Weekend bonus episode… Britain still mired in Brexit, Europe divided, economic stagnation in the West and Donald Trump’s disastrous culture wars and actual wars. Are they all just a blip in human history or does the West’s decline mark the beginning of a new world order? What if that future belongs to rising powers of the East – China and India?

That’s the premise of Sir Vince Cable’s new book, Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World. The former Liberal Democrat leader talks to Rafael Behr about how China and India are increasingly shaping the world – and where (and if) Britain fits in. 

• Buy Vince’s book Eclipsing the West: China, India and the forging of a new world from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

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Written and presented by Rafael Behr. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Fast reaction with News Statesman’s associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe and Jacob Jarvis. Nigel Farage and Reform are facing another crisis after two – now former – senior officials were filmed in an undercover sting appearing to plot how to circumvent electoral law to bag a £500,000 foreign donation… Reform says it’s all a “hoax”, predictably… Can Reform weather the storm? Is Farage totally done for? And what might happen next?

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

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Presented by Jacob Jarvis with Rachel Cunliffe. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Facebook owners Meta hit the headlines with an $18bn settlement in the US over accusations that its products had harmed kids. But was the bill really so onerous, or just the price of keeping Zuckerberg out of the witness box? Special guest Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE – activist, digital rights champion and former film director – talks us through the reality of the fight to protect kids online; whether Britain’s digital curfews for teens will work; and the dirty digital deals done behind doors to protect Big Tech.

Plus, Andy Burnham promised more problem solving than point-scoring in his Prime Minister's Questions debut… and it lasted about five minutes. How did the PM shape up – and was it the baptism of fire we expected?

And in the Extra Bit: Will your mind really “flood with ideas” if you stop listening to podcasts, as one Guardian writer suggests? Our panel weighs in. 

• Buy Beeban’s book Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• James saw the animated legal comedy Coyote vs Acme and read Jon Ronson’s latest, The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men.

• Jason also watched Coyote vs Acme and read 31 Inventions that Built Our World by OGWN regular Jonn Elledge.

• Beeban watched Arsenal scrape a win against Aston Villa and is re-reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

• Andrew went to Krankenhaus Festival in Cumbria and saw Sea Power, Pictish Trail and Smote, and spotted Green MP Hannah Spencer. He’s also been bingeing the TV series Lanterns.

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN.

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Presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison with James Ball, Jason Hazeley and Beeban Kidron. Produced by James Liddell. Audio production: Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Andy Burnham is feeling a sudden wave of the back-to-school blues. Not only did Keir Starmer tactlessly decide to quit Parliament just before his first Commons speech, but a long list of challenges is also piling up in the PM’s in-tray. So, what’s causing Burnham the biggest headaches? Is the Burnham bounce finally over? And what happens next?

Plus: Badenoch reshuffles her shadow cabinet, Iceland rejects the EU and Trump tries to rename yet more geographical features… and questions Britain’s claim to the Falklands.

•  Listen as Gavin Esler explores the breakneck evolution of military technology in This Is Not A Drill’s brand new four-part mini-series

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service.

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Marie read Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi novella Paradises Lost

• Hannah has been bingeing Season 5 of Couples Therapy, which has just landed on BBC iPlayer

• Ros went to the cinema twice, first to see Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas and then De Gaulle: Résistance, a biopic on the great Gallic general

• Matt has been reading Running Through Sand: An Ageing Comedian’s Ill-Thought-Out Ultra in the Sahara by Paul Tonkinson

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Presented by Matt Green with Hannah Fearn, Ros Taylor and Marie Le Conte. Produced by James Liddell. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune: Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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The first of our occasional weekend bonus episodes… Bewildered by the tangled stories of Putin’s war on Ukraine, Trump’s incomprehensible loyalty to the Russian tyrant, and Russia’s interference in British politics? The Guardian’s foreign correspondent Luke Harding ties all the threads together in his riveting new book Betrayed: Trump, Putin And The New Age Of Conquest – laying bare how thoroughly Putin played Trump and the enormity of what has happened to our old world of rules.  

He talks to Andrew Harrison about the big picture that daily news misses, the return of Great Power politics, and whether Donald Trump really is a Russian asset.  

• Buy Luke’s book Betrayal: Trump, Putin and The New Age of Conquest from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. 

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected].  

• Photo: Trump greets Putin on the tarmac in Anchorage, Alaska on August 15 2025. (Photo by Kremlin Press Service / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images) 

Support us on Patreon - www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow 

Written and presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. 

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Good news for newsrooms: Harry and Meghan are back in Britain and editors are beside themselves. We might say we don’t care about “Reverse Megxit” but why does the clickrate say otherwise? Plus: Giftgate was only two years ago, but MPs are still accepting freebies. They’ve taken almost £400,000 of hospitality this year alone – including tickets to Harry Styles and the F1. But is that necessarily so bad? Are freebies a serious conflict of interest or do we just want politicians to live in a hair shirt? And in the Extra Bit: people are queuing to take photos at beauty spots – are we all just compliant sheep who need to get over our strangling cultural traditions?

• Get up to £350 off the Eight Sleep Pod 5 here with the code OGWN

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Marie went to watch Tony, the biopic about the late rockstar chef-turned-broadcaster Anthony Bourdain

• Seth watched 60’s crime thriller Cash on Demand – like a “noirish bank heist version” of Dickens ’ A Christmas Carol

• Rachel hasn’t been able to put down Jon Ronson’s new book The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men

• Ros has begun watching supernatural French drama Sea Shadows (or Rivages in French)

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Presented by Ros Taylor with Marie Le Conte, Rachel Cunliffe and Seth Thévoz. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Is communism having a mini revival? Marxist critiques and socialist ideas are becoming the in thing with Gen Z, while Donald Trump is harking back to the Red Scare of his youth to attack the Democrats. Is it anything more than a resurrected bogeyman for the right? Man of the left, veteran journalist and friend of the pod Paul Mason joins the panel to discuss Reds: A Global History of Communism, his sweeping new history of the movement. Plus: Andy Burnham heads to Ukraine with missile plans in hand, Reform’s bullshit policy of the week and much, much more.  

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Buy Paul’s book Reds: A Global History of Communism from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Zoë has started watching award-winning medical drama The Pitt

• Jonn has been watching the BBC murder mystery Ludwig

• Paul went to watch Adrian Lester star as the titular character in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End

• Andrew has been bingeing the late ’70s British fantasy TV hit Sapphire and Steel

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Presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison with Zoë Grünewald, Jonn Elledge and Paul Mason. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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The climate crisis got horribly real this summer – but is it really true that ordinary people can’t do anything about it? The National Emergency Briefing is a growing movement around a stunning documentary film that makes clear the reality of the crisis and what we CAN do about it. Green economist Angela Francis joins us to explain where the fight for a liveable climate is heading; how to beat the  Reform angle that it’s just too expensive so we might as well not bother; and bring surprisingly good news about tech, investment and the coming battery. 

Plus, house prices are falling (in some places), ULEZ is working, and Donald Trump decides North Korea is his favourite Korea. Well, it can’t all be good news.

• Find a screening of the National Emergency Briefing here and if there isn’t one near you, you can request one. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Hannah went to see Jimmy Eat World and Rise Against at Crystal Palace Bowl. 

• Jason has been enjoying the podcast Kevin Eldon’s Speakers  

• Angela has been reading How To Lose A Country by Ece Temelkuran and finally watching Call My Agent on Netflix. 

• Matt watched Spider-Man: Brand New Day. 

Buy books through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Matt Green with Hannah Fearn and Jason Hazeley. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

www.podmasters.co.uk 

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The shocking death of former Cambridge University professor Jason Arday raises serious questions about the press investigation of his career and the claims he made about his life. Some blame the right-wing press for his death, others the university. Some blame the litany of racist and abusive messages Arday received online. Where should responsibility lie?

Plus, Andy Burnham is clearly more comfortable navigating today’s online world than Keir Starmer. But does he fully grasp the forces he’s up against? Are Russia, China and malign actors closer to home “flooding the zone” with disinformation to drown out the truth? Former senior UK government adviser-turned disinformation analyst Amil Khan joins the panel to dissect the information war that Burnham faces.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• James has been playing the strategy video game Civilisation VII

• Marie is in the middle of Pereira Maintains by Italian writer and academic Antonio Tabucchi. 

• Amil has been reading Beer in the Snooker Club by Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali. 

• Seth watched David Lean’s 1970 epic Ryan’s Daughter

When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop you help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Seth Thévoz with James Ball, Marie Le Conte and Amil Khan. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Fast analysis of the Clacton by-election with Steve Richards and Andrew Harrison. Two and half cheers for plucky underdog Nigel Farage who defeated the “establishment” candidate Count Binface in a by-election of his own making. And in the end, he didn’t even bother to show up to claim his victory… Now the stunt is over, the parliamentary standards watchdog is back investigating Farage’s £5m “gift” from a crypto billionaire. So was this entire exercise completely futile? Could Farage’s own gambit come back to bite him? And with his – and Reform’s – polling slipping, has the tide finally turned?

• Buy tickets for Steve’s 14-day Rock & Roll Politics run at the Edinburgh Fringe

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison with Steve Richards. Produced by James Liddell. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

www.podmasters.co.uk 

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Barring a bin-shaped asteroid strike on the Essex Coast, Nigel Farage will win the Clacton by-election – but his problems won’t be over. What will Reform’s slippery leader face in the months to come? And can, should, would his party strike a deal with either Restore or the Conservatives? Plus our special guest, journalist Rachel Wearmouth, has the date of the next General Election, for real! And we answer a wealth of YOUR questions in a But Your Emails special. 

• Get up to £350 off the Eight Sleep Pod 5 here with the code OGWN. 

• Don’t miss the Clacton By-Election Emergencycast on Friday 14 August. 

• Order the unofficial Count Binface comic here

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Rachel has been watching the Disney+ crime thriller Furious  

• Seth has been re-watching classic psychedelic ’60s spy show The Prisoner. 

• Jason played Steve Reich’s Music For 18 Musicians with Paraorchestra and Charles Hazlewood and you can hear it on BBC Sounds  

• Andrew has been listening to the Richard Norris remixes collection Re-Make: Re-Model

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow 

Presented by Andrew Harrison with Seth Thévoz and Jason Hazeley. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

www.podmasters.co.uk 

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