• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support in our Cyber Monday sale. Why not ask for it for Christmas? • Last chance for tickets to our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. All we want for Christmas is… a feisty front-foot reset from Labour? Can Keir Starmer turn round the Government supertanker and get the Civil Service to be a little more co-operative towards the Labour agenda? Plus, after Biden’s decision to give his son Hunter an absolute pardon, is there any point mithe...
Dec 05, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 399
• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support in our Cyber Monday sale. Why not ask for it for Christmas? • Last few tickets for our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. 🎵 Shoulda left my phone at home/Cos this is a disaster. 🎵 What does the surprise resignation of Louise Haigh tell us about propriety and forgiveness in the new government? Is it one strike and you’re out? Plus as Labour and the countryside clash we welcome Guy Shrubsole, author of the brilliant book The Lie O...
Dec 03, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 398
• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support in our Black Friday sale. Why not ask for it for Christmas? • Get your tickets for our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. Is Rachel Reeves a Thatcher 2.0 for simply standing by her budget? Or is she right to stick to her guns? Plus, did 1990s lad culture pave the way for the toxic masculinity we see today? We unpack the new Loaded magazine documentary and the lasting impact of lad mag media. Our special guest is The Guardian’s Joh...
Nov 29, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 397
• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support in our Black Friday sale. Why not ask for it for Christmas? • Get your tickets for our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. Barbour-ism begins at home… Could the farm protests become the centre of a new right-wing opposition to Labour? Can Starmer’s team fix their messaging on the inheritance tax issue? And maybe there is two-tier policing, but it benefits you if you’ve got a tractor. Former Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe is ou...
Nov 26, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 396
• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support in our Black Friday sale. Why not ask for it for Christmas? • Get your tickets to our live show at the Comedy Store on Tue 10 Dec here! Keir Starmer’s global adventures have grabbed headlines – and while some think he should spend more time at home, others say he's doing what he needs to do to revive the UK’s international image. Our panel wades into the debate. Plus, is local media dead and buried or can upstarts revive it? Jim Waterson was the Media Edito...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 395
• Get 20% off a year’s Patreon support for OGWN in our Black Friday sale. Why not drop a heavy hint to the family…? • Get your tickets for our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. The X-odus continues – but if we all quit the platform everyone still calls Twitter, are we handing a powerful social media engine to the worst of the far-right? Donald Trump continues to make cabinet appointments “so appalling they seem like performance art”. We get updates on the nightmarish ...
Nov 19, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 394
Get your tickets to our 10th December live show at the Comedy Store here! Trump has started to appoint his evil minions to his cabinet – and we take a breath to look at Badenoch’s new gang back home too. Andy Kroll, investigative reporter for ProPublica and author of A Death on W Street: The Murder of Seth Rich and the Age of Conspiracy, joins the panel to talk through the US side of things, and Dorian, Jonn and Zoe get into the UK news. And, in the Extra Bit for Subscribers, how do you deal wit...
Nov 14, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 393
• Get your tickets for our Christmas Live Show on Tue 10 Dec at the Comedy Store London. The Trump aftermath rumbles on. Farage, Tommy Robinson and the populist right think the GOP’s triumph is theirs too. Are they right? Will an isolationist America really want to export populism around the world? And will Keir Starmer have to choose between the EU and the USA? Plus, as the Democrats tear at one another, what should progressives really confront in the years to come? Could they at least start by...
Nov 12, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Season 2Ep. 392
• Get your tickets to our 10th December live show at the Comedy Store London here! It’s happened, Trump has retaken the White House. How did the orange felon who’s also racist win the election and what might he do now? Andrew Rudalevige is a professor of government at Bowdoin College and joins the panel to confront it all. Plus, in the run-up to Remembrance Day, we dig up the strange evolution of poppy mania. And in the Extra Bit for subscribers, the panel ventures out of their comfort zones to ...
Nov 07, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 391
Get your tickets to our 10th December live show at the Comedy Store here! On the eve of the US election, nobody is quite sure how Donald Trump still has a chance of becoming president. But should the orange man lose, how does the Republican Party recover from his reign? Home Front podcast host and Republican campaign veteran. Reed Galen, has been a vehement anti-Trumper for years and joins the panel to get into it all. And back home, Kemi Badenoch is at the helm of the Tory party - what does tha...
Nov 05, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 390
• Get your tickets to Oh God, What Now? live at the Comedy Store on Tue 10 Dec – now with special guest John Crace of The Guardian. Kemi “start a fight in an empty room” Badenoch wins the Tory leadership, beating Robert Jenrick in a surprisingly low turnout. Will an electorate that’s just turfed out the Conservative Party be in the mood for more of the same only more combative and obnoxious? Will Badenoch’s promise to “tell the truth” just mean more woke-bashing? And would Labour HQ be wise to k...
Nov 02, 2024•35 min•Season 2Ep. 389
Go here to get tickets for Oh God, What Now? live at the Comedy Store on Tue 10 Dec – now with special guest John Crace of The Guardian. Big tax rises, big ambition. Labour’s first budget since regaining power, from Britain’s first-ever female chancellor, is rocking the nation. Beyond frantic headlines in the Tory press, what’s Rachel Reeves up to? Former chief economist at the Cabinet Office Jonathan Portes joins us to explain. Plus, anger is an energy – is angertainment the real force shaping ...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 388
• Go here to get tickets for Oh God, What Now? live at the Comedy Store on Tue 10 Dec. Labour’s first budget since regaining power is an opportunity to get back on the front foot and silence its critics on the right. What could Rachel Reeves introduce in this budget, how key is a focus on the NHS going to be, and, importantly, WHO THE HELL does the bins at Buckingham Palace?! Plus, the vote for the Assisted Dying Bill is about 5 weeks away. Some MPs feel there hasn’t been enough time to debate i...
Oct 29, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 387
• Go here to get tickets for Oh God, What Now? live at the Comedy Store on Tue 10 Dec. Starmer’s still under media pressure over the Swiftgate/freebie scandal, he just can’t shake it off… (I'll get my coat). Should Labour give up on getting a fair crack from Britain’s media – and how much are the problems the party’s own fault? Broadcaster and ex-Sky News political editor Adam Boulton joins us to talk about Labour vs the media and the seismic changes engulfing the news business. Plus in the Extr...
Oct 25, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 386
A bonus clip from the new series of science and psychology podcast, Why? – from the makers of Oh God, What Now? In Episode One: Most of us think we’re too smart, stable and strong-willed to join a cult – but clearly somebody’s joining them. So why do people willingly give up their free will and independence to join secretive communities with charismatic leaders – and how do they get out? Emma Kennedy talks to world-leading cult deprogrammer Rick Alan Ross and NXIVM cult survivor Sarah Edmondson ...
Oct 24, 2024•12 min•Season 2Ep. 385
The US election is hanging in the balance with either candidate looking just as likely to win in November. Brian Klaas, author of Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters and professor of global politics at University College London, says it’s “absurd” that the race is as close as it is and joins the panel to explain how catastrophic a Trump 2.0 Presidency could be. And in the second half, we went to see the new biopic ‘The Apprentice’ which Trump called a “politically disgusting h...
Oct 22, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 384
It’s not been plain sailing for the Labour government since the election, but what’s the state of play within the wider party? Now we’ve had 100 days of Starmer, how are the factions behaving, and where does the real power lie? Morgan Jones is a contributing editor for Renewal and formerly of Labour List – she gives us the lowdown on it all. Plus, why has the UK economy stopped growing? And following the international investment summit is Labour capable of righting the sinking ship? Then in the ...
Oct 18, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 383
The Tory leadership race is down to two: Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick – did this really take the Tories by surprise? Plus, we’re 100 days into the new Government. How long does Starmer have before he has to start producing results? And Andrew Harrison talks to ITV’s Deputy Political Editor Anushka Asthana about her new book: Taken as Red How the Election Was Won and Lost – find the full interview on The Bunker later this week. Buy Taken as Red How the Election Was Won and Lost through our af...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 382
We were all set for a relaxing live show in Hove and then the Tories made the worst choice since the mayor in Jaws kept the beaches open. On this feature-length show: live Jenrick/Badenoch reaction, a look at Labour’s imposter syndrome and the Conservatives’ irrational exuberance, we put the boot into Boris Johnson’ wretched book, and much, much more. • Longtime OGWN fans Make A Will Online have a special offer for fellow listeners. Go to Makeawillonline.co.uk/whatnow for a 20% discount. Don’t p...
Oct 11, 2024•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 381
• Last chance for tickets to OGWN Live in Hove at the Old Market, this Weds 9 Oct. Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff gets the Spanish Archer and nobody was expecting it… or were they? Who is her replacement Morgan McSweeney and what does he want? Can he lift Labour’s Chaos Curse? Plus – After Laura Kuenssberg accidentally torpedoes her own “scoop” interview with reclusive former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, are political journalists too close to their quarry? And who really wanted the interview can...
Oct 08, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Season 2Ep. 380
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. After the Tory leadership hopefuls made their pitches to the party conference, we unpack whether they offered anything new, interesting or remotely sane. We talk it all over with Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, and author of The Conservative Party After Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation. Plus, Starmer’s been to Brussels – is he drawing the UK back towards the EU? And in the Extra Bit for subscribers, with confere...
Oct 04, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 379
The Conservatives gather in Birmingham to contemplate their lost hopes and dreams (we’ve all done it). Why are Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick the frontrunners to lead what’s left of the party and where would they take it? Plus, will Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah bring peace any closer… or push it further away? • Get tickets for Levitation, the annual festival of electronic music and ideas presented by friends of the pod Castles In Space, at Bedford Esquires on Sat...
Oct 01, 2024•52 min•Season 2Ep. 378
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. This year’s Labour conference was the biggest in the party’s history – but what did we learn from the gathering in Liverpool? Jacob Jarvis and producer Chris Jones went up to Liverpool to speak with friends of the podcast new and old, to get their key takeaways and ask whether it went well, or badly, for Starmer and co. We’re on YouTube!: https://www.youtube.com/@ohgodwhatnow www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow • Get tickets for Levitation, the annual fest...
Sep 27, 2024•17 min•Season 2Ep. 377
Starmer’s Liverpool speech: the PM sticks to his guns but does Captain Competence need more pizzazz? Plus, a But Your Emails special featuring more of your brilliant questions. And in the Extra Bit for Patreon people, do freebies really move the dial? As the Tory press rage about Starmer’s free specs and Rayner’s holiday in New York, we look at the ins and outs of the political backhander. • Get tickets for Levitation, the annual festival of electronic music and ideas presented by friends of the...
Sep 26, 2024•59 min•Season 2Ep. 376
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. In the second half of our Labour conference live show from Liverpool, Emily Thornberry MP joins Dorian, Jonn and Zoe. They discuss the mood in the party, touch on controversies, recap the victory and much more. • The people behind Make A Will Online are longtime fans of Oh God What Now and they’ve got a special offer for fellow listeners. Go to Makeawillonline.co.uk/whatnow and you’ll get a 20% discount. Don't put off making a will, get peace of min...
Sep 25, 2024•57 min•Season 2Ep. 375
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. It was a big week for Labour in Liverpool and the Oh God, What Now? gang couldn’t miss it. In a special live edition, recorded at the Laughterhouse in Liverpool, Dorian, Jonn and Zoe discuss the state of things for Labour as they head into this chaotic gathering – and what the vibe has been like at the big meet up. Here the first half of the show with this trio… and come back soon for the second half with a very special guest. • Get tickets for Levi...
Sep 24, 2024•49 min•Season 2Ep. 374
Starmer’s meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni caused quite a stir. Is it meeting with her in the first place that’s the problem? Or is it because Italy’s deal with Albania over migration is, at the very least, problematic? The panel discusses how the Government should navigate world leaders it might not agree with. Plus, Sir Ed Davey wants his Lib Dems to replace the Tories as the official opposition. Is that a real prospect or an idea as silly as his many campaign stunts? Then, in the Extra ...
Sep 20, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 373
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. Party conference season is here and there’s much to talk about. What really goes on at these events, do they matter and what kind of vibe will Starmer give now he’s at the helm? Plus, the UK’s creative arts industry has some of the lowest government funding levels in Europe. Will Labour put a cash rocket up the arts? Or will it continue to let the industry decline? Alistair Barrie is a writer, actor, and comedian and joins the panel to discuss. The ...
Sep 17, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 372
Keir Starmer’s cut to the winter fuel allowance has passed through Parliament – but at what cost? Plus, the Harris-Trump presidential debate was dominated by Trump lying through his teeth, but do we expect any difference from him? And does this make any difference to the race for the White House? Associate professor in politics and international relations at UCL, Dr Julie Norman, joins the panel to discuss. And in the Extra Bit for subscribers, Labour is coming across as the no-fun, eat-your-gre...
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 371
• OGWN Live in Hove, Weds 9 Oct. Tickets here. The final Grenfell Tower fire report told a story of tragedy, greed, and dishonesty. What can Starmer’s Labour Party learn from the mistakes made that led to 72 lost lives? Plus, we speak to Andrew Connelly about the new podcast Fortress Europe, a seven-part podcast series that explores how years of brutal, dehumanising, anti-migrant policies have had their impact across the continent. And in the final part of the show new research suggests more peo...
Sep 10, 2024•56 min•Season 2Ep. 370
