The Lafayette Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Lafayette Club
The Lafayette Podcast speaks to some of the people who can bring some clarity to our disordered times.
My conversation this week is with Adrian Wooldridge. Adrian writes for the Bagehot column at The Economist where he analyses British life and politics. We talked about the hectic year that was 2017 and what the coming year may bring for Labour and the Conservatives. We also discussed some of the more fundamental dynamics at play in British politics; what left and right mean today and what’s happened to the centre ground.
In this podcast we caught up with Kevin Rudd over breakfast. Mr Rudd is President of the Asia Society Policy Institute and former Prime Minister of Australia. We discussed President Trump’s current tour of Asia. We asked what pressure Trump can hope to exert on North Korea and about the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula. We also talked about China and what a Trump Asia strategy may look like.
In the digital age, defending nations from the threat of cyber attacks has become one of the biggest challenges facing western democracies. In this episode, I speak with Robby Mook, former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.
Robby has recently launched an initiative at Harvard Kennedy School called “Defending Digital Democracy”. He will co-lead the bipartisan project with the former campaign manager for Mitt Romney and experts from the national security and technologies communities, including Facebook and Google. We talk about the threat posed to democracies in the digital age and some of the innovative solutions being developed.
In this episode, I speak to Ángel Gurría, Secretary General of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD.
We discuss some of the challenges facing the organisation, from maintaining relevance given the shift of economic power to Asia, to how we can address the growing backlash against globalisation and the economic and political consequences of Brexit.
In this episode I speak to Olivier Blanchard. Mr Blanchard is an economist, professor and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Between 2008 and 2015, he was the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, overseeing its response to the financial Crisis and the Greek debt crisis. In this episode, we discuss what lessons have been learnt since the financial crisis and how stable the world economy is today. We discuss the challenges facing the IMF and economic challenge of Brexit.
In this episode I speak to Dr Richard Haass. Dr Haass is the President of the foreign policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. Between 2001 and 2003, Dr Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State. We discuss if the world is in a state of disarray and if world order has collapsed. We look at how foreign policy should evolve in a post-cold war world and when it is right to intervene militarily. Finally, we talk about the impact of the Trump presidency on America’s position in the world.
In this episode, I speak to Mark Thompson. Mark is the current CEO of the New York Times and prior to that he was director general of the BBC from 2004 to 2012. We discuss what has gone wrong with today’s political language. We ask whether critical debate has become impossible in the UK and the US and what role the media play in exacerbating political tension.
We also look at the challenges facing the journalism industry.
In this episode, I speak to Gideon Rachman, senior foreign commentator at the Financial Times. Gideon is the author of Easternization, which looks at how the rise of China, as well as Asia more broadly, is having an impact on global politics. We look at the implications of the Trump presidency on US-China relations as well as developments in Chinese politics and the potential consequences of these changes for the wider region.
What role did the media play in creating a post-truth world? How do you create satire in the age of Trump and Brexit? Do we expect too much of our politicians?
In this episode, I discuss all these questions and more with Armando Iannucci, the writer and broadcaster famous for award-winning shows; The Thick of It and Veep as well as the Oscar-nominated film, In The Loop. We also discuss his latest film, The Death of Stalin.