The Coming Storm This second series petered out with Episode 8 The Last Election, which was just basically an interview between Gabriel Gatehouse, producer Lucy Proctor and Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Oxford University, in front of a live audience at the BBC’s Radio Theatre. It wasn’t really worth listening to. However, the program redeemed itself with Inauguration: A Bonus Episode where Trump’s picks for cabinet positions threw up many people that they had interviewed or come across earlier while exploring different conspiracy theories. They briefly discuss Kash Patel, but the majority of the episode is devoted to Robert Kennedy Jnr and the vast conspiracy theory he espouses that links the assassination of his uncle and father, vaccines, China, COVID and Anthony Fauci.
In the Shadows of Utopia Season 2 Episode 17 The Khmer Rouge’s New Vanguard isn’t quite as long as the very lengthy previous episode- far more manageable. Lachlan Peters returns to Cambodia, where the Workers Party of Kampuchea was working mainly through teachers at private schools. He starts with a meeting in 1960, attended by perhaps 30 people at the Phnom Penh Railway Station (I’ve been there!) where Saloth Sar, who was by now third in line for the leadership of the party, addressed the faithful with a peaceful, relevant speech. They were by now shedding the Vietnamese influence, and the students from France took a more prominent role, sidelining the veterans of the older communist struggle, who were more tolerant of Sihanouk for his anti-imperialism, and more aligned to the Vietnamese communists. The ‘old guard’ were despatched to the countryside to gain the affections of the rural peasantry. But communism was a hard sell. By 1960s Sihanouk’s father, who had taken over the throne to free Sihanouk up to stand for election, died so he put his mother in, and had himself made Head of State for life. This required a referendum, which passed with a yes vote of 99.8%. Sihanouk was popular, and getting money from China, Russia and the United States. In 1961 he relaxed the pressure internally because he was more involved with the conflict with Thailand for the first half of the year. In the second half of the year he turned his eye back to the communists, with an eye to the upcoming 1962 election. The party went into hiding, while the official Communist Party the Pracheachon were arrested. Tou Samouth, the party secretary of the clandestine party was murdered. Historians disagree whether Sihanouk’s supporter Lon Nol, or Saloth Sâr (Pol Pot) were behind the murder. Nonetheless, Sâr became acting secretary of the party in hiding. It’s hard to know when he changed from Saloth Sâr to Pol Pot. In 1963 there was a student riot at Siem Reap where anti-Sihanouk slogans were chanted. The Workers Party of Kampuchea held another congress near Central Market (I’ve been there too!) where Sâr was elected Party Secretary. In February 1962 Sihanouk published a list of 34 ‘known subversives, which included Saloth Sâr .
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 