Phil returns to the secret side of WW2 with the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. As writer Clare Mulley explains, she was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the 'Silent Unseen'. She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then the only female member...
Jun 22, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 121
This week we look - for the first time - at a novel and Phil is joined by writer Gill Hornby. The Elopement is the third book in a trilogy exploring the world of Jane Austen’s family and the first in the series - Miss Austen - was recently turned into a much praised drama series by the BBC and PBS. Gill research into the world that Jane Austen memorably described has been described as painstaking and emotionally accurate, and her books have even drawn comparisons with Austen’s own writing for th...
Jun 08, 2025•51 min•Season 2Ep. 120
Mok O’`Keeffe returns as co-host and, together with Phil, explores the complex subject of privacy with Tiffany Jenkins, whose new book Strangers and Intimates makes the case that we need to restore the idea of a truly private life back to the heart of our society. So when does the right to know over-rule our right to privacy? Ranging from the Reformation through Victorian melodramas and the struggles of Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s, then coming right up to date with the ‘privacy for me, exposure...
May 25, 2025•57 min•Season 2Ep. 119
Phil is joined again by the lawyer David Hooper, who has a new edition of his book Buying Silence coming out. David is one of the world’s great campaigners for open, affordable justice and a fierce opponent of the practice - common in London - of the legal suppression of free speech. He acted for Vanity Fair in its long and bitter case against Mohamed Al Fayed, in the notorious Boris Berezovsky affair and in many other cases where money and power combine to suppress fair criticism and comment. M...
May 18, 2025•48 min•Season 2Ep. 118
Phil is joined by campaigner and writer Julie Bindel, the first person to investigate the grooming gang scandal that has so shocked Britain over the last two decades, and which seems to be continuing. A lesbian rights activist and life long campaigner against violence aimed at women and girls, Julie expected that politicians and state agencies would react quickly the the fact that gangs -mostly of men of Pakistani origin - were targeting, abusing and even ending the life of vulnerable children o...
May 11, 2025•59 min•Season 2Ep. 117
Our friend Gerald Posner returns to bring his unique insight into the story BEHIND the election of a new Pope - the overlapping financial and sexual scandals that have plagued the Vatican for many decades. Gerald explains why is has proved so hard to reform a famously opaque (and sometimes corrupt) institution - and how a Pope can pursue and punish senior officials caught with their hands in the till. Did you know that the Vatican has a legal system of its own, and a prison? But before that Phil...
May 04, 2025•54 min•Season 2Ep. 116
This week we enter the demi-monde of the belle epoch to explore the strange and scandalous story of Absinthe, with writer Nina Studer. By the time it was banned in 1915, the famous 'green fairy' had become the green peril, feared for its connection with declining birth rates and its apparent capacity to induce degeneration, madness, and murderous rage in its consumers. As one of history’s most notorious drinks, absinthe has been the subject of endless myth, scandal, and controversy. Just what we...
Apr 27, 2025•41 min•Season 2Ep. 115
This week we continue exploring the Second World War by revealing one of its most surprising, colourful and sometimes farcical stories - the two year undeclared war between Britain and Vichy France. Tim Bouverie is Phil’s guest and he tales us through some of the terrific - and little known - stories in his new book Allies At War . Although London and Paris are firm allies when Nazi Germany invades France in May 1940, relationships soon fall apart and true disappears. Then, in July 1940, Winston...
Apr 20, 2025•50 min•Season 2Ep. 114
Phil begins this episode with his thoughts on the rather shocking news that the UK government has pulled back from the already limited inquiries into the ‘grooming and rape gang scandal’. What’s going on? Then Paul French returns to the podcast to share his hugely impressive knowledge of the Far East - through the story of Hong Kong. The rise and fall of British rule there is of great interest to Phil too, as it connects to his upcoming new book on war and empire. It’s all very topical - because...
Apr 13, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 113
Phil’s new book, 1945 The Reckoning , is published on April 24 2025 in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand and in this special episode he is switching roles with his friend and occasional co-host Mok O’Keeffe. Mok has been reading the book - but Phil has no idea what questions, thoughts and comments he might have. And he’s feeling nervous! 1945 The Reckoning is full of great and surprising stories and it speaks very directly to modern debates about empire, colonialism and race - and how we ...
Apr 06, 2025•48 min•Season 2Ep. 112
Phil is promising to open with another reading from his upcoming book 1945 The Reckoning - but you can always skip! After that we welcome Carolyn Harris back. This extraordinarily well-read Canadian academic is a gifted communicator and an expert on royal women - and she has all the goss about out of history’s most powerful female rulers. Catherine led a remarkable life - rich in intrigue, ambition and, of course, endless sexual scandal. Having disposed of her husband she took the Russian Empire...
Mar 30, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 111
Phil has been thinking a lot about the British Empire recently, and it is a major theme of his upcoming new book about 1945. And so he was delighted to speak with best-selling writer Sathnam Sanghera. Sathnam has written extensively on how the empire shaped modern Britain - and much of the ret of the world too, upending the conventional view of imperial history. For example, he tells Phil that the story of the humble rubber tyre is also the story of the British in Malaya - and Kew Gardens! You c...
Mar 23, 2025•47 min•Season 2Ep. 110
Not everyone enjoyed Phil’s parody of Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show last week. Are we all being too cruel about her? Mok O’Keeffe thinks we might be. This week he joins Phil in another co-hosted episode and talks about his feelings for Meghan, Harry and the deep divisions at the heart of the royal family. Then Mok’s friend Peter Parker comes onto the show to discuss his two part history of gay life in Britain during the 20th Century, focussing on the years where gay love was illegal but a deb...
Mar 16, 2025•56 min•Season 2Ep. 109
What's this? Meghan Markle in Phil's Australian Bar? Then Carol Ann Lee joins Phil to discuss her incredible book on Ruth Ellis, on which the new international TV drama is based and in which Ruth is played impeccably by the British-American Actress Lucy Boynton. A CRUEL LOVE: The Ruth Ellis Story (Official ITV Trailer)... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijla27WmAA0 As the last women to be executed in British history - for a crime many then and now believe had extenuating circumstances - Ellis ha...
Mar 09, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 108
Phil has spent decades analysing royal spin - from the age of Diana to the current TransAtlantic stand off between her two sons. He thinks that the interview Jason Knauf gave this week to the Australian 60 Minutes series is one of the most significant things to happen in terms of ‘Palace Kremlinology’ in many years. The interview did not happen by accident and will have required much pre-clearing with William himself. So what is Britain’s future King really saying to the country, the media and, ...
Mar 02, 2025•58 min•Season 2Ep. 107
One of Phil’s former colleagues, Quentin McDermott, joins him from Australia to report on the remarkable case of Kathleen Folbigg - one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of our age. After four of her children died under the age of 20 months, Kathleen Folbigg was charged and convicted of their murder in 2003. After 20 year in prison she was freed after scientific discoveries and a new analysis of statistical probabilities revealed that at least two of the children probably died from natural...
Feb 23, 2025•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 106
For a long time the Invictus Games was one event that even critics of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex admired - but the latest games have drawn criticism for their conduct? Is it fair? And where do the rebel royal couple now stand? Then Dr Natalee Garrett from the Open University joins Phil to talk about her work on one of the most important royal women of them all - Queen Charlotte. During a life defined by duty, family and, of course, endless scandal, Charlotte was consort to King George III du...
Feb 16, 2025•52 min•Season 2Ep. 105
Phil reacts to the emerging story of a possible new British political scandal. Having come to power partly because Boris Johnson fell foul of Britain’s tough Covid rules, did our current Prime Minister break them too and, if so, should it even matter? Phil’s article from 2022 is also relevant here. https://thecritic.co.uk/im-done-with-po-faced-politicians/ Then writer James Crossland joins Phil to discuss his fascinating and exciting book about one of the most dramatic - and scandalous - British...
Feb 09, 2025•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 104
This week Prof Alan Lester joins Phil to lift the lid on a little known - but certainly scandalous - slice of British imperial history - the Opium Wars. There’s much debate today about slavery and how much - or little - it contributed to the wealth of the great European empires. But much less is known about the role that Britain and other empires played in the hugely profitable opium trade, and the one-sided wars that were waged to stop Chinese emperors from banning it. It’s a fascinating tale o...
Feb 02, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 103
After the dramatic conclusion of Prince Harry’s case against the Murdoch Empire - which was supposed to be the media trial of the Century - Phil asks whether it was all worth it. Then Carolyn Harris - a renowned expert on royal consorts - joins us from Canada again to talk about perhaps the most famous - or is that notorious? - consort of them all. Weaving dramatic details of war, famine and revolution together with touching personal stories of a royal life, Carolyn brings Marie-Antoinette to li...
Jan 26, 2025•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 102
Britain's headstrong royal exile is soon to step into the legal ring with the media mogul and his entourage, in Harry's continuing campaign to make senior executives accountable for the hacking and other tabloid scandals in the UK. And pre-trial transcripts obtained by Vanity Fair show just how much damage the prince is threatening to do. Clive Irving has reported on this story closely. But that’s not all. As a former senior executive - and leading investigative reporter - in a newspaper taken o...
Jan 19, 2025•50 min•Season 2Ep. 101
In our final episode of the year - and the 100th edition of the podcast - Helen Fry returns to share some more remarkable stories from the Second World War. Helen tells Phil of a long secret intelligence operation designed to extract information from enemy soldiers, sailors, pilots - and some of Hitler’s most senior Generals. Many of these men knew that the British were skilled at playing physiological tricks on prisoners of war - but they still fell for many of them, generating some hugely impo...
Dec 28, 2024•49 min•Season 1Ep. 100
Writer Laura Thompson returns to the podcast, bringing all the insights and cleverness that has made her one of our most popular guests. And this time her subject is 'the heiress', including some of the most celebrated women in high society and literature. In her book 'Heiresses: the Lives of the Million Dollar Babies', Laura tells an incredible story of social change and bad behaviour in high places. Although celebrated and pursued, the heiress could also be the target of scheming and manipulat...
Dec 22, 2024•54 min•Season 1Ep. 99
This week Carolyn Harris joins Phil to talk about one of the most extraordinary royal relationships of all time; between the future George IV and his unhappily married wife Caroline of Brunswick. From a disastrously drunken wedding night, which nevertheless produced a princess, through years of mutual loathing, numerous affairs and illegitimate children (his), rumour of exotic foreign lovers (hers), political intrigues, popular protests and endless satirical cartoons and pamphlets to a final, fa...
Dec 15, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Long before she became one of the most famous women in the world - and the love of a man destined to become a King-Emperor - Wallis Simpson had lived an extraordinary life. Perhaps the most incredible part of it was when she went to live in China as the unhappy wife of a drunken US Navy officer and ended up leaving him and entering a world of hedonism, intrigue (both politics and sexual) and all manner of complex relationships amid the glamour - and dangers - of Shanghai and Peking during the Ja...
Dec 08, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Mok O'Keefe - aka 'The Gay Aristo' - returns to the podcast this week as a guest host. Mok - who lives in an actual castle - is a great fan of all things Gothic and so he's the perfect person to help Phil explore the scandalous life of Lord Byron and his circle of friends, and the creation of classic gothic tales during a memorable summer in a small villa near Lake Geneva. It was here that Bryon, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and other staged a writing competition that created Frankenstein ...
Dec 01, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 96
When BBC reporter Rory Cellan Jones uncovered a pile of old love letters under his mother Sylvia's bed after she died, he unearthed the secret story of his own life. The result was a bestselling book of real power and intelligence, in which he reconstructs the scandalous relationship that created him - but that also limited his mother’s life choices and ensured that he would not know who his father was for many years. Rory joins Phil to talk about his life, his mother and father, and the lost wo...
Nov 24, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 95
Phil has the latest on the semi-public tug of war over Prince Andrew’s living arrangements. How much longer can he cling on to Royal Lodge? And why do key figures in the British establishment find it so easy to cling onto power and position for so long, despite the most shocking scandals? The story of the Archbishop of Canterbury this week may help us understand. Historian Adrian Phillips then joins Phil to talk about the endlessly fascinating subject of Winston Churchill in an entirely original...
Nov 17, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 94
This week we dip into the remarkable - and often scandalous - world of military intelligence with historian Helen Fry. Her widely acclaimed new book Women in Intelligence reveals a huge number of fascinating stories of the critical - and often deadly - work done by British and American women throughout the 20th Century. Some of these stories - and these brave womens’ lives - have been kept deeply secret until the last few years. You can buy Helen's book, and all the books we feature on the podca...
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 93
Phil considers the feedback from last week’s remarkable interview with David Hooper and asks what Diana, Princess of Wales might have been told when she first agreed to go on holiday with Mohamed Al Fayed. Then this week’s guest - our friend Clive Irving - joins Phil to reveal the story behind perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of the aviation business - the fall of the house of Boeing? As an aviation nut (as is Phil!) Clive spent years chronicling the golden age of this great American...
Nov 03, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 92
