The SCANDAL Mongers Podcast

Giles Milton is an internationally best selling author and the host of a top ten history podcast looking at the strange disappearance of the famous British naval diver Commander Lionel Crabb, and the subsequent high level cover up, in 1957 at the height of the Cold War... https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cover-up-ministry-of-secrets/id1621750804 Drawing on new information, he discusses with P...

The Greatest Briton, the saviour of his nation and perhaps of democracy itself, the Lion who roared defiance in the face of a Nazi juggernaut - all these things have been said of Winston Churchill. But throughout his long and turbulent life Churchill was always a deeply controversial and divisive figure - and was involved in scandals aplenty. Geoffrey Wheatcroft has written a very p...

Nick Wallis is a reporter who became part of the story, playing a key role exposing one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in recent British history. Hundreds of innocent small businesspeople were remorselessly persecuted because of a computer fault in a saga that casts an unflattering light on the Post Office, the police, the court system and other key UK institutions. You can buy Nic...

With Guest Laura Thomson. It’s one of British history’s greatest open and shut cases. An angry, controlling man identified (even by himself) at the scene of a savage crime who then disappears, never to be seen again. But writer Laura Thompson thinks we might be getting this story wrong. In a fascinating conversation with Andrew and Phil she reveals her controversial new theories and argu...

Britain will soon witness the crowning of King Charles III, with Queen Camilla by his side. It’s an ending to the story of a 50 year on-off-on-again relationship that few would have predicted amid the scandals of the Charles-Diana marriage, and especially after the publication of the notorious ‘Camillagate’ tape in 1992. So is Camilla a society intriguer, determined to work her way towards the cro...

The Profumo affair is the scandal that has everything: sex parties in high places, Soviet agents, political resignations, dramatic court cases, drugs, deaths, cover ups and endless tabloid excitement, all at a critical moment in the Cold War and when, in London, the sixties are beginning to swing. But after so many years how much is here still to learn about the tangled relationships between John...

The assassination of Senator ‘Bobby' Kennedy - widely tipped to become US President in 1968 - was an event that shook and possibly changed the world. Sirhan Sirhan was arrested at the scene, just feet away from Kennedy and with a literal smoking gun in his hand. He’s been incarcerated ever since. Case closed? Or is it. The LAPD and FBI investigations into the killings have long been regarded as sl...

Did King Charles III help bring down an elected government in Australia? In November 1975 Sir John Kerr, Governor General of Australia - acting in the name of Queen Elizabeth II - dismissed the Labour government of Gough Whitlam, triggering the greatest constitutional crisis in Australian history. For decades the official story was that Kerr acted alone. But Gough Whitlam’s biographer, our guest P...

Marie-Louise Plum (AKA oldfatherthames on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok) joins Andrew and Phil to share fascinating stories from her life as an amateur historian sifting through the bed of the river Thames. ‘Mudlarks’ like Marie can reveal incredible details of lives that were lived along the riverbank of one of Europe’s great cities - an illicit zone of ‘Liberties’ where normal rules did not alwa...

It’s the favourite era for cosy costume dramas, but the reality of life in Georgian and Regency Britain was more dramatic, colourful and downright scandalous than anything Hollywood could produce. Andrew and Phil discuss the real life events behind one of the greatest scandals of the age - the open, unmarried-with-a-child, relationship between Emma Hamilton and Britain’s greatest war hero, Ad...

As LGBTG+ history month begins, Andrew and Phil are joined by Mok O’Keefe, better known as The Gay Aristo, to learn about the life and times of one of the most scandalous men in British history. Perhaps the best well known theatrical celebrity of his time, Wilde dominated the British and Irish literary scene but ended his days almost penniless in a cheap Parisian hotel, abandoned by his family and...

Andy Webb is the investigative journalist and filmmaker who revealed the truth behind the infamous BBC Panorama interview with Princess Diana, and generated the greatest scandal in the history of the BBC. He tells Andrew and Phil (himself an ex Panorama producer) how he did it, and why… and where this extraordinary story is going next. Andrew Lownie. twitter.com/andrewlownie Phil Craig. twitter.co...

With special guest Ailsa Anderson, former Press Secretary to Queen Elizabeth II. Everyone is talking about Prince Harry’s new book SPARE and its fierce attacks on his enemies, especially the shadowy figures in the palace who he claims have been spinning and briefing against him and Meghan. So Andrew and Phil decided to speak to one of these mysterious people, and she paints a very different pictur...

In the final episode of 2022 Andrew and Phil update some of the highlights of the podcast so far, especially the continuing debate between The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and last week’s guest, Valentine Low. Some viewers and listeners who enjoyed the earlier episodes - with their spiky criticisms of royal spin and establishment power - have said that our scandal mongers have been too much swayed b...

Today Andrew and Phil are joined by the Times royal correspondent Valentine Low to discuss all things Harry, Meghan, Wills, Kate… and Netflix!  Valentine’s recent book COURTIERS includes details of what the self-styled 'Sussex Survivors Squad' say they experienced working for the Duke and Duchess. What does he think of their recent allegations about their treatment by the family and the wider...

Most of us think of the fabled summer of 1940 in terms of spitfires, the London Blitz and Churchill promising to fight on the beaches.  But Andrew and Phil take a different view. And they want to bust a few long-cherished myths and reveal some scandals.  In this episode they explore two scandals that occur BEFORE the Battle of Britain even began, and yet may have had just as great an imp...

The revelation that spies working for the Soviet Union, recruited at Cambridge University in the 1930s, had deeply penetrated the British intelligence and diplomatic systems causes shockwaves throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s as more and more either defected or were exposed. The fascinating figure of Guy Burgess was at the heart of the scandal, and his secret flight to Moscow in 1951 stunned the w...

In the second part of our royal special, Andrew and Phil and joined by a very special guest: Patrick Jephson. Patrick was Diana’s only ever Private Secretary, effectively her Chief of Staff and lead advisor. He has been widely credited with helping shape the must successful years of her public life. His deep contacts to multiple members of the royal family and court make him one of the best inform...

King Charles is on the throne with Camilla by his side, and The Crown has returned to Netflix amid a storm of controversy about dramatising recent history.    Phil knows more than most about Diana’s life and marriage. Having run a large TV production team that produced an unusually well-sourced biography of the Princess, widely praised for its intelligence and objectivity, he’s spent ove...

In today’s episode Andrew and Phil explore some truly shocking allegations about one of the most celebrated figures of the 20th Century, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and reveal new evidence and insights into what could be one of the greatest scandals in the history of the British royal family. Andrew’s book on Mountbatten and his wife Edwina created a sensation when it was published in 2019. Packed wit...

Every week bestselling author Andrew Lownie joins his life-long friend, the filmmaker and writer Phil Craig, to reveal the world’s greatest scandals. THE HOSTS...Andrew Lownie. Andrew read history at Cambridge before taking his doctorate at Edinburgh University. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and President of the Biographers’ Club, his royal books include The Mountbattens: Their Lives an...