The Hated and the Dead Tom Leeman

Keir Starmer has been the leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020. This makes him Leader of the Opposition, and - if the polls are to be believed - Britain's next prime minister.

Amid a revolving door of prime ministers, Brexit, and the pandemic, Starmer’s rise from leader of the weakest Labour Party since the Second World War to being in poll position in the race for Downing Street has taken many by surprise. It’s also left a public clamouring for more information about who this man is, what makes him tick, and what he believes in.

This podcast tries to assess the validity of the conventional wisdoms that have grown up around Starmer. Starmer will face many challenges if he ever becomes prime minister, so it’s important to think about who he is, before the demands of Downing Street swamp him.

My guest today is Tom Baldwin. Tom is a British journalist who has worked for the Times and the Sunday Telegraph as political editor; he was also a senior political adviser to Ed Miliband when Miliband was Labour leader. Tom has also written Keir Starmer: The Biography, an unauthorised but authoritative account of the man himself. More recently than that he has also co-authored England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country and How to Set Them Straight.

Afonso Dhlakama was the leader of RENAMO, Mozambique's main opposition movement, for over forty years until his death in 2018.

Dhlakama’s story, and the Mozambican Civil War at large, are notable for two reasons. First is the regional and international dimension of the war. Mozambique's FRELIMO government courted support from communist powers such as East Germany but also became welcome in Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street.

Secondly, the two sides in the Civil War have actually come to an agreement in the early 1990s, having participated in a fifteen year civil war which claimed the lives of perhaps a million people. Does this make Mozambique a democracy today? Probably not. But its elites have at least accepted that they need to engage in some kind of inter-party horse trading.

My guest today is Alex Vines. Alex has led the Africa Programme at Chatham House since 2002, and his wealth of experience working on issues related to Africa is immense, having appeared on the UN Panel of Experts on Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, chairing the former. He was also a UN election officer in Mozambique in 1994, and has authored many works related to the country.

J.R. Jayewardene served as prime minister and then president of Sri Lanka between 1977 and 1989.

Sri Lankan history, politics and society is dominated by tensions between two ethnic groups. Ethnic divisions are intrinsic to countless countries, including many covered on this podcast before. The key question the Sri Lankan experience raises though is this: in stoking ethnic tensions, what is more important: how the government works, or who runs it?

Today's subject demonstrates that in the case of Sri Lanka, the latter is true. During his presidency, J.R. presided over the so called Black July riots, which saw the deaths of 5000 Tamils in a single month. But even when he saw the results of leaning into ethnic division - and there was evidence of the results of doing so long before Black July- he wasn’t compelled to stop. For this reason, J.R might hold greater responsibility for Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife and ensuing civil war than any other Sri Lankan.

My guest today is Dr. Asanga Welikala. Primarily focusing on constitutional theory and commonwealth constitutional history, Asanga is a lecturer in public law at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. He is also a Research Associate of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. 

The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association in people's minds with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistance", their true motives are poorly understood.

This is the second half of a two-part conversation seeking to explain the Houthis' influence in Yemeni politics and society. Today's episode deals with the period since 2013, and especially since the outbreak of civil war in Yemen in 2014.

How have the Houthis gone from being an obscure group in the mountainous region of Northern Yemen to controlling two thirds of the country’s population? And most importantly of all, how have the Houthis managed to fend off a US-backed alliance comprised of the armed forces of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar?

As was the case in Part 1, my guest for this conversation is Isa Blumi. Isa is an associate professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University. Isa has published several books on Turkey, the Balkans, the late Ottoman Empire and Yemen, including Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World.

The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistance", their origins in the turbulent Yemeni politics of the 1990s and 2000s are not widely understood.

This is the first half of a two-part conversation seeking to explain the Houthis' rise to prominence, and covers the unification of Yemen in 1990, the arrival of Sunni extremism in the country from Saudi Arabia, and the violent attempts of President Saleh to impose order on Yemen. All of these strands, and others, contributed to the Houthis' development, and sent Yemen hurtling towards the Arab Spring, and civil war.

My guest today is Isa Blumi. Isa is an associate professor of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Stockholm University. Isa has published several books on Turkey, the Balkans, the late Ottoman Empire and Yemen, including Destroying Yemen: What Chaos in Arabia Tells Us about the World. 

Jens Stoltenberg has been Secretary General of NATO since 2014, and prior to that served twice as Prime Minister of Norway. 

Looking at him is interesting because, at least in the early part of his premiership, many commentators, buoyed by the end of the Cold War and the third wave of democratisation, genuinely believed that the world was converging on Norwegian attitudes towards democracy and international cooperation. During his time as NATO Secretary General, though, the World has stopped converging on Norwegian, or Western, ideals of democracy. In fact, too often, it seems as if the West is converging on the rest of the World. 

In this context, is gradualism, the political approach favoured by Stoltenberg, insufficient? Stoltenberg is rarely described as controversial, but is his political philosophy and his outlook now the very thing all politicians wish to avoid becoming more than anything else - outdated? 

My guest today is Magnus Takvam. Magnus is a Norwegian journalist, broadcaster and political commentator who until 2022 worked with NRK, the Norwegian state-owned Broadcasting Corporation. As well as Stoltenberg’s career, Magnus and I discuss the effect oil wealth has had on Norwegian politics and society, the 2011 Norway attacks, which occurred on Stoltenberg’s watch, and the future trajectory of Norwegian politics.