Traitor

20 Sep 2022 72 minutes

'...if a Man do levy War against our Lord the King in his Realm, or be adherent to the King’s Enemies in his Realm, giving to them Aid and Comfort in the Realm...' Treason Act 1351

1. Intro 2. Moving Target 3. Throwback 4. Scapegoat and Redemption 5. Cold War p.s. Judas Iscariot

Traitors have always been the most hated and vilified of creatures. And rightly so. Often it involves the very survival of a tribe, nation or belief and the traitor is the viper at the heart of the body politic. We all know their names and whether it is Kim Philby or Aldrich Ames, Klaus Fuchs or the Rosenburgs, they epitomise the worst of human behaviour. There will ever be those who sell out through personal weakness or for thirty pieces of silver. Yet in the more autocratic regimes, anyone can be painted and scapegoated as a traitor. There was the Dreyfus affair in late nineteenth century France fuelled by antisemitism and in Russia today there will surely be those selected by Putin as fall-guys for his own failure.

In this episode we peer into the dark recesses of treachery and statecraft, and discover it is not always as clear-cut and simple as it seems.

so it goes,

Tom Assheton and James Jackson

Reference:

Cold Cut by James Jackson

Traitor

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