![The Second Worst Foreign Policy Disaster Since WW2]()
January 10, 2020
This week we calibrate our worries about the potential for World War 3 by talking to former Middle East minister and Chair of the Intelligence Committee Kim Howells - who tells us about his personal experience negotiating with Iran. We also dig into Dominic Cummings' plan to reform the civil service, and celebrate the passage of the Withdrawal Agreement by learning about what has now been bumped down to number two on the list of Britain's biggest foreign policy disasters: The Suez Crisis.
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Follow The Pod Delusion on Twitter and Facebook.
Follow your host, James O'Malley, on Twitter. You can email him on psythor(at)gmail.com with any comments or queries! You can follow Dr Liz too.
You can find out all about our civil service expert, Martin Stanley, and learn tonnes about how the civil service actually works on his Understand Government website.
Dr Robert McNamara is at Ulster University - go check out his work!
![Happy Xmas (Labour Is Over)]()
December 20, 2019
Ho, ho, ho! A festive Winterval special where we, umm, go in deep on the election result and - horrifyingly - learn why it could be even worse next time. We speak to pollster Matt Singh and political historian Prof Steven Fielding about why the polls were right - and what Labour can learn from 1983 about how best to get over 2019.
Plus! All aboard the HS2 bandwagon as we explain why it's actually good for the environment, and we use Liz Kendall's swearing back into Parliament as an excuse to dig into the story of how Charles Bradlaugh made it possible for atheists to become MPs. Plus we do actually have some Christmas content, as we explore why libertarians think that Ebenezer Scrooge was a job creator and Jacob Marley was a cuck.
***Join our Patreon and support a voice of sanity in a world that has gone mad.***
Follow The Pod Delusion on Twitter and Facebook.
Follow your host, James O'Malley, on Twitter. You can email him on psythor(at)gmail.com with any comments or queries! You can follow Dr Liz too.
Matt Singh was our pollster. He is the founder of Number Crunch Analytics.
Prof Steven Fielding was our Labour Party expert. He's at Nottingham University and previously made a whole Radio 4 series about political party splits.
Gareth Dennis was our rail engineer. Here's his website. RethinkHS2 was the misguided environmental campaign we spoke about that's backed by the otherwise excellent Chris Packham.
Here's Dr Liz's thesis. It's super interesting. Here's something on the bust of Charles Bradlaugh that was recently unveiled in Parliament written by the National Secular Society, which he founded.
You can also follow Blakeley on Twitter, and send him your own libertarian Dickens takes.
![What Britain Can Learn About Referendums From Papua New Guinea]()
December 13, 2019
This week we steer clear of the general election - so this podcast won't go out of date! Instead, we talk about a referendum that took place on the other side of the world, on the island of Bougainville, which has just voted to leave Papua New Guinea. There are some striking parallels with our own, umm, recent experience!
We also dig into Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's recent announcement that he wants to make Twitter an open protocol - and speak to open standards expert Terence Eden about whether this could mean good things, or whether it's just a cynical excuse to shift the blame for having loads of Nazis.
Plus! We get in the festive spirit by asking two behavioural scientists why we can't just give cash instead.
And! One final check-in with Blakeley who has been spending the election campaign away from social media. We discover how he has become well adjusted while the rest of us have just become even more broken.
***Join our Patreon and support a voice of sanity in a world that has gone mad.***
Follow The Pod Delusion on Twitter and Facebook.
Follow your host, James O'Malley, on Twitter. You can email him on psythor(at)gmail.com with any comments or queries! You can follow Dr Liz too.
Shane MacLeod from the Lowy Institute was our guest to talk about Bougainville. If you want some further reading, he recommends this paper and this paper, and this magazine piece explaining the peace process and referendum.
Terence Eden was our open standards expert. Go check out his always interesting blog.
Ella Jenkins and Mike Hughes are from Ogilvy's Behavioural Science Unit.
You can also follow Blakeley on Twitter, he might even do some tweets now.
![How To Abolish The Monarchy]()
November 22, 2019
This week we fast-forward to the results of the 2022 Monarchy referendum, in which Britain votes to dump King Charles and turn Britain into a Republic. But how easy is it going to be? What are the complexities that make it an impossible task? We speak to Dr Andrew Blick, a constitutional politics and history expert to find out. Plus! The story of how a group of volunteers are responsible for some stunningly important election infrastructure that the government really should be taking care of itself.
***Join our Patreon and support a voice of sanity in a world that has gone mad.***
Follow The Pod Delusion on Twitter and Facebook.
Follow your host, James O'Malley, on Twitter. You can email him on psythor(at)gmail.com with any comments or queries! You can follow Dr Liz too.
Democracy Club is totally awesome and you should go help them out with one of their quests.
Dr Andrew Blick was the esteemed academic who indulged my ludicrous hypothetical about the monarchy.
You can also follow Blakeley on Twitter, not that he'll be tweeting much between now and the election.
