The sense that our politics isn’t working might be familiar to listeners of this podcast. If you heard last week’s episode you’ll know that I had James O’Brien discussing his book “How they Broke Britain”, which gets to the heart of these questions. But one area that James and I didn’t touch on is our parliament. Britain’s parliament, sometimes self-importantly calling itself the Mother of Parliaments, isn’t working properly. Its members aren’t scrutinising legislation properly, its...

James O'Brien is often described as the voice of liberal England. With this regular radio slot on LBC and his huge online following, he is a reminder that popular doesn’t have to be populism. His patient, forensic but totally accessible unpicking of cynical political dishonsesty, particularly of the Brexist variety, has been a beacon of sanity for literally millions of people - at a time when so many other media outlets, including the BBC, no longer seem prepared to call out deliberately...

After months of fierce fighting, mostly in the Donbas region, Ukraine's attempt to push through Russia occupation zone to reach the Sea of Azov appears to have failed. Russia's incredibly dense minefields, its increasingly sophisticated use of drones, and its willingness to weather extraordinary casualties have all contributed to a lack of Ukrainian progress. But the West's failure to supply Ukraine with the weapons it needs, whether artillery, tanks or fighter jets, have all contributed to...

When I worked at the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand Province, I was largely based at the Forward Operating Base in Lashkar Gah - the main city of Helmand. There, amid the dust and noise of an active military campaign, there was a small, beautifully tended garden inside the base. I’m going to be honest and say that I was too preoccupied with my own job ever to ask myself who was responsible for its upkeep- even as I enjoyed that little slice of tranquility and beauty almost every...

This week we’re covering arguably the most important question in British foreign policy: our relationship with Europe and, specifically - what the circumstances and process might be for Britain to rejoin the EU. Nobody thinks this is an easy issue, or something that can be achieved quickly. But it’s something that everyone with any sense of a European identity must see as a fundamental priority that Britain needs to get started with. And it’s something that almost no mainstream national...

Dr Mike Martin, former soldier, military strategist and author of How to Fight a War joined me to discuss how Israel and Hamas are fighting their war. Our discussion took us into a wider exploration of conflict in the modern age and the risk of escalation and agglomeration of individual conflicts into global ones. Mike can be found on Twitter where he writes fascinating threads on what is happening in Ukraine and wider global conflict issues. He also has a website here:...

Understanding the risks of a regional war between Israel and its antagonists feels like the most important issue at the present time. I was able to speak to Michael Stephens, former head of the Middle East programme at RUSI, the Royal United Services Institute, about the complex diplomatic and strategic relations that exist across the region. We covered Iran and its proxies, the Arab Gulf states and Egypt, as well as discussing Israel's own policy choices. Michael is on Twitter here...

In this episode I wanted to go back to something that Paul Mason said in an earlier episode which struck a chord. He identified that the weakest link in International democratic politics is the world’s greatest democracy, the United States. Here’s Paul’s line “the key to the international situation is America. we could wake up in November 2024 with Trump as president that is a legitimation of insurrectionary politics.” (Have a listen to that episode - number 7 - if you’ve not yet had the...

Following Hamas’s horrific assault on Israel, attention turns to Israel’s reaction. Gaza is under siege and Israel has mobilised over 300,000 reservists. Israel claims that it plans to destroy Hamas. What does that mean in practice? And what does it mean for the civilians that live in Gaza? This sits in a wider context of regional relationships, Israel’s support in the West and the impact on the conflict in Ukraine. To cover such a wide-ranging set of challenges and issues it was a huge...

EMERGENCY PODCAST We’re only 4 days after the stunning horror of Hamas’s attack on Israel. Much remains unclear, but we now know that a major Hamas operation completely blindsided Israel’s defences and nearly 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians are dead, with several hundred taken as hostages to Gaza. Israel has regained control of the towns that were seized by Hamas fighters, but there remain gunmen at large in what is obviously a chaotic situation. Israel has responded with a huge mobilisation...

In 2021, Paul Mason, a veteran journalist familiar to viewers of Newsnight and Channel 4 News, published a book called How to stop Fascism, History Ideology, Resistance. His book came in the aftermath of the January 6th insurrection in Washington DC and the spectre of rising authoritarian nationalism across the world. A year later, Paul found himself in Kyiv just 24 hours before Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, as 21st century fascism began to more literally imitate its 20th century...

We’re living in an age of the self-confident autocrat: China is rising, President Erdogan coasted to a managed re-election and in the Gulf, the Arab monarchies are riding high on oil prices boosted by Putin’s war in Ukraine. And what do the autocrats do with their money? They use it to buy influence. And one of the ways that they can do this is through football, the most popular sport on the planet. In 2003 Roman Abramovich, the now-sanctioned Russian billionaire, bought Chelsea football...

Storm Daniel passed through the Mediterranean in early September,  one of a bewildering number of extreme weather events in recent months. When it hit Libya on 10 September, torrential rainfall led to catastrophic floods in the Town of Derna. At the time of recording as many as 20,000 people are missing, feared dead. It was an example of the terrifying new reality of the climate crisis where entire cities can be wiped out by wildfires or floods, literally in a matter of hours. But everything...

On the 30th August a military coup took place in Gabon in West Africa, dislodging the president Ali Bongo, whose family has controlled the country for nearly 60 years. That military takeover in Gabon followed swiftly on the heels of a coup in Niger, one month earlier. There seems to have been a spate of these in the Sahel region of Africa. Indeed, within a period of just over two years, every country in a 5000km line from Conakry on Africa’s West Coast to Port Sudan on the East, has...

Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has been controlled by one political movement - ZANU-PF. Outside the country this was often seen as the personal fiefdom of one man, Robert Mugabe. Undoubtedly he was the key figure, but after his removal from power in 2017, the party has continued to control Zimbabwe’s politics and its institutions. So it is a fair question whether there has ever been a legitimate election held in the country. Last week on 4 September president Emmerson Mnangagwa,...

Ukraine’s Radical War Thanks to all of you that have listened to the first episode of Behind the Lines and to all of those of you that are joining this new podcast for the first time. We are taking a weekly look at a different aspect of current geopolitics. This week, it’s how the information age has transformed warfare, and particularly how it has transformed warfare in Ukraine. Russia's war on Ukraine is the most online in history. The smartphone has become the way the war is recorded...

Behind the Lines with Arthur Snell is a new geopolitics podcast. Every week we give the listener access to the best informed people to help you understand this turbulent world and get a feel for the things that will matter in the future. This week, for our first episode, we have an emergency podcast in the light of the apparent assassination of Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose private jet fell out of the sky on a flight from Moscow to St Petersburg on 23 August 2023. I was...