years. Lech served as President from 2005 until his death in a plane crash in 2010, and Jarosław served as prime minister in 2006 and still leads the Law and Justice party (PiS in Polish) to this day. As my guest today explains, the plane crash of 2010 which claimed Lech's life was much more than a personal tragedy, precipitating a polarisation of Polish politics and the election of a new Law and Justice government in 2015. But this government was...
2022-11-131h 09The Hated and the DeadEP58: Ali KhameneiAli Khamenei has been the Supreme Leader of Iran since 1989, and previously served as President in the 1980s. This podcast is released at what appears to be a moment of mounting crisis for the Islamic regime, with protests across the country going into their seventh consecutive week. Domestically, Khamenei's time as leader has been characterised on the one hand by consolidation of the regime after the Iran-Iraq War, but also by passionate disagreements in civil society over how puritanical Iranian religious doctrine should be. The presidency has changed hands from stalwart conservatives like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to reformer H...
2022-11-0657 minThe Hated and the DeadEP57: Sweden DemocratsSweden Democrats are the first far-right party in Sweden’s parliament. Unlike Britain's UKIP or Spain's Vox, both of which split off from mainstream conservative parties, the Sweden Democrats’ origins in fascism and the fringes of Swedish political thinking is well-documented. First entering parliament in 2010, Sweden Democrats, led by the bespectacled Jimmie Akesson, now support a right-wing government propelled to power after many years of riots and shootings in the country’s cities. The party has increased its vote share at every election since the 1990s, something which has coincided, and in part been caused by, an increas...
2022-10-301h 01The Hated and the DeadEP56: Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev was the last leader of the Soviet Union, and I’ve yet to cover any single person who has exerted a bigger effect on the world we live in today than him. When he died in August this year, the outpouring of grief for the 91-year-old in the West was immense; he was heralded as the man who ended the Cold War, and, through his signing of a 1987 nuclear treaty with Ronald Reagan, as the man who brought the world back from the brink of total destruction. However, Gorbachev’s legacy would lead you to the c...
2022-10-231h 04The Hated and the DeadEP55: Isaias AfwerkiIsaias Afwerki, usually known as Isaias, is Eritrea’s only ever President, having served in the role since 1993. After rising through the ranks of Eritrea’s liberation movement during a thirty-year war for independence against Ethiopia, Isaias has instituted a colossal centralisation of power around himself; Eritrea has no free newspapers, no constitution, no parliament; it doesn’t even have a formal budget. The country also has one of the strictest systems of conscription in the world. Though this state of affairs is very unpleasant to the ordinary Eritreans wo have to live with it every day, the inter...
2022-10-161h 00The Hated and the DeadEP54: Hassan al-TurabiHassan al-Turabi is arguably the most important figure in Sudan's independent history. Whilst never technically leading the Northeast African country, he influenced successive Sudanese regimes, and was frequently referred to as the “power behind the throne” in the first ten years of the leadership of Omar al-Bashir.Turabi’s role in slowly imposing Sharia Law on the Sudanese people and instigating the 1989 coup that brought Bashir to power also made him one of the most successful Islamist politicians in the Muslim world. Bashir’s time in power was a terrible thirty years for Sudan, with the countr...
2022-10-1656 minThe Hated and the DeadEP53: Viktor OrbanViktor Orban has been prime minister of Hungary since 2010, and previously served in that role from 1998 until 2002. In that first stint as Hungarian leader, Orban passed without comment in European Union circles, but his second premiership has seen him come up against the EU on issues related to the rule of law, LGBT rights, and the 2015 migrant crisis. Orban is now fully fledged right-wing populist, but unlike other people who fit that description, sees himself as the international poster boy for this type of politics, making him Hungary’s most divisive export. Hungary’s future looks, in many...
2022-10-0956 minThe Hated and the DeadEP52: Lula da SilvaLula da Silva is a candidate for the 2022 Brazilian Presidential Election, taking place today. He previously served as President of Brazil between 2003 and 2010. On the face of it, his achievements as President are hard to criticise, whatever your political leanings. On the one hand, he oversaw a massive increase in the Brazilian median income. On the other, he slowed the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest. By 2010, many saw Brazil as one of the 21st century’s foremost rising stars. However, the decade after Lula left office, the 2010s, was a disaster for Brazil. The commodity boom tha...
2022-10-021h 02The Hated and the DeadEP51: The Scottish DevolutionistsThere have been demands for greater autonomy for Scotland within the UK since the country joined the Union in 1707, but it was only in 1997- 25 years ago this month- that Scotland finally got its own parliament. 1997 was the culmination of a long struggle for self-government led by a group of people in Scotland, some left-wing, others right, many non-descript. These people, the devolutionists, are the subject of today’s episode. Whilst few can, in and of itself, criticise any group’s desire for self-government, the matter of devolution- that is to say, the giving of powers- to parli...
2022-09-2552 minThe Hated and the DeadEP50: Xi JinpingXi Jinping, the world's most powerful man, seemed like a good fit for the 50th episode of the podcast. Thank you to all of you who have stuck by the Hated and the Dead for its first half-century; there's plenty more to come. Xi has been President of the People's Republic of China since 2012. In a few weeks time, he is set to embark on an unprecedented third term as China's leader, which will make him China's most powerful leader since Mao- if he isn't already. It is Xi’s international profile, especially his relationship with...
2022-09-181h 09The Hated and the DeadEP49: Jacinda ArdernJacinda Ardern has been prime minister of New Zealand since 2017. Ardern is a good example of how an affable, anodyne politician can pursue highly divisive and polarising policies. Ardern’s premiership has been defined by her response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Whilst New Zealand’s initial response to the pandemic in 2020 was praised across the world, and saw Ardern win a landslide election victory, the two years hence have seen New Zealand slowly creep up the death rate table. The Ardern government has also been scolded by voters for a slow vaccine roll out and images of expat...
2022-09-1457 minThe Hated and the DeadEP49: The Scottish Devolutionists25 years ago this week, Scotland voted for its own Parliament. This cut against the grain of centuries of British constitutional logic; traditionally, what the Monarch's government in Westminster said applied not just to England, but to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland too, and debates around whether devolution has undermined that supremacy still rage today. More controversially still, though, is the blurred line between self-government for Scotland within the UK and Scottish independence. Whilst most of the devolutionists discussed today advocate for Britain staying in the UK but with greater autonomy, the Parliament set up in Edinburgh has been c...
2022-09-1152 minThe Hated and the DeadEP48: (The Rather Less Horrible) Tsai Ing-wenTsai Ing-wen has been President of Taiwan since 2016. A member of the Democratic Progressive Party, Tsai is in effect the leader of liberal Taiwan, with her party broadly promoting the idea of Taiwanese identity. In doing so, she faces two opponents. Domestically, she faces the Kuomintang, or KMT, which seeks to reunify Taiwan with mainland China. Tsai also of course faces mainland China, known as the People’s Republic, which also seeks to reintegrate Taiwan into its authoritarian state. This puts Tsai in a difficult position, as was recently seen when a visit to Taiwan by Speaker of...
2022-09-0444 minThe Hated and the DeadEP47: Alberto Fujimori (en castellano)Alberto Fujimori fue presidente del Peru entre 1990 y 2000. Aunque casi todos los comentaristas políticos describen Fujimori como un president de la derecha, su campana de 1990 fue más ecléctico que ideológico. Sin embargo, no se puede negar que Fujimori adoptó una perspectiva derechista para solucionar los problemas económicas y sociales que sufrió Peru durante los años ochenta, y es esta perspectiva- el fujimorismo- que le ha dado a Fujimori su mala fama entre la izquierda peruana. Mi invitado para esta conversación es el politólogo peruano José Alejandro Godoy. José acaba de escribir u...
2022-08-2857 minThe Hated and the DeadEP46: Davíð OddssonDavíð Oddsson served as prime minister of Iceland between 1991 and 2004. However, Oddsson wasn't just prime minister; he also served as Mayor of Reykjavik, Governor of Iceland’s Central Bank, and as the editor of Iceland’s biggest newspaper. Whilst he didn’t serve in these positions at the same time, there was a clear attempt by Oddsson, over a period of many decades, to get his friends and allies into positions of influence. He privatised the banks from parliament, his friends took control of them, and he then let the banks do whatever they wanted as Central Banker. T...
2022-08-2848 minThe Hated and the DeadEP45: Mahathir MohamadMahathir Mohamad served as prime minister of Malaysia between 1981 and 2003, and again between 2018 and 2020. Today’s episode in part examines the implications of being governed by the very old; Mahathir was 93 when he returned to power in 2018. Ethnic tensions are intrinsic to Malaysian history and politics. A mix between Malays, Chinese and Indians, the majority Malay population, reeling after years of partly real and partly perceived suppression by the other groups, rallied around Mahathir, who promised to construct a country run by and for Malays. This had mixed results, but few can dispute Mahathir didn’t give it a...
2022-08-2157 minThe Hated and the DeadEP44: Pim FortuynPopulist Pim Fortuyn cannibalised the 2002 Dutch general election with flamboyant campaigning and hostility to Islamic immigration. Nine days before the election, he was assassinated by a left-wing animal rights activist. In a country with a political culture as gentle as the Netherlands, Fortuyn’s murder sent shockwaves through the country. Fortuyn is an important figure because he represents the transition between two political eras; from the immediate post-Cold-War era of prosperity at home and peace abroad, to the post-9/11 politics of the twenty-first century, defined first and foremost by identity, insecurity and polarisation. He was a politician fro...
2022-08-1453 minThe Hated and the DeadEP43: Aung San Suu KyiAung San Suu Kyi became one of the most recognisable people in the world in the 1990s and 2000s during long periods under house arrest in her native Myanmar. Released in 2010, her image as an icon of democracy, resilience and human rights has been tainted by her apparent ambivalence towards the military-sponsored ethnic cleansing (some say genocide) of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority. My guest today is Dr Ronan Lee (@Ronan_Lee), research fellow at the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University London. Ronan is the author of Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide: Identity History and Ha...
2022-08-071h 03The Hated and the DeadEP42: Tony AbbottTony Abbott was Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 until 2015. A brilliant and ruthless Leader of the Opposition, Abbott's blunt and confrontational style fell flat as prime minister. After just two years in charge, Abbott was deposed by Malcolm Turnbull, leaving office as the most unpopular Australian PM of modern times. Abbott’s brief premiership represents part of what today’s guest calls the “Italy with Crocodiles” period- Australia had six prime ministers in eight years, but all the while remained one of the best governed countries in the world. At a time when the UK is selecting its thir...
2022-07-311h 12The Hated and the DeadEP41: Urho KekkonenUrho Kekkonen served as President of Finland between 1956 and 1982. Kekkonen towered over the Finnish political system, creating a complex system whereby he co-opted his potential adversaries into an ever-larger coalition, such that at election time, he was safe from serious political opposition. Early on in his political career, Kekkonen decided that faced with a much larger much stronger neighbour, Finland’s best hope was to give the Soviet Union just enough control over Finland that the Soviets wouldn’t lose their temper with them. As you’re about to hear, this had mixed results, but succeeded in its pri...
2022-07-241h 01The Hated and the DeadEP40: Nikola GruevskiNikola Gruevski served as the prime minister of North Macedonia between 2006 and 2016. Gruevski became prime minister on a wave of anti-elite sentiment in a country that was only 15 years old. Whilst initially pro-Western in outlook, Gruevski, and his right-wing party VMRO, became increasingly irritated by the Western powers’ ambivalence towards Macedonia, and began making not-so-furtive gestures towards Russia. At home, this was accompanied by cronyism and authoritarianism. Gruevski was chased out of his homeland in 2018, and now resides in Hungary, under the protection of Viktor Orban. The reason I have decided to release this episode alongside the Ass...
2022-07-1758 minThe Hated and the DeadEP39: Bashar al-AssadBashar al-Assad has been President of Syria since 2000. His time in power has been overshadowed by a dreadful civil war that started in Syria in 2011 and is still ongoing. Bashar has attracted both the ire and the support of various international powers, with the Western alliance putting increasing pressure on regime to make concessions to the Opposition, but Vladimir Putin’s Russia seeking to gain leverage in the Middle East by keeping Assad in place. In doing so, Putin was successful; Assad is still in power in Syria, though his regime is a shadow of its former self. ...
2022-07-171h 00The Hated and the DeadEP38: Leonid BrezhnevLeonid Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982. Cautious and ideologically vacuous, Brezhnev remains a mystery, despite a lengthy rule. Under him, the Soviet Union descended into corruption and economic stagnation, and paved the way for the era of reform under Mikhail Gorbachev. Arguably, the Brezhnev era represented the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. However, others have interpreted the Brezhnev "stagnation" as a moment of stability in a country that was rarely stable, leading to interesting questions as to how different these two phenomena really are. My guest f...
2022-07-101h 01The Hated and the DeadEP37: Charles TaylorWarlord-turned-politician Charles Taylor served as President of Liberia from 1997 until his resignation in 2003. While on trial for war crimes in the Hague, the court heard of Taylor forcing his soldiers to practice cannibalism on their enemies, among other heinous crimes- an attitude towards violence encapsulated in his 1997 campaign slogan, “he killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I’ll vote for him.”Taylor’s story tells us a lot about the mechanics of violence and coercion during both war and peace, and his effect on Liberia, a country still reeling from his reign of terror but also show...
2022-07-031h 02The Hated and the DeadEP36: Kurt WaldheimKurt Waldheim served as President of Austria from 1986 until 1992. During the presidential campaign of 1986, revelations about Waldheim's service for the Nazis in Greece and Yugoslavia came to light, with Waldheim eventually admitting he had previously downplayed his actions in the Second World War. The Waldheim Affair triggered a period of collective reflection in Austria on the country's past, and demonstrated the differences between how Germany and Austria remembered the crimes of the Nazis. My guest for this conversation is Ruth Wodak, Emeritus Distinguished Professor in Discourse studies at Lancaster University and Professor in Linguistics at the University o...
2022-06-2650 minThe Hated and the DeadEP35: John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy served as President of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. An impressive and courageous record as president demonstrates Kennedy's unmistakable personal fortitude, but his legacy has been tarnished by his lack of faithfulness to his wife Jackie, and evidence he slept with women linked to the mafia and America's enemies abroad. My guest for this conversation is Stephen F. Knott, professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College in Rhode Island. He has written nine books, and his next one, Coming to Terms with John F Kennedy, comes o...
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