Episodes

  • Welfare or Warfare?

    Welfare or Warfare?
    Apr 23 2026
    Can we afford to boost national defence alongside the growing bill for benefits, health and social care? Can the UK's shaky finances cope with both? Or is there a choice to be made, as the Russian threat pushes the need for more tanks, drones and bullets? Simon French, chief economist and head of research at Panmure Gordon, takes Phil and Roger through the difficult challenges of balancing demand and capacity in the national budget

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    38 mins
  • Poor Lebanon

    Poor Lebanon
    Apr 16 2026
    The bombs have stopped falling on Iran, but not on Lebanon. Israel is talking to the Lebanese government, but has not let up in its assault on Hezbollah, which continues to fire rockets into Israel. The war in the last few weeks has cost more than 2000 Lebanese lives. Lebanon has been attacked again and again by Israel over many decades. Its economy has collapsed and hundreds of thousands have lost their homes. So why is this small country the focus of so much destruction and violence? What is Hezbollah's role? And is there any hope of long-term peace? Professor John Nagle of Queen's University, Belfast, tells Phil and Roger what has happened, and what could happen next

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    39 mins
  • Meanwhile in Ukraine

    Meanwhile in Ukraine
    Apr 9 2026
    While the world’s attention has been fixed on the Iran war, the conflict in Ukraine has not gone away - and what’s happened in the Gulf is changing the situation there too. Putin has more money from the rise in the oil price, and has seen the US use its diminishing stockpile of weapons against Iran rather than sending them to Ukraine. Kyiv meanwhile has made new friends in the Gulf by assisting in anti-drone warfare - new friends with deep pockets. David Galbreath, Professor of War and Technology at the University of Bath, tells Phil and Roger how all this is likely to affect the outcome of the fighting in Ukraine.

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    41 mins
  • The Arab View of Trump’s War

    The Arab View of Trump’s War
    Apr 2 2026
    As Iran gets pounded by the US and Israel, how are the Arab nations of the Gulf feeling about the resulting disaster to their economies, and the missiles and drones landing on their cities? This wasn’t a war they wanted, and they are being left to pick up the pieces, including getting access to the Straits of Hormuz to export oil and gas. Dr Mira Al Hussein, of the Centre For The Study Of Islam In The Contemporary World at Edinburgh University, joins Phil and Roger to discuss the Gulf Arabs concerns about this conflict.

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    36 mins
  • Americans Don't Like This War

    Americans Don't Like This War
    Mar 26 2026
    The Iran war is not going down well in the US. Donald Trump's MAGA movement is badly split - this was the president who promised an end to 'forever wars' and provide a stable economy, yet troops could soon be on the ground in Iran and the price of filling up your car keeps rising. So how damaging is all this going to be for the president in a year of crucial elections? Or - if he somehow wins a great victory - could it be the saving of his presidency? Phil and Roger ask Paul Whiteley, Professor of Government at the University of Essex

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    38 mins
  • Cuba Next?

    Cuba Next?
    Mar 19 2026
    With the Iran war not going entirely as planned, does Donald Trump have his eye on another easier regime-change much closer to home? Cuba has been on his to-do list for a while, but the signals are that he needs a quick win right now, and Havana fits the bill. The Communist regime there is on its knees anyway, with its oil from Venezuela cut off, and its economy falling apart, 67 years after the Castro revolution. So could Cuba cut a deal, and what would that look like? Professor Joseph Gonzalez of Appalachian State University, North Carolina, who is writing a history of US-Cuba relations, tells Phil and Roger a surprising number of Cubans would welcome a new dose of US neo-colonialism

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    35 mins
  • The End of International Law?

    The End of International Law?
    Mar 12 2026
    The US attacked Iran without even trying to get the UN onside. It’s made it pretty clear it doesn’t feel the need to work within the UN charter, or any other rules it doesn’t like. So when the world’s biggest power ignores international law and does what it wants, has the whole system broken down? Are we now in a world where nations are unconstrained? Or has that always been the case, and the rules were just a fig-leaf to conceal the realities of power politics? Phil and Roger ask Dr Ben Murphy, Deputy Director of the International Law and Human Rights Research Unit at the University of Liverpool.

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    41 mins
  • Gunboat Diplomacy?

    Gunboat Diplomacy?
    Mar 5 2026
    The US aircraft carrier groups were in place to threaten Iran as talks were still happening - and they helped launch the war when Donald Trump felt the negotiations were not going as he hoped. Iran’s foreign minister said Trump ‘bombed the negotiating table’. So is this the new pattern in big power geopolitics? Talk, but have a big stick waiting to ensure concessions. Or is it a return to a nineteenth century imperial style of big-power domination and intimidation? Andrew Latham, Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, and Senior Washington Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy, talks to Phil and Roger about the return of gunboat diplomacy.

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    37 mins