Lost in the Far-Right Funhouse – How bots and fakes create a false, angry Britain

As 2025 spirals around the plughole of posterity, The Guardian’s parliamentary speechwriter John Crace joins us to look at the year inside the Westminster Village. Did Farage successfully cross over from consequence-free rabble-rouser to horribly plausible Prime Minister? Will the growing racism allegations halt his ambitions? Is there more going on in Starmer’s government than meets the eye? And what did we learn from the launch of Your Party, the fall of Angela Rayner and the Tories’ gap year? 📚 John Crace’s The Bonfire of the Insanities is available to buy now. 📧 Next week’s edition features a But Your Emails 2025 special. Send your questions to [email protected] – should old email addresses be forgot? 🎄 Get 20% off a year’s support for Oh God, What Now? until Christmas – whether you’re a new backer, renewing or upgrading. ESCAPE ROUTES • John recommends Blue Lights on BBC iPlayer. • Rachel hates Christmas pop but she likes White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin and Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness. • Andrew recommends the science fiction novel Blood Music by Greg Bear. Buy any book through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund Oh God, What Now? by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee! www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Rachel Cunliffe. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction by James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

America’s new National Security Strategy is a hellish concoction of far-right obsessions, paranoid conspiracy thought, imperial fantasy, and outright aggression. European leaders are horrified but what are they going to do about it? Plus: Glasgow South MP Gordon McKee explains the UK’s debt to GDP ratio using towers of custard creams and bourbons. But can you make politics too simple? And in the Extra Bit for Patreons, we talk about Netflix’s real goal in trying to buy Warners: to kill off cinema.  🎄Get 20% off a year’s support for Oh God, What Now? until Christmas – whether you’re a new backer, renewing or upgrading.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Jonn recommends Pluribus on Apple TV+.  • Hannah recommends Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisy.  • Jason recommends the BBC documentary I Am Martin Parr • Matt went to see Edgar Wright’s The Running Man at the cinema but doesn’t recommend it much.  • When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop, you help fund Oh God, What Now? by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Matt Green with Hannah Fearn, Jonn Elledge and Jason Hazeley. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio Production by: Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. https://www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Social media’s sewer pipe of white nationalism, conspiracy thought and violent far-right incitement is seeping into mainstream politics. But where is all this extremism coming from? Who’s creating it? Is anyone on political social media not a bot? And what are we going to do about it? Special guest Olivia Brown from the University of Bath explains how a tiny number of far-right accounts weaponise tragedies like Southport and use AI and engagement tricks to fake grassroots, us-vs-them banter. The goal: to warp Britain’s perception of what’s normal. 📳 Hear Paul Merton on Experience is Everything – Brought to you by Saga.  🎄Get 20% off a year’s support for Oh God, What Now? until Christmas – whether you’re a new backer, renewing or upgrading.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Olivia recommends The Guardian Football Weekly podcast.  • Jonn recommends Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today by Naomi Alderman.  • Zoë recommends Sandwich by Catherine Newman. When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop, you help fund OGWN by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.  • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Zoë Grünewald with Jonn Elledge. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio and Video Production by: Chris Jones Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What went wrong with “Your Party”? As absolutely nobody could have predicted, the new Left vehicle’s first conference collapses amid factional squabbles. Zarah Sultana gets to rule over the ruins but will all that new energy on the left now head over to Zack Polanski’s Greens? Plus: After a budget that pleased nobody, is Labour really taking young people seriously? And in the Extra Bit for Patreon people, will the War on London ever end? 🎄⁠Get 20% off a year’s support for Oh God, What Now?⁠ until Christmas – whether you’re a new backer, renewing or upgrading.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Ros recommends Trespasses on Channel 4 catch-up. • Raf just caught up with 2001: A Space Odyssey . • Marie recommends the movies Pillion and Now You See Me: Now You Don’t, both in cinemas now.  • Andrew finally, finally watched Under The Skin with Scarlett Johansson. • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Marie le Conte, Rafael Behr and Ros Taylor. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Britain is in trouble. Stagnating wages, collapsing public services and a feeble economy are turning politics angry and rancorous. Keir Starmer says Labour’s economic plan will take “years” to deliver – but does the party really have a long-term plan? And what would one look like? Our guest John Springford, associate fellow at the Centre for European Reform, has put one together at getting-out-of-the-hole.uk – and he’s here to talk about it. Why is our productivity so bad? Why are we getting work, energy, manufacturing and cities wrong? Why do we keep basing our strategy on things we’re not good at? And can we fix any of it without reversing Brexit? Listen in to find out.  🎄Get 20% off a year’s support for Oh God, What Now? until Christmas – whether you’re a new backer, renewing or upgrading.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Rachel recommends the new Wicked movie, Wicked: For Good. • John recommends human-extinction themed episodes of the podcasts If Books Could Kill and Past Present Future. • Seth recommends a visit to the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library to buy their themed Christmas ornaments.  • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Seth Thévoz with Rachel Cunliffe. Audio and Video production: Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 fear of making bolder moves? Plus, Private Eye’s Daily Mailograph gag comes true – it looks like the Mail is going to buy the Telegraph. Our special guest, Radio 4 Now Show veteran and musical satirist Mitch Benn, helps us explore what it will do to diversity of the press (rhetorical question) and will Lord Rothermere get a free bottle of water with his purchase? And in the Extra Bit – Who should we ban from pubs: solo drinkers or kids?  • Get 20% off a year’s Patreon backing for OGWN until Christmas – new members, renewals, upgrades, all are welcome.  • Get your tickets for Mitch’s one-man performance of A Christmas Carol.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Hannah went to see EEVAH on tour.  • Mitch went to see the RSC production of My Neighbour Totoro at the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London. And it’s not sold out, there are loads of tickets available.  • Ros recommends the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe drama Prisoner 951 on BBC iPlayer.  • Jonn is rewatching the Scandi-noir classic The Bridge.  • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Ros Taylor with Hannah Fearn and Jonn Elledge. Produced by Chris Jones. Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction by James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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, your phone spies on you and you can’t find your friends on social media – but you WILL be persecuted by bots, brands and Nazis all day long. So how are we going to fix it? Leading tech critic Cory Doctorow joins Andrew Harrison and Rafael Behr to talk about whether digital platform rot is inevitable, his book Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It …  and the many, many ways to conjugate the verb “to enshittify”.  NB Trust us, this is NOT an edition you want to listen to at 1.5x speed.  • Buy Enshittification through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund Oh God, What Now? by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. ESCAPE ROUTES • Cory recommends the podcast No Gods No Mayors. • Raf went to see the touring production of Fiddler on the Roof which you can still just about catch in Sunderland and Birmingham. • Andrew recommends child abduction drama All Her Fault on Now TV plus colossal CD box sets from Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Propaganda. • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • Get our exclusive NordVPN deal at nordvpn.com/ohgodwhatnow. It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money back guarantee!  www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Rafael Behr. Audio and Video Production by: Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 might be better? Plus, AI – the bubble is going to burst, but has it already broken our brains? Then in the extra bit for supporters – what would we want to bring back from 100 years ago? Escape Routes  • Matt is watching Death by Lightning  • Zoe is watching Stranger Things • Jason is reading Penda's Fen: Scene by Scene by Ian Greaves • Head to ⁠nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow⁠ to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included.  ⁠www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow⁠   Presented by Ros Taylor with Matt Green, Zoë Grünewald and Jason Hazeley.  Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.   ⁠www.podmasters.co.uk⁠    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is Trump finally falling apart? His approval ratings are catastrophic, the Republicans took a hammering in the November elections, his gross-out distraction tactics no longer work… and as more Epstein emails are released, the scandal is lapping ever-higher around his cankles. Molly Jong-Fast of The Atlantic, Vanity Fair and the unmissable Fast Politics podcast joins Andrew Harrison and Rafael Behr to discuss the teetering tyrant and the damage he will leave.  • This episode recorded before Trump decided he wanted the Epstein Files released after all.  ESCAPE ROUTES • Raf has been reading Moby-Dick (because why not?) and listening to funk and soul covers by Scary Pockets.  • Molly recommends When All The Men Wore Hats by Susan Cheever. • Andrew is going crazy for Pluribis on Apple TV+.  When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop you help fund OGWN by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. • Head to nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included.https://nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow Presented by Andrew Harrison with Rafael Behr. Audio and Video Production by Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. www.podmasters.co.uk  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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, manifesto promises – there’s a huge fuss over Labour potentially breaking them, but is that anything new? And in the extra bit for supporters – reasons to be a Luddite! The panel rallies against smart technology.  • Rachel suggests Fergus Butler-Gallie’s book Touching Cloth  • Jonn recommends Fergus Craig’s upcoming book I'm Not the Only Murderer in My Retirement Home  • Marie is reading New Boy by William Sutcliffe  When you buy books through our affiliate bookshop you help fund OGWN by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.  • Head to ⁠nakedwines.co.uk/ohgodwhatnow⁠ to get a £30 voucher and 6 top-rated wines from our sponsor Naked Wines for £39.99, delivery included. • If you want to find out more about Energise Africa and register as an investor, visit ⁠energiseafrica.com/ogwn⁠. ⁠www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow⁠  Presented by Seth Thevoz with Marie Le Conte, Rachel Cunliffe and Jonn Elledge.  Audio Production by Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Cornershop. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.  ⁠www.podmasters.co.uk⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices