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The Hated and the Dead
Kissinger said that ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad name. Each week, a guest and I discuss the life and legacy of one politician from recent times. Some are well-known, others obscure; all have left an indelible mark on our world, and often for the worse. Join me, Tom Leeman, in a journey through the corruptible and the controversial.
Episodes
137 episodes
EP133: Warren Harding
Warren Harding was the 29th President of the United States, serving between 1921 and his death from a heart attack in the Summer of 1923.Harding famously proclaimed a "return to normalcy" following a frenetic period defined by severe ec...
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Season 12
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1:16:22
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EP132: Olaf Scholz
Olaf Scholz has been Chancellor of Germany since December 2021. Following the collapse of his government a few weeks ago, he seems headed for electoral defeat early next year. Where did it all go wrong?As a character, Scholz is muted an...
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Season 11
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1:14:02
EP131: Patrice Lumumba
Patrice Lumumba was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for just ten weeks in 1960. The brevity of Lumumba's time in charge reflects he difficulties of governing an enormous, ethnically diverse country delib...
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Season 11
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1:08:01
EP130: Daniel Noboa
Daniel Noboa has been President of Ecuador since November 2023. The youngest democratically elected state leader in the world, Noboa has had a highly tumultuous introduction to high office.In January this year, violent crime in Ecuador,...
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Season 11
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1:03:22
EP129: Robert Fico
Robert Fico has been the prime minister of Slovakia since 2023, and has served in that position three times since 2006. The thankfully unsuccessful attempt on Fico's life came at a time when the prime minister had become genuinely ...
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Season 11
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1:01:01
EP128: Nouri al-Maliki
Nouri al-Maliki was Prime Minister of Iraq between 2006 and 2014, a tenure that makes him easily the country's longest serving post-2003 prime minister. Maliki became Iraq's head of government in the maelstrom of Iraq's sectarian civil ...
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Season 11
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1:06:07
EP127: Sadyr Japarov
Sadyr Japarov has been the President of Kyrgyzstan since 2021. Japarov's rise to power came after his country had experienced three revolutions in 15 years, in a part of the World unused to political upheaval. Today's episode investigat...
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Season 11
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1:09:03
EP126: Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was President of Haiti three times between 1991 and 2004. A lightning rod for hope and democracy on his election in 1990, the overall course and tone of Aristide's political career was set remarkably early on in 1...
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Season 11
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1:08:32
EP125: Keir Starmer
Keir Starmer has been the leader of the UK Labour Party since 2020. This makes him Leader of the Opposition, and - if the polls are to be believed - Britain's next prime minister. Amid a revolving door of prime ministers, Brexit, and th...
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Season 11
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51:47
EP124: Afonso Dhlakama
Afonso Dhlakama was the leader of RENAMO, Mozambique's main opposition movement, for over forty years until his death in 2018. Dhlakama’s story, and the Mozambican Civil War at large, are notable for two reasons. First is the regional a...
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Season 11
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1:02:26
EP123: J.R. Jayewardene
J.R. Jayewardene served as prime minister and then president of Sri Lanka between 1977 and 1989. Sri Lankan history, politics and society is dominated by tensions between two ethnic groups. Ethnic divisions are intrinsic to countless co...
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Season 11
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1:23:03
EP122: The Houthis (Part 2)
The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association in people's minds with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistan...
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Season 11
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1:17:04
EP121: The Houthis (Part 1)
The Houthis, a Yemeni political and military organisation, have made headlines across the World since they began blocking the Red Sea nearly six months ago. But despite their association with Gaza, and Iran's "Axis of Resistance", their origins...
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Season 11
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48:16
EP120: Jens Stoltenberg
Jens Stoltenberg has been Secretary General of NATO since 2014, and prior to that served twice as Prime Minister of Norway. Looking at him is interesting because, at least in the early part of his premiership, many commentators, bu...
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Season 10
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1:10:17
EP119: John Magufuli
John Magufuli was the President of Tanzania between 2015 and 2021. He was the sixth in a long line of presidents drawn from the same political party, the CCM, which has ruled Tanzania since its independence in 1961. CCM presidents...
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Season 10
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1:12:15
EP118: Mary Lou McDonald
Mary Lou McDonald has been the Leader of the Opposition to the Irish Government since 2020. She is also the leader of centre-left political party Sinn Fein, currently the second largest party in the Irish parliament (Dail). Since 2000, ...
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Season 10
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1:03:52
EP117: Nayib Bukele
Nayib Bukele has been the President of El Salvador since 2019. He has transformed the country from the nation with the world's highest murder rate to that with the world's highest incarceration rate, having arrested more than 70,000 people (1% ...
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Season 10
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1:13:17
EP116: Hezbollah
Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group and political party, established in 1985. Hezbollah has a reputation as one of the Middle East’s great agitators, having engaged Israel in conflict twice, once in the 1980s and again in 2006....
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Season 10
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1:12:27
EP115: Kim Yo Jong
Kim Yo Jong is the younger sister of the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. Since Jong Un’s accession to power in 2011, he has placed his sister into positions of increasing importance domestically and increasing prominence in...
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Season 10
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1:06:38
EP114: Hafiz al-Assad
Hafiz al-Assad was the President of Syria between 1970 and 2000. Father of present Syrian leader Bashar, Hafiz inherited a country in disarray, beset by political and religious division at home, and subject to interference from regional powers....
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Season 10
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44:21
EP113: Alex Salmond
Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland between 2007 and 2014, during which time he led the unsuccessful referendum campaign for Scottish independence. Salmond was a ruthless political operator, who was difficult to pin down on the ...
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Season 10
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1:02:59
EP112: Islam Karimov
Islam Karimov was the 1st President of Uzbekistan from 1991 until his death in 2016. Terrified by the economic devastation which gripped Russia in the 1990s, Karimov decided that he would rather close the door firmly on market eco...
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Season 10
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1:01:45
EP111: Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician and longtime leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), now the Netherlands' largest political party, following a surprise victory in the country's November election. Wilders has made a name for hims...
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Season 10
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52:12