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 he reconstructs the scandalous relationship that created him - but that also limited his mother’s life choices and ensured that he would not know who his father was for many years.

Rory joins Phil to talk about his life, his mother and father, and the lost world of the 1950s and 60s - where smart young women could sometimes forge exciting careers but society looked very unkindly at love affairs that crossed age and class barriers.

You can buy Rory's book - and thousands of others - in our own online bookstore...

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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 position for so long, despite the most shocking scandals? The story of the Archbishop of Canterbury this week may help us understand.

Historian Adrian Phillips then joins Phil to talk about the endlessly fascinating subject of Winston Churchill in an entirely original way - through his strange collection of friends.

You can buy Adrian’s book - and thousands of others - in our own online bookstore...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/winston-s-bandits-churchill-and-his-maverick-friends-adrian-phillips/7711924?aid=12054&ean=9781785907890&

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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 often deadly - work done by British and American women throughout the 20th Century. Some of these stories - and these brave womens’ lives - have been kept deeply secret until the last few years.

You can buy Helen's book, and all the books we feature on the podcast here, along with thousands of others

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/women-in-intelligence-the-hidden-history-of-two-world-wars-helen-fry/7428008?aid=12054&ean=9780300260779&

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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 friend Clive Irving - joins Phil to reveal the story behind perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of the aviation business - the fall of the house of Boeing? As an aviation nut (as is Phil!) Clive spent years chronicling the golden age of this great American company and then had a ring side seat as its image - and tragically its planes as well - quickly fell apart. What went wrong, and what can be salvaged from the wreckage?

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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 allegations about him were ever published - David was the natural choice. What happened next was extraordinary, as revealed by David to Phil in this special and exclusive interview.

For two years Hooper faced a small army of private detectives, ex police, spin doctors and various other suspicious characters, all working for Fayed. There was an attempted entrapment, the suggestion of bribes being paid to serving police officers and endless pressure on witnesses. And then, after the tragedy in Paris, both sides withdrew from the case and Fayed was able to carry on - it is alleged - predating on women with little scrutiny for another quarter of a century.

You can buy David's book, and all the books we feature on the podcast here, along with thousands of others...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/buying-silence-how-oligarchs-corporations-and-plutocrats-use-the-law-to-gag-their-critics-david-hooper/7539510?aid=12054&ean=9781785908316&

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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 the downfall of a key Downing street aide. Phil wonders whether any of this really matters, and what it tells us about the state of politics today - and the power of scandal!

Then this week’s guest Maureen Callahan joins Phil to reveal some of the jaw-dropping stories in her groundbreaking new book on the Kennedys, Ask Not.

Portraying the men in the Kennedy family as a series of domineering and abusive sexual predators, Maureen brings to life the often terrible experiences of the women in their lives - and tries to give dignity and agency to some of the victims, women like Mary Jo Kopechne and White House intern Mimi Beardsley. She also shares a shattering description of the fate of Rosemary Kennedy.

You can buy Maureen's book, and all the books we feature on the podcast here, along with thousands of others...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/ask-not-the-kennedys-and-the-women-they-destroyed-maureen-callahan/7642726?aid=12054&ean=9780008473242&

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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.

Distinguished historian Simon Heffer then joins Phil to talk about his new book on Britain in the Interwar years, and gives us his very well-informed view about the greatest royal crisis of them all - the abdication of Edward VIII. It’s a fascinating conversation that anyone with an interest in Royal and British history - and the course of the Second World War - will not want to miss.

You can buy Simon's book, and all the books we feature on the podcast here, in our own online bookshop with profits shared between independent booksellers and podcasters - along with thousands of other great books...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/sing-as-we-go-britain-between-the-wars-simon-heffer/7419980?aid=12054&ean=9781529152647&

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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 have removed herself - or has been removed - from Harry's public life while she concentrates on her own new solo ventures - and selling jam. What’s really going on? Phil has been asking around.

Then this week’s guest Dr Sara Lodge takes us into the remarkable world of the first female detectives, with stories that will change the way you think about policing and the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Sara’s brand new - and very entertaining book - is packed with larger-than-life characters and fascinating social history.

You can buy Sara's book, and all the books we feature on the podcast here, along with thousands of others...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-mysterious-case-of-the-victorian-female-detective-sara-lodge/7663857?aid=12054&ean=9780300277883&

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