Don’t you just love when decency interjects and sometimes people do the right thing, the orderly thing, the sane thing? Well voters of Makerfield have chosen order and unity over disorder and division, and now Starmer has done the right thing. The Orderly Transition to Burnham is on its way and it is an example of a prime opportunity for the institutions of Britain to showcase themselves to the domestic and international publics as orderly and functional.  So Jason starts by introducing this existing moment and then pivoting to regularly scheduled programming about international ordering that still works: NATO.

With the NATO Summit in Ankara fast approaching, will the fractures between Europe and America be on full display? Or will one of the world’s most successful alliances in human history come together and make a show of unity?

To preview the summit and survey global affairs from peacemaking to defence spending, Jason is joined by Ambassador Alessandro Minuto-Rizzo, the President of the NATO Defense College Foundation and former Deputy Secretary General of NATO (2001-8). The duo discuss what will come out of the Ankara communique, the future of Italian politics, and as they Order the Disorder - the role of NATO in the years to come. Ambassador Minuto-Rizzo puts forth his solutions to the Ukraine war, various ideas why giving up territory might not be that important these days, and his overall philosophy of optimism and keeping calm and carrying on. It might not be how everyone would look at global affairs, but it is very interesting that a man with five decades of high level diplomatic experience has this approach.  Hope you enjoy.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

For more on the work of the Foundation: https://www.natofoundation.org/

For more on Amb Minuto-Rizzo’s background and that of the foundation: https://www.natofoundation.org/about-us/

For more on Amb Minuto-Rizzo’s comments on global security alliances: https://www.natofoundation.org/regions-at-the-centre-cooperative-security-cooperation-versus-fragmentation/

For a great pod on what Burnham needs to do for an Orderly transition: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-fourcast/id1542796249?i=1000773763527 

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In this episode of Disorder Latest, Jason is joined by Thomas de Waal, journalist, author, and Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe who has spent decades studying the politics, conflicts, and societies of the Caucasus and wider Eurasian region. His book ‘The Caucasus: An Introduction’, is a must read for anyone looking to understand the region—its ethnic diversity, its ties to Russia, its cults of personality, and its geopolitical importance.

For ad free listening, early release episodes and more bonus content, join our Mega Orderers Club at ⁠disordershow.com/club⁠

Producer: Sam Cluely

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

Get Thomas’ book at ⁠https://www.amazon.co.uk/Caucasus-Introduction-Thomas-Waal/dp/0195399773⁠ 

Listen to our previous episodes with Armen Sarkissian, Armenia’s former president ⁠https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/OWJlOTI5YTYtMDBjZC0xMWVmLTg0N2MtMmIzNDcwZTAyMDQx⁠ 

And for more on the Armenian election: ⁠https://apnews.com/article/armenia-election-result-pashinyan-7168ab86aa0d9f2c967171c91c9611c9⁠ 

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For a special live edition of Disorder, we come to you live from the United Nations Association – UK, where Jason, Jane and Mark were  joined by a special guest-- Alexis Akwagyiram, Managing Editor for Africa at Semafor.

For a full, unedited edition of the episode with full q and a, join our Mega Orderers Club at disordershow.com/club

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

For full list of Makerfield Election candidates visit https://makerfieldcandidates.co.uk/ 

Watch Wes Streeting on News Agents https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VUDvtZWrtg 

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Over the weekend Iran launched waves of missiles at Israel, while Israel retaliated against military targets and a petrochemical complex in Iran, as an uneasy two-month truce appeared to break down.

Trump had earlier appeared keen to avoid an escalation, telling Bibi not to respond to the first barrage of Iranian missiles. Under the surface, Israel wants to complete the job in Lebanon, but Trump wants all the wars over so he can cover up his failure. We start the ep by Jason explaining these late-breaking developments and then introducing the electoral fight between neo-populism and progressivism in one of Latin America’s most geopolitically important countries.

As we pivot to the feature topic, we ask what is going on in Colombia's presidential election and will it jeopardise the country's peace agreement which former Disorder guest Jonathan Powell helped negotiate many moons ago? Might we see multiple Latin American countries moving to the neo-populism right helped by Trump - including the return of the Bolsonaro family in Brazil? What are the interests that the Trump administration is pursuing in Latin America? Is it mostly just about critical minerals or is it more of a shared worldview? And how can people in the continent pursue democracy and rights when the US and China are competing to get hold of their critical minerals? 

This week Jane meets distinguished human rights lawyer Viviana Krsticevic, executive director of the Center for Justice and International Law, founder of GQual and member of the UN’s independent fact-finding mission on human rights in Iran. They discuss how Vivi's childhood in Argentina under the military junta left her with a determination to fight for democracy, gender equality and human rights after seeing the costs of authoritarianism firsthand, and they discuss strategies for advancing freedom and justice despite the current age of political disorder and democratic backsliding. In the Ordering the Disorder segment they discuss, Latin America's role in global politics and how the key aspects of multilateralism are highlighted by the current search for the next UN Secretary General - likely to come from Latin America.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

For background on the electoral situation in Colombia pls consult:

https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/reaction-colombia-heads-toward-polarizing-runoff/

And https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/30/colombia-presidential-election-vote-resurgence-political-violence 

Check out Vivi's interview with IranWire on human rights abuses in Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFM9Z5Zyhxc

For more on Colombia, read this Q&A from the International Crisis Group: https://www.crisisgroup.org/qna/latin-america-caribbean/colombia-united-states/right-and-left-vie-victory-colombia-under-us-shadow

And for more of Jane's recent takes, check out her recent interview with Lewis Goodall on LBC on how Trump is redefining "ceasefire" - and not in a good way - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrjB2q7qYQQ

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It is our favourite time of the month, listeners questions!

This week Jason and Jane take listener questions around topics including: Will Netanyahu be ousted in this year’s elections? Have the Israeli anti-Bibi bloc learned the lessons of Hungary before the next parliamentary elections? Can Reform UK be trusted to do what they say they will? Is a constantly changing leader now the norm in UK politics? Does Trump’s trip to China change anything? And what’s the Disordering role of the UAE in global politics? And should the West give the UAE a tough love approach to help them play the role of global citizen better?

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

Pls find out about the 8 June 530pm in Westminster live podcast event and join the Mega Orderers club or Pay for Substack here to attend here: https://natoandtheged.substack.com/p/disorder-live-podcast-at-un-association 

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events like the 8 June 530pm Westminster event, visit disordershow.com/club

Jane’s recommended The Economist Bagehot column on whether Britain is ungovernable https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/04/22/sir-keir-starmer-cannot-govern-he-has-only-himself-to-blame 

Read Will Self’s new column on Starmer as mentioned by Jane https://x.com/wself/status/2054946706723160363 

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The crises across our disordered world are more interconnected than ever. As states pursue their own self-interest, genuine collective action for mutual shared benefit seems further away than ever before. How can we ever hope to Order this Disorder?

The pair start with the latest in Ukraine--following up on David’s recent visit there. Then they embark on a whistle stop tour of the Middle East, exploring the latest in Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. And… as they Order the Disorder, the discuss the situation in the Gulf, how the Gulfis and European Allies could help open Hormuz, the need to tackle misinformation, and why the Trump admin needs to put aside its destructive unilateralism and work more closely with traditional American allies on Ukraine and the Iran war.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Watch more on David’s attempts to address misinformation in Ukraine:  https://youtube.com/shorts/TWRqQNojKvg?si=dRu81hERC5-HYGNz

More on David’s career here: https://www.afslaw.com/attorneys/david-tafuri 

Plus his reporting from Ukraine’s frontline: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DYX_0c8kTjl/?igsh=eTY2dHh4Zm44eTJp 

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Today marks the 18th anniversary of the arrest of Ryan Cornelius, a British businessman stuck in jail on dubious charges over a real estate development project gone awry. And yet… the UK Government is doing nothing substantive to get his release, too scared to pressure a close ally. Does this episode showcase a key aspect of the Enduring Disorder: medium power democracies are too scared to pressure their wealthy allies to abide by the rule of law?

Originally sentenced to 10 years for a ‘crime’ -- that the first Emirati judge that saw the case declared was unsubstantiated -- he remains still detained after his initially unproved sentence was extended by a further 20 years. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has found his detention to be arbitrary, and his family has spent years campaigning for the UK and UAE authorities to secure his release. 

To find out more about this case and what it reveals about international relations, Jason is joined by Chris Pagett, Ryan’s brother-in-law. This is the first in our ever-other Thursday Disorder Latest series. Chris and Jason discuss what the UK Government should (and has so far failed to) do, the ways that automatic sanctions could order the disorder, and why cases like this spread in our era of Enduring Disorder and in turn spread yet further Disorder.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Read: MPs call for sanctions over British man detained in Dubai for 17 years

https://www.irishnews.com/news/uk/mps-call-for-sanctions-over-british-man-detained-in-dubai-for-17-years-HSOY7IGZZRJGNEO5TA3KGFZUYA/ 

Read: Dubai prisoner: Wife pleads for help to get husband home https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62162686 

Read: Families of UK prisoners detained abroad urge ministers to keep promises of help https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jul/16/families-of-uk-prisoners-abroad-urge-ministers-to-keep-promises-to-help 

Watch Chris in conversation with Iain Duncan Smith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9QXdNGsj_A 

A brilliant article from a few years back that tells the story in its entirety: https://www.economist.com/1843/2021/12/15/the-dubai-debt-trap 

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This week on Disorder, in a slight break from the Mayhem in the UK over the possible Leadership challenge to Starmer, Jane catches up with the President and CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and host of the Deep Dish podcast, Leslie Vinjamuri. Leslie and Jane used to work together at Chatham House. They start by discussing Leslie’s final project for Chatham House where she worked with a host of experts to analyse how rising powers, middle powers and US adversaries see the international order as well as new possible ideas of global Order. 

Surprise, surprise mega-orderers, the conversation proves the depressing result that we already know! -- i.e. that there are no serious alternative visions of order that are emerging and no non-neo-populists are putting forth compressive visions of global order. Will the continuance of the Enduring Disorder therefore be the hallmark of our times?

Probably yes :-< On a brighter note, Leslie thinks the US will revert to a more “normal” politics in Trump’s wake. Jane is not so sure: she and Leslie discuss why the UK hasn’t been able to “get back to normal” under Keir Starmer and how the breakdown of the political centre is making it harder and harder to address the long-term economic issues that underpin Britain’s current malaise. 

This week we also delve into Trump’s trip to China; the role of Europeans in enabling China, and how different camps in Washington are looking at the China trip - with think-tankers pretty skeptical that it will make any difference, while business leaders are eager to join the trip to what is, after all, the world’s second biggest market for most of them. No matter what happens there we must ask is Europe working with or against the US’s China policy? And will any coherent transatlantic order emerge out of a re-alignment over China?

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

Leslie’s podcast, Deep Dish - https://globalaffairs.org/commentary/podcasts/deep-dish-global-affairs-podcast 

Leslie on Bloomberg about Trump and Xi - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-05-11/us-iran-tensions-flare-ahead-of-trump-xi-meeting-video 

Leslie’s Chatham House project on competing visions of the international order - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/03/competing-visions-international-order 

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In the May 7, 2026 UK elections, Reform won biggly. They did so well that they even stole the show from the ascendent Celtic nationalists in the periphery. Gaining thousands of councillors in England, becoming the second largest party in Wales and the joint second biggest in Scotland. Meanwhile, in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland the biggest parties (Plaid Cymru, SNP, and Sinn Fein) are all separatists. This has ushered in disorderly ‘five party politics’ in England and a real threat to the union emanating from a Celtic periphery led by parties that wish to break up the UK. 

On this special episode of Disorder we ask: does the UK have a future at all anymore? Will it be very disorderly? And what are Reform’s actual policies?

To find out – and in our attempt to present a range of views on Disorder – Jason and Mark are joined by Alan Mendoza, Chief Advisor on Global Affairs to Reform UK. The duo push Alan to clarify Reform’s actual policies around local government, migration, and Reform’s attitudes to Brexit. Jason sees Reform as Disorders, but Alan makes a full throated and quite eloquent case as to why he sees Reform as Orderers rather than Disorderers. 

Hopefully the debate is podcasting at its best, filled with respectful disagreements that elucidate the underlying differences in world views. Either way, Reform UK is here to stay so we might as well understand them.

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Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit disordershow.com/club

How the winner-takes-all voting system has turned on Labour and the Tories: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxpqyndqwlo

How Reform won votes from Swansea to Sunderland

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy2nz4gwj5o

Hear Alan’s previous appearance on Disorder: https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/YTk0MzNmZDQtY2JhMS0xMWVmLWJjYTQtOGJjMjMxNmNhZTli 

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Something smells royally fishy. The stench has been detected wafting from Sandringham all the way to Balmoral. The scandals around Lord Mandelson and former Prince Andrew have showcased that the rich and powerful have been operating beyond the law and that royal sinecures have been used to obscure the provenance of ill-gotten gains.

Consider: In America, you make your money. But in Britain, you can use it for access. If the Epstein affair has shown us anything, it’s that a royal seal of approval is infinitely valuable. Friendship with a top working Royal takes one from the shady jet set into the global elite establishment. And if you can buy a royal seal of approval - like Epstein did with former Prince Andrew -- you get the keys to some of the most influential people in the world.

To discuss Epstein’s relationship with Prince Andrew, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sarah Ferguson, Jason is joined this week by Andrew Lownie, author of the Sunday Times number 1 Best Selling book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York. The pair look at what made Andrew’s personality so easily corruptible, how Andrew’s narcissism and megalomania were fueled, the role of Royal Reputation Washing across the globe, and why there could be more nasty revelations about what the royals have been up yet to come. Plus, as they Order the Disorder, they discuss making the royal family more accountable, transparent, and better at serving the British people.

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For more on our partnership with the New Books Network visit: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/up-partners/disorder⁠ 

Producer: George McDonagh

Subscribe to our Substack - https://natoandtheged.substack.com/

Disorder on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DisorderShow

Show Notes Links:

To join our Mega Orderers Club for ad free listening, early episode releases and exclusive access to live events, visit ⁠disordershow.com/club⁠

Get Andrew’s Book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York ⁠https://www.amazon.co.uk/Entitled-bestselling-devastating-biography-written/dp/0008775451

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