Oh God, What Now?

With new cases of COVID declining, are we really seeing COVID dwindle? Or is this the calm before the next wave? The expert’s expert Christina Pagel of independent SAGE joins us to explain whether we really are turning the corner. Plus, what does the Tories’ ‘Advisory Board’ tell us about cronyism, nepotism and how our governing party preserves its privilege? Ete operae pretium sit Latine discendi...

What if they held a Culture War and nobody turned up? A new report says Jo and Josephine Public are less riled by hot button rage issues than we think. Plus, all of a sudden Johnson is wobbling, with a disastrous crime policy launch, his vapid “levelling up” speech, and cratering approval numbers. Are Labour finally making headway on policy or is Johnson getting found out? Plus, the world’s least...

As Cummings:Kuenssberg gives us yet more Classic Dom content, are we now fine with unelected advisors trying to topple Prime Ministers – or for that matter, Prime Ministers giving the Queen COVID? Freedom Week: has the Government just given up trying to control the virus? Special guest Charles Arthur, author of Social Warming: The Dangerous and Polarising Effects of Social Media, explain the force...

Johnson and Patel’s dog-whistling finally brings all the racists to football’s yard (who could have predicted this??) but England’s young black players are making fools of their critics. As the country lines up behind Rashford, Saka, Sancho and Mings, is the Culture War about to consume the chancers who started it? Plus, libertarian dogma is frogmarching us towards the indiscriminate unlocking of...

As the Government abandons clear rules for “common sense” and “personal responsibility”, even Sajid Javid admits we’re entering “uncharted territory”. We find out why Priti Patel’s latest immigration regulations amount to one big xenophobic, mendacious grey area. Our special guest is Sara Gibbs, comedy writer for HIGNFY, Dead Ringers and The Mash Report and author of the memoir of her autism diagn...

Labour wins something shocker! As Kim Leadbeater’s victory in the most rancid by-election of modern times ignites a festival of pundit hindsight, we bring the panel together to assess Labour’s tight squeeze in Batley and Spen. How did she do it? What does it mean for Starmer? Did Galloway’s 8,000 votes constitute some sort of success? Can the Tories really blame their defeat all on Hancock? And wa...

Does LOVE RAT MATT’s embarrassing self-own tell us anything we didn’t already know about Boris Johnson’s moral universe? And should we stop chortling given that his replacement Said Javid is promising “irreversible” unlocking? Why is Batley and Spen the ugliest by-election in recent history, and how much of that is George Galloway’s fault? Plus, the fiasco of isolation for hundreds of thousands of...

“Happy” Referendum-versary! Special guest Ailbhe Rae of the New Statesman joins us to look at the meaning of the Lib Dem victory in Chesham and Amersham – don’t mention the Blue Wall – and explain what the DUP’s current game of Musical Stegosauruses means for Northern Ireland. Plus as Dido Harding offers to head the NHS and rid it of those pesky foreign nurses, we take a look at the Toryverse’s mo...

As yet another self-justifying Dominic Cummings megablog arrives, will this latest real-life No.10 Spider-Man meme affect actual politics? Barrister Jolyon Maugham joins us to explain “de facto opposition” the Good Law Project’s work on the Government’s breathtaking cronyism and back-handers, and what happens in a country where there’s no cost to lawbreaking. And five years on from the Brexit vote...

Will US journalist Tom McTague’s lengthy profile for The Atlantic help us comprehend the dumbfounding appeal of Prime Minister Posh Benny Hill? Plus, what does the G7’s Biden-boosted tax rate for multinationals tell us about legislating against companies that are bigger than countries? And on the eve of the Euros, our not-very-football panel ponder the most political preamble to a sporting tournam...

As Britain’s hostile border environment starts to entrap visitors from the EU, is the Home Office’s Brexit-infected immigration arm out of control? And why does the Home Office turn reasonable Ministers into monsters? Plus, new Netflix documentary Nail Bomber: Manhunt unravels the story of the neo-Nazi terrorist who bombed Brick Lane, Brixton and the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho in 1999. What it tea...

It’s our FOURTH BIRTHDAY edition! And what a sumptuous spread Classic Dom has laid on for us. The classic line-up of Dorian, Naomi, Ros, Alex and Ian reassemble in an actual physical studio (!) to discuss Cummings’ committee drive-by on Johnson and his vendetta against multi-sackable Matt Hancock, and why he supported a PM he knew was unfit for the job. Plus a special treat for listeners: yes, we’...

So, Brexit five months in – how’s it going? As the Government prepares to pauperise Britain’s farmers with its Australian trade deal, and as Unionists compare the NI Protocol to the Vichy Regime, are the wheels finally off the Brexit bus? Plus the FT’s Chief Political Correspondent Jim Pickard joins us to look at David Cameron’s performance in committee and how the Greensill saga is playing out. A...

As the Government celebrates its electoral victories with a bout of naked voter suppression and intimidation of protest, we look at Labour’s farcical response and where the party goes from here. Plus we talk to Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnot, co-authors of Failures Of State: The Inside Story Of Britain’s Battle With Coronavirus. Exactly what went wrong in the pandemic response and how can a...

On the eve of what looks like a not-great election day for everyone who isn’t Boris Johnson, the SNP, a Labour metro mayor or Count Binface, are we witnessing the final mopping up of the 2019 General Election? The Independent’s sketchwriter TOM PECK joins us for Election Doomwatch ’21. Plus, the Conservatives pack cultural institutions in an act of Home Counties Orbanism. And why do politicians in...

As Johnson’s odious comments about “bodies piling up” collide with Carrie Antoinette’s golden wallpaper splurge and the Vengeance of the Cummings, has this barrage of sleaze finally putting the PM on the ropes? Tech expert Alexi Mostrous of Tortoise joins us to explore what Big Tech and Bigger Data have in store for our democracies. Brexit eats another of its children in the shape of Arlene Foster...

It turns out that all you need to fix your tax problems is the PM’s mobile number! We look at Britain’s sprawling corruption problem and whether the Government even wants to control it. Plus, after the Super League fiasco, can politicians really tell private companies what to do – even if they’re football teams? And the Allegra Stratton Press Conference Room lasts about as long as, er, the Super L...

Northern Ireland descends into violence and it seems that Boris Johnson just doesn’t care. We ask Belfast-based political journalist Amanda Ferguson how much of the rioting is down to Brexit, or are the causes deeper? And does the border in the Irish Sea put us on course for worse troubles? Plus: Does public indifference over the death of Prince Philip indicate bad news for the future of the Monar...

Vaccine passports: thin end of the authoritarian wedge or a grim necessity that we liberals should grit our teeth and support? Plus, who’s writing the first draft of Brexit history? Guests Jill Ritter and Alan Wager of UK In A Changing Europe tell us about their oral history project the Brexit Witness Archive, where the people who were there tell us where the bodies are buried. And what do Labour’...

The Prime Minister’s affair with a woman who was receiving large amounts public money is confirmed – and nobody is talking about it? We look at the corruption and the democratic toxin behind the Johnson-Arcuri leg-over. Plus, a weirdos’ gallery of old Brexiters is setting up a ‘Museum of Brexit’. How can it possibly be balanced, like they claim? And why the school protests outside Batley Grammar s...

Inside Home Secretary Priti Patel’s insidious new plans for asylum seekers – why moves that claim to reduce the use if people traffickers will actually increase them, and why the cruelty is the point. And special guest the legendary Anglo-Indian musician Nitin Sawhney joins us to talk about making multicultural music in an increasingly insular Britain, his brilliant globe-spanning new album Immigr...

Can anything hold back Priti Patel’s assault on the great British tradition of noisy, disruptive protest? Plus: partisan or penniless: what’s the future of media in the coming age of news-mangling tech giants and GB News? Special guest James Harding – former Director of BBC News, ex-Times editor and now co-founder of Tortoise Media – joins us to examine the future of the news. And on the first ann...

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham joins us to talk about Westminster vs the Regions and whether Labour is opposing Johnson hard enough. What actually happened in that moment when London strong-armed Manchester into Tier 3 with scant compensation? Will the Government’s derisory 1% pay rise for nurses turn into a political albatross on the scale of Black Wednesday or Iraq? And as the levelling u...

So what did Sunak’s Budget actually mean? How did he manage to keep both Brexit and the North out of his wheezes? What sort of Chancellor does he really want to be? And is the secret message of the Budget that we should prepare for an early election? Plus: there’s a Museum of Communist Terror on the way, to reshape our understanding of totalitarianism. So why is it backed almost exclusively by cul...

Is Boris Johnson’s slow-burn unlocking actually – shock – the right thing to do? Will he be led by data, dates, deaths or whatever the CRG shouts at him? What will fertilise that “crocus of hope”? And will the panel all go turbo on June 21? Plus, what are the elephants in the room that we’ve been neglecting throughout the COVID-Brexit nightmare? Ros Taylor, Ian Dunt and Minnie Rahman join Naomi Sm...