Oh God, What Now?
Kanaal Besonderhede
Oh God, What Now?
Making sense of our political hell every Tuesday and Friday! Oh God, What Now? is the no-bulls**t politics podcast, making the unbearable bearable with top quality guests and analysis, plus poor quality jokes. Regulars include: Guardian writer Rafael Behr • Rachel Cunliffe of the New Statesman • N...
Onlangse Episodes
710 episodes
Withstanding the Farage Barrage – Can we Reform-proof the UK?
Could Reform really carry out a Trump-style, Project 2025-inspired shock-and-awe assault on Britain’s institutions and politics if they get into gover...
Is Britain ready for war with Russia?
“There is no British security without Europe,” Keir Starmer told the Munich Security Conference this weekend. Nobody wants a wider war in Europe, but...
The End of the Keir Show?
First thing on Monday it looked like Keir Starmer was organic sourdough toast. By teatime he’d riled up Labour MPs and looked – somehow – safe for now...
Is Trump a psychopath? – The cruel psychology of modern power
Remember Trump’s first term when we talked about “kakistocracy”: rule by the worst of the worst? They’re back and they’re worse than ever – not just T...
Morgan McSweeney: So gone, what now? – Emergencycast!
Keir Starmer’s now former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has gone, so what does this mean for the Prime Minister’s project and government? Zoë Grünew...
Mandel In The Wind – Will the scandal destroy Starmer too?
“I’m Mandy – buy me.” Peter Mandelson’s career finally collapses in a scandal more poisonous than Profumo, more serious than Partygate, and more shame...
The Universities’ Doom Spiral – Can Britain avert disaster?
A forty-year slow-motion disaster in higher education is reaching its climax – and Labour is left holding the bag. If young people decide a degree isn...
Burnham booted, Braverman back ... and how to beat the New Censorship
Starmer slaps down Andy Burnham’s bid to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election: bad move for Labour, bad timing from Burnham, or another distract...
The next war and how to stop it
“Things are more dangerous now than during the Cold War.” The world is breaking up into mutually suspicious power blocs, Trump is trying to destroy NA...
The Curse of Davos – plus: The future without America?
• Get the latest reaction on Trump’s climbdown from Weekly Wrap-Up on The Bunker with Raf Behr and Andrew Harrison.
“If you’re not at th...
Heated Rivalry – Will the Jenrick-Farage team-up work out?
“You can’t fire me, I quit!” The world of politics is stunned – stunned! – as rightward-lurching public transport vigilante Robert Jenrick joins Refor...
Invasion of the Party Snatchers – Are the Tories taking over Reform?
This edition recorded before Jenrick got sacked from the Conservatives and then joined Reform. Hey, it’s just like 2018… Two-month chancellor and fris...
“Reform tell you Utopia is there for the taking… but it’s not.” – Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson is our guest
Hands up who’s had enough hot-off-the-headlines politics for 2026 already? No problem! In a change of pace we go politics-adjacent and welcome Jason W...
Trump vs The World
What does Trump’s attack on Venezuela mean for the world – and what happens if he’s serious about Greenland? Plus, back home in the UK, politics is in...
Raw power – Is Trump turning America into a new Russia? – Bonus episode with Mark Galeotti
Trump’s actions in Venezuela revealed how far he’s prepared to push his power – and how happy he is to act like Vladimir Putin. How will America’s inv...
The Oh God, What Now? Politics Awards 2025
Who and what will receive our FIFA Peace Prize-style gongs for the year? Elon Musk for his brief, mayfly political life of casual mass murder? Trump a...
2025: The Year of Tragical Thinking – End of Year Special
Thank God that’s nearly over… It’s been a grim old year in politics, so in the penultimate OGWN of 2025 our panel pores over the entrails of the year...
Westminster Village Idiots? – Parliament in 2025 with John Crace of The Guardian
As 2025 spirals around the plughole of posterity, The Guardian’s parliamentary speechwriter John Crace joins us to look at the year inside the Westmin...
Trump to Europe: “Drop Dead”
America’s new National Security Strategy is a hellish concoction of far-right obsessions, paranoid conspiracy thought, imperial fantasy, and outright...
Lost in the Far-Right Funhouse – How bots and fakes create a false, angry Britain
Social media’s sewer pipe of white nationalism, conspiracy thought and violent far-right incitement is seeping into mainstream politics. But where is...
In-Fight Club – Your Party flames out
What went wrong with “Your Party”? As absolutely nobody could have predicted, the new Left vehicle’s first conference collapses amid factional squabbl...
Can we get Britain out of its hole?
Britain is in trouble. Stagnating wages, collapsing public services and a feeble economy are turning politics angry and rancorous. Keir Starmer says L...
Big Budget Breakdown – Wage Against the Machine
Behind all the predictable shrieking about “tax raids”, what really happened in Rachel Reeves’s much-trailed misery Budget? And what’s behind Labour’s...
Why Tech Sucks – Cory Doctorow on Enshittification and how to fix it
It’s the word of the moment. “Enshittification” is the reason Google is all ads and no useful results, Amazon serves you crappy overpriced products, y...
Cruel Britannia – Labour loses it on migration
Labour’s controversial asylum plans have sparked a backlash and it’s not clear they’ll even work. So, why have they gone down this route? What options...
Deface The Nation – Is Trump starting to lose? – with Molly Jong-Fast
Is Trump finally falling apart? His approval ratings are catastrophic, the Republicans took a hammering in the November elections, his gross-out distr...
Make Auntie Great Again – Will Trump destroy the BBC?
Trump and the right wing press are gleefully hounding the BBC over a clumsy speech edit – will they succeed in taking down the broadcaster? Plus, mani...
Budget ’25 – Why Rachel Reeves should hold her nerve
Tax rises! Cuts to everything! Here comes the pain! Seldom has a Budget been heralded with such dire warnings… if you believe the Toryform Press. But...
Mamdani – First we take Manhattan
Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York mayoralty race electrifies the global Left, rocks the Democratic establishment and leaves Trump titanically u...
Starmer’s dilemma – Electoral reform or Farage in No.10?
After decades of waving away electoral reform, Labour and the Tories suddenly have a reason to question First Past The Post – the nightmare prospect o...
System Failure – Why does British politics feel broken?
British politics feels stalled and the only people benefiting are Farage and the quick-fix demagogues of Reform UK. Why is the debate about our nation...
Scary Migrants, Super Creeps – Can Britain break out of migration madness?
A neurotic obsession with illegal migration is driving British politics rightwards, trapping the parties in an arms race of escalating harshness towar...
Jumping out of the Overton window – Is brainrot taking over politics?
Reform UK just pulled off the sequel to the Jackie Weaver Handforth Parish Council Zoom meeting, and it’s excellent. The leaked Zoom meeting from Refo...
Don’t mention the pension! – Can we avoid a two-tier society?
The papers still dangle the dream of a sun-dappled retirement. Yet millions have nowhere near the savings they’ll need, while a fortunate few are amas...
Starmer’s China Syndrome – plus Green MP Siân Berry on the new power balance on the Left
After the collapse of the China spying case, do we have to accept that Britain is way past being able to spar with Beijing? Especially when we depend...
Card Declined – Inside the Digital I.D. Wars
Labour want to bring in digital I.D. and many people do NOT like it. Are they right? Are they wrong? And what is the “Lethal Trifecta” that makes the...
Is the Conservative Party dying? – Plus: What the Manchester terror attack means
The Tory Party looks fatally damaged. Who hijacked the corpse at their conference in Manchester – Reform or Robert Jenrick? Josh Glancy of The Sunday...
Who would win a war in Europe?
Nobody wants to imagine a large-scale war in Europe. But after Putin invaded Ukraine and Trump tore up Europe’s security guarantee, it’s horribly plau...
Starmer vs. Farage – Keir finally picks his enemy
Keir Starmer’s conference speech is getting heaps of praise after he finally went hard against Farage. But has he done enough to show he’s in control,...
Build, baby, build – Is Labour losing the Regeneration Game?
Labour has staked its future on building hundreds of thousand of homes and fixing up crumbling communities. But does “regeneration” actually work? Hou...