If You're Listening ABC News

When the UK Conservative Party won the election in 2010, they took a butcher's knife to the budget.

David Cameron's money-man George Osborne — the young heir to a wallpaper fortune — had a big plan called "austerity," but it put the country on a journey to total chaos.

This is the first episode in a four-part series called Who Broke Britain.

It's about the past 14 years of Conservative Party leadership, all the way up to the general election that's happening next month.

London was once the largest city on Earth — capital of a global empire larger than any other in the history of the world.

Even as recently as 17 years ago, Britons were the richest people in any of the world's large economies.

Since then, they've gone backwards, more than any other large economy.

Britain feels broken. So, who broke it?

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3IhkTK9-xs

We're still on a break from our regularly scheduled programming but don't worry, we're hard at work.

Next week we'll be launching a four-part series leading up to the UK election called Who Broke Britain?

The country that was once the centre of the world's greatest empire now seems a lot smaller, and in many ways — broken.

So — who broke it?

Until then, check out the latest ABC podcast Not Stupid, from our colleagues in ABC News.

It's hosted by Jeremy Fernandez and Julia Baird, and this week they're diving into Trump's guilty conviction and whether we should raise the minimum age for social media.

You can subscribe to it on the Listen app.

Subscribe to If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.

Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM7IYWahjGY 

The island of Taiwan, just off the coast of China, is shaping up as the most likely spark for the next global conflict.

China's president Xi Jinping wants to claim all the territory he thinks belongs to China, without triggering a nuclear war.

It's a century-old civil war, which has been frozen in place for decades.

It's an almost unimaginably dangerous situation, and one mistake could lead to catastrophe.

This is a repeat episode. It was first broadcast on the 6th July, 2021 as part of the China, If You're Listening series.

If you want to listen to the whole series you can find it here, or scroll back in your podcast feed.

Subscribe to If You're Listening on the ABC Listen app.

Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0_VTGzZj2U

Earlier this week the President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in bad weather.

Raisi was a phenomenally important figure in Middle Eastern politics — not just Iran's President, but the likely next Supreme Leader of Iran.

He got there through acts of extreme brutality, showing his willingness to do anything to defend the Iranian status quo.

How did Ebrahim Raisi become the heir-apparent to the Iranian Supreme Leadership, and what could happen now he's gone?

Listen to our other episodes about Iran:

Iran, Israel and the calculus of revenge

The Ayatollah who dreamed of an Iranian caliphate

How the Shah's cancer led to Iran's rift with the US

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0_VTGzZj2U

Australia's first domestic violence shelter Elsie opened in the 1970s, and researchers have been analysing the problem ever since.

In the last three decades more than 1,500 women have been killed by intimate partners in Australia and we're still no closer to finding out why.

Campaigner Rosie Batty has compared domestic violence to terrorism, and called for similar levels of funding.

Is that comparison extreme, or is it the best way to get us closer to fixing the problem?

*EDITOR'S NOTE: This episode incorrectly states that Luke Batty was 14 years old at the time of his death. He was 11 years old when he died.

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Check out our series on YouTube.

[Helplines]

Michael Cohen is the star witness in the Trump 'hush-money' trial.

He was once Trump's personal attorney and said he would "take a bullet" for his boss, but then everything changed.

He has served years in prison for lying, tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations.

But he thinks everything he's gone through will be worth it if he can take Trump down.

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Check out our series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqPubAjtbc4