The SCANDAL Mongers Podcast
Every week Phil Craig and his guests reveal the world’s BIGGEST scandals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Andrew and Fergie REVEALED - with Andrew Lownie | Ep.125 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil’s old pod pal Andrew has written a groundbreaking and highly controversial new book on the Yorks - and he is returning to the pod with all the best stories! He’s also going to share just how hard it was to get this book across the line…
History on Drugs + Phil on ‘Kneecap’ | Ep.124 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil has just returned from a week Northern Ireland - a place where he worked during ‘the Troubles’. It prompted him to think about the peace process there, today’s fashionable support for the pro-IRA (and allegedly pro Hezbollah) band call…
Harry & Charles + The Battle of Britain - with Victoria Taylor | Ep.123 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Is there a peace process underway between Prince Harry and his father? Recent photographs suggest that there is. But inside the feuding royal households, just who is backing peace and who isn’t? And what will Meghan and Catherine think abo…
Cricket - The Greatest Game, The BIGGEST Scandals | Ep.122 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil is a self confessed ‘cricket tragic’ and he’s not the only one. This week Tim Wigmore joins him to reveal the real story of Test cricket - the international version of the game. It’s a tale packed with moments of great sporting endeav…
Agent Zo - with Clare Mulley | Ep.121 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil returns to the secret side of WW2 with the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. As writer Clare Mulley explains, she was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second…
THE ELOPEMENT Inside Jane Austen’s World - with Gill Hornby | Ep.120 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week we look - for the first time - at a novel and Phil is joined by writer Gill Hornby.The Elopement is the third book in a trilogy exploring the world of Jane Austen’s family and the first in the series - Miss Austen - was recently t…
Private Lives and Public Gaze - with Tiffany Jenkins | Ep.119 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Mok O’`Keeffe returns as co-host and, together with Phil, explores the complex subject of privacy with Tiffany Jenkins, whose new book Strangers and Intimates makes the case that we need to restore the idea of a truly private life back to t…
London’s Legal Shame - with David Hooper | Ep.118 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil is joined again by the lawyer David Hooper, who has a new edition of his book Buying Silence coming out. David is one of the world’s great campaigners for open, affordable justice and a fierce opponent of the practice - common in Londo…
The UK Grooming Gang Cover Up - with Julie Bindel | Ep.117 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil is joined by campaigner and writer Julie Bindel, the first person to investigate the grooming gang scandal that has so shocked Britain over the last two decades, and which seems to be continuing. A lesbian rights activist and life lon…
Meghan, Dragons Oh My + Vatican Secrets | Ep.116 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Our friend Gerald Posner returns to bring his unique insight into the story BEHIND the election of a new Pope - the overlapping financial and sexual scandals that have plagued the Vatican for many decades. Gerald explains why is has proved …
The Most Scandalous Drink In The World | Ep.115 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week we enter the demi-monde of the belle epoch to explore the strange and scandalous story of Absinthe, with writer Nina Studer. By the time it was banned in 1915, the famous 'green fairy' had become the green peril, feared for its co…
The Secret War Between Britain and… France! | Ep.114 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week we continue exploring the Second World War by revealing one of its most surprising, colourful and sometimes farcical stories - the two year undeclared war between Britain and Vichy France. Tim Bouverie is Phil’s guest and he tales…
The Secret History of Hong Kong - with Paul French | Ep.113 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil begins this episode with his thoughts on the rather shocking news that the UK government has pulled back from the already limited inquiries into the ‘grooming and rape gang scandal’. What’s going on?Then Paul French returns to the podc…
Scandalous Stories of WW2 | Ep.112 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil’s new book, 1945 The Reckoning, is published on April 24 2025 in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand and in this special episode he is switching roles with his friend and occasional co-host Mok O’Keeffe.Mok has been reading the bo…
Catherine The Great - with Carolyn Harris | Ep.111 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil is promising to open with another reading from his upcoming book 1945 The Reckoning - but you can always skip!After that we welcome Carolyn Harris back. This extraordinarily well-read Canadian academic is a gifted communicator and an e…
Imperial Revelations - with Sathnam Sanghera | Ep.110 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil has been thinking a lot about the British Empire recently, and it is a major theme of his upcoming new book about 1945. And so he was delighted to speak with best-selling writer Sathnam Sanghera.Sathnam has written extensively on how t…
The Secrets of Gay London | Ep.109 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Not everyone enjoyed Phil’s parody of Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show last week. Are we all being too cruel about her?Mok O’Keeffe thinks we might be. This week he joins Phil in another co-hosted episode and talks about his feelings for M…
The Real Ruth Ellis Story | Ep.108 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
What's this? Meghan Markle in Phil's Australian Bar?Then Carol Ann Lee joins Phil to discuss her incredible book on Ruth Ellis, on which the new international TV drama is based and in which Ruth is played impeccably by the British-American …
William's Message to Harry + The Story of Seduction | Ep.107 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil has spent decades analysing royal spin - from the age of Diana to the current TransAtlantic stand off between her two sons. He thinks that the interview Jason Knauf gave this week to the Australian 60 Minutes series is one of the most …
An Aussie Justice Scandal | Ep.106 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
One of Phil’s former colleagues, Quentin McDermott, joins him from Australia to report on the remarkable case of Kathleen Folbigg - one of the greatest miscarriages of justice of our age.After four of her children died under the age of 20 m…
What Next For Harry - And The Real Queen Charlotte | Ep.105 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
For a long time the Invictus Games was one event that even critics of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex admired - but the latest games have drawn criticism for their conduct? Is it fair? And where do the rebel royal couple now stand?Then Dr N…
Britain’s Rogue Agent + Starmer’s Voice Coach Scandal | Ep.104 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil reacts to the emerging story of a possible new British political scandal. Having come to power partly because Boris Johnson fell foul of Britain’s tough Covid rules, did our current Prime Minister break them too and, if so, should it e…
Britain’s Rogue Agent + Starmer’s Voice Coach Scandal | Ep.104 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil reacts to the emerging story of a possible new British political scandal. Having come to power partly because Boris Johnson fell foul of Britain’s tough Covid rules, did our current Prime Minister break them too and, if so, should it e…
Opium! The British Empire’s Dirty Drugs Scandal | Ep.103 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week Prof Alan Lester joins Phil to lift the lid on a little known - but certainly scandalous - slice of British imperial history - the Opium Wars. There’s much debate today about slavery and how much - or little - it contributed to th…
HARRY WINS, or does he? Plus The Real Marie-Antoinette | Ep.102 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
After the dramatic conclusion of Prince Harry’s case against the Murdoch Empire - which was supposed to be the media trial of the Century - Phil asks whether it was all worth it. Then Carolyn Harris - a renowned expert on royal consorts - j…
Harry v Murdoch - The Final Countdown | Ep.101 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Britain's headstrong royal exile is soon to step into the legal ring with the media mogul and his entourage, in Harry's continuing campaign to make senior executives accountable for the hacking and other tabloid scandals in the UK. And pre-…
The Walls Have Ears - with Dr Helen Fry | Ep.100 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
In our final episode of the year - and the 100th edition of the podcast - Helen Fry returns to share some more remarkable stories from the Second World War. Helen tells Phil of a long secret intelligence operation designed to extract inform…
Heiresses! Tales of Scandal, Seduction & Sacks of Cash | Ep.99 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Writer Laura Thompson returns to the podcast, bringing all the insights and cleverness that has made her one of our most popular guests. And this time her subject is 'the heiress', including some of the most celebrated women in high societ…
A Most SCANDALOUS Royal Marriage - with Carolyn Harris | Ep.98 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week Carolyn Harris joins Phil to talk about one of the most extraordinary royal relationships of all time; between the future George IV and his unhappily married wife Caroline of Brunswick.From a disastrously drunken wedding night, wh…
Wallis Simpson’s Secret Life In China - with Paul French | Ep.97 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Long before she became one of the most famous women in the world - and the love of a man destined to become a King-Emperor - Wallis Simpson had lived an extraordinary life. Perhaps the most incredible part of it was when she went to live i…
Lord Byron & Friends: Mad, Bad & Scandalous! | Ep.96 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Mok O'Keefe - aka 'The Gay Aristo' - returns to the podcast this week as a guest host. Mok - who lives in an actual castle - is a great fan of all things Gothic and so he's the perfect person to help Phil explore the scandalous life of Lor…
Rory Cellan Jones - My Mum, Scandal & Me | Ep.95 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
When BBC reporter Rory Cellan Jones uncovered a pile of old love letters under his mother Sylvia's bed after she died, he unearthed the secret story of his own life. The result was a bestselling book of real power and intelligence, in which…
Prince Andrew Home Alone + Churchill’s Bandits | Ep.94 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil has the latest on the semi-public tug of war over Prince Andrew’s living arrangements. How much longer can he cling on to Royal Lodge? And why do key figures in the British establishment find it so easy to cling onto power and positi…
The Super Smart Women Who Won The War - with Helen Fry | Ep.93 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
This week we dip into the remarkable - and often scandalous - world of military intelligence with historian Helen Fry.Her widely acclaimed new book Women in Intelligence reveals a huge number of fascinating stories of the critical - and oft…
Boeing, Boeing, Gone? + The Latest on Fayedgate | Ep.92 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Phil considers the feedback from last week’s remarkable interview with David Hooper and asks what Diana, Princess of Wales might have been told when she first agreed to go on holiday with Mohamed Al Fayed. Then this week’s guest - our frien…
Mohamed Al Fayed’s Private Army Exposed! EXCLUSIVE interview | Ep.91 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Top British lawyer David Hooper has made a career out of standing up to the powerful and the wealthy, and so when Vanity Fair magazine needed someone to defend its groundbreaking 1995 expose of Mohamed Al Fayed - the first time sexual alleg…
Taylorgate! And The Women The Kennedys Destroyed | Ep.90 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Britain’s new government is caught in a series of scandals about freebies, cronyism and ‘cash for access’. And now we have allegations surrounding the recent Taylor Swift concerts in London which might - or might not - be responsible for th…
Simon Heffer on the Abdication Crisis + Freebiegate! | Ep.89 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
Britain’s new Labour government has been shaken by stories of ‘gifted’ suits, penthouse flats and tickets for Taylor Swift concerts. Phil explains why this matters - and what it tells us about the problems of governing in the internet age.D…
Harry & Meghan Separate Lives + Women Detectives That Changed Policing | Ep.88 | Scandal Mongers
Phil has spoken before about how he’d love to see Harry back in the royal fold. Are we seeing the first signs of this now, with a series of solo appointments that look a lot like old traditional royal visits? Meanwhile Meghan appears to hav…
Fayed - Was Diana Warned? And Cricket’s Most Scandalous Player | Ep.87 | The Scandal Mongers Podcast
The revelation of many sexual allegations against Mohamed Al-Fayed has shocked the UK. The former owner of Harrods, confidante of Princess Diana and friend of British high society has been accused of a litany of crimes and a decades-long …