What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian...
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So far this season we’ve had to deal with Russell Brand and Benjamin Netanyahu, and we’ve got the Daily Mail coming up, so we all deserve a more uplifting tale. This week we commence the epic story of the British Broadcasting Corporation — the BBC.
“Hullo, hullo, 2LO calling. 2LO calling. This is the British Broadcasting Company. Stand by for one minute please!” With those words, at 6pm on Tuesday 14 November 1922, the amiable wireless wizard Arthur Burrows introduced just tens of thousands of listeners to Britain’s first national broadcaster. Its founding director general, John Reith, defined its mission in three words: “Inform, educate, entertain.”
When Reith and his team set up shop in Savoy Hill in 1923, the BBC’s staff numbered just 31, including the cleaner. A century later, the BBC is the world’s most popular public broadcaster and most trusted news source. It is the heart of the UK’s soft power and one of our most beloved national institutions. It is the mirror of our tastes and concerns and the background to our lives. Yet it has always been a battleground, too, tormented by newspaper barons, rival broadcasters, suspicious politicians and its own internal tensions. As 1960s director general Hugh Carleton Greene observed, it is “the universal Aunt Sally of our day”.
The story begins with the utopian dreams of the wireless pioneers, and Reith’s own paternalistic idealism about the power of radio to elevate the nation. We meet such gamechanging talents as Hilda Matheson and Cecil Lewis as they develop the art of broadcasting — including one, inevitably, who becomes a fascist. In 1926, the BBC faced its first major crisis, the General Strike, and made its first sworn enemy, Winston Churchill. By
1939, the BBC had 34 million radio listeners and was pioneering the new medium of television. During the Second World War, it proved its worth as a morale-boosting, unifying force at home and an advertisement for democratic British values abroad. One French broadcaster called it “a torch in the darkness.” We end part one with the BBC preparing to enter the radically transformed post-war world and the age of television.
What are the origins of the BBC’s values and structures? Who were the shellshocked misfits who got it off the ground and why did they think it would change the world? Why did the General Strike almost bring it to its knees? How did it help win the war? Oh, and what did Reith have against television?
It’s a saga of bohemians, bureaucrats and bust-ups, with walk-on parts for George Orwell, HG Wells, the Bloomsbury set, JB Priestley, Ewan MacColl, Lord Haw-Haw and Mickey Mouse. And at the centre of it all is the prickly, domineering, inspirational figure of John Reith. Stand by for one minute please!
Reading list
Patrick Barwise and Peter York – The War Against the BBC (2020)
John Birt – The Harder Path: The Autobiography (2002)
Bill Cotton – Double Bill: 80 Years of Entertainment (2000)
Desert Island Discs with Sir Hugh Greene (1983)
Simon Elmes – And Now on Radio 4: A Celebration of the World’s Best Radio Station (2007)
Lionel Fielden – The Natural Bent (1960)
Grace Wyndham Goldie – Facing the Nation: Television and Politics 1936-1976 (1977)
David Hendy – The BBC: A People’s History (2022)
Charlotte Higgins – This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC (2015)
Sam Knight – ‘Can the BBC Survive the British Government?’, New Yorker (2022)
Ian McIntyre – The Expense of Glory: A Life of John Reith (1993)
... Full reading list available on Patreon
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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1:20:37
Benjamin Netanyahu – Part two – Divide and conquer
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This week we complete the story of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s most politically successful prime minister — and its most divisive.
We pick up the story in 1996, with Netanyahu’s first term in office, clashing with both President Clinton and his hard-right coalition partners over the future of the Oslo peace process. We follow his subsequent decade in opposition, as the dwindling of hope and the misfortunes of his rivals enabled him to make yet another unlikely comeback in 2009.
Apart from 18 months of political chaos, he has been in power ever since, growing more hostile towards the Palestinians and Iran and more authoritarian at home — some say Netanyahu was Trump before Trump. The Israel that suffered the blow of October 7 was outwardly strong and prosperous yet more divided, corrupt and unpopular than ever. Its conduct of the subsequent wars demonstrates the costs of Netanyahu’s self-serving machinations, his embrace of the far right and his unforgivingly bleak worldview. Even as a majority of voters want him to step down, he hangs on.
Is Netanyahu just an extraordinarily canny operator or the true representative of a new Israel, a long way from its founders’ intentions? How did peace with the Palestinians go from a real possibility to a broken dream? Why does everyone from foreign leaders to members of his own cabinet have such contempt for Netanyahu? And how can Israel recover from his ruinous leadership? To understand where the country is now, you need to understand the man.
• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory
• Get exclusive extras like supporter-only Q&A editions when you back Origin Story on Patreon.
Reading List
Books
Neill Lochery - The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Benjamin Netanyahu - A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World (1993)
Benjamin Netanyahu - Bibi: My Story (2022)
Anshel Pfeffer - Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu (2020)
Ari Shavit - My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel: Updated edition (2015)
Avi Shlaim - The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000)
Articles
David Margolick - ‘Star of Zion’, Vanity Fair (1996)
David Remnick - ‘The Outsider’, New Yorker (1998)
Joshua Leifer - ‘The Netanyahu doctrine’, Guardian (2023)
David Remnick - ‘The Price of Netanyahu’s Ambition’, New Yorker (2024)
Donald McIntyre - ‘How Netanyahu gambled with the Fate of Israel’, Tortoise (2024)
John Jenkins - ‘Netanyahu’s all-out war’, New Statesman (2024)
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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1:22:17
Benjamin Netanyahu – Part one – Making enemies
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This week we commence the story of Benjamin Netanyahu. The 75-year-old has become Israel’s longest serving prime minister despite never winning the love of his people, his international allies or even his political colleagues. Now he is accused of prolonging Israel’s horrific wars in Gaza and Lebanon to preserve his own power and save himself from prosecution for corruption. How did the man known even to his foes as Bibi rebound from so many scandals and defeats to become the dominant force in Israeli politics, and what does that say about the country Israel has become? If you haven’t heard our two-parter on Zionism, now is a good time – Apple / Spotify – because these episodes are a kind of sequel.
We begin with the influence of Bibi’s father and grandfather and the flinty, paranoid doctrine of revisionist Zionism. Netanyahu’s aggressive, ultra-conservative worldview was also shaped by his studies in the US, his combat experience in Israel’s wars of survival, and the dramatic loss of his beloved older brother Yoni during the 1976 raid on Entebbe Airport. After the revisionist party Likud ended Labor’s three-decade hegemony, he found his calling as a great communicator, bullishly promoting Israel’s interests, from television to the United Nations, throughout the 1980s.
Netanyahu’s first eight years in the Knesset coincided with the First Intifada and the Oslo peace process. In a time of hope for a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he offered cynicism and fear. When peacemaking prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Netanyahu was blamed for stoking the far right and he seemed finished politically. Yet within a few months, he was Israel’s youngest ever prime minister.
What has influenced Netanyahu’s bleak and spiky understanding of Jewish history and his role in it? How did such a widely disliked character achieve such surprising success? And how did Israel itself change during those tumultuous decades of frequent wars and elusive peace? To understand where the country is now, you need to understand the man.
• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory
• Get exclusive extras like supporter-only Q&A editions when you back Origin Story on Patreon.
Reading List
Books
Neill Lochery - The Resistible Rise of Benjamin Netanyahu (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Benjamin Netanyahu - A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World (1993)
Benjamin Netanyahu - Bibi: My Story (2022)
Anshel Pfeffer - Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu (2020)
Ari Shavit - My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel: Updated edition (2015)
Avi Shlaim - The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000)
Articles
David Margolick - ‘Star of Zion’, Vanity Fair (1996)
David Remnick - ‘The Outsider’, New Yorker (1998)
Joshua Leifer - ‘The Netanyahu doctrine’, Guardian (2023)
David Remnick - ‘The Price of Netanyahu’s Ambition’, New Yorker (2024)
Donald McIntyre - ‘How Netanyahu gambled with the Fate of Israel’, Tortoise (2024)
John Jenkins - ‘Netanyahu’s all-out war’, New Statesman (2024)
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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1:03:22
US Post-Election Live Show – Part Two
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Part two of Ian and Dorian’s post-Presidential Election show at the Tabernacle in West London, recorded on the 7th of November. After signing books (have we mentioned there are Origin Story books out?) Dorian and Ian returned to continue the analysis of what the hell just happened. They also considered what a Trump win means for the UK and answered some excellent audience questions.
• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory
• Get exclusive extras like supporter-only Q&A editions when you back Origin Story on Patreon.
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams and Chris Jones. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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1:11:35
US Post-Election Live Show – Part One
• Give or get 20% off annual Patreon backing for Origin Story in our Black Friday sale
Part one of Ian and Dorian’s post-Presidential Election show at the Tabernacle in West London, recorded on the 7th of November. The show turned into a group therapy session, after Trump won to become the first convicted felon to be elected to the highest office in America. Listen back to Dorian and Ian beginning the process of coming to terms with this world-changing outcome and its implications for global politics.
• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory
• Get exclusive extras like supporter-only Q&A editions when you back Origin Story on Patreon.
Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams and Chris Jones. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew.
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