Inside The Room - The Libya Conflict: The Build Up (Part One)
Political Currency
Persephonica
4.1 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As renewed violence erupts across the Middle East, governments have been forced into crisis mode... but when is the right time to intervene, how involved should you get and when, if ever, is it time for 'boots on the ground'?
It's these dilemmas and more that are currently facing Keir Starmer and other world leaders, but it's not the first time a UK government has had to find answers for such big questions about international intervention.
Fifteen years ago the civil unrest of the Arab Spring spread to Libya. The violent crackdowns against anti-government protestors that followed sparked seven months of NATO military intervention and led to the killing of Muammar Gaddafi, putting an end to his 42-year dictatorship.
In this special mini series, Ed Balls and George Osborne are joined by former MI6 Chief Sir John Sawers to discuss the key decisions, missteps, and aftermath of the Libya crisis. We take you inside the war rooms and hear unique insights from John, George and two other officials who saw key decisions being made first-hand: former EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Cathy Ashton, and deputy national security adviser to the coalition government, Hugh Powell.
What can the wars of the past can teach us lessons for the wars of today?
In part one, we look at how the UK government reacted to the escalating situation, why David Cameron and then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy pushed for military action, and the steps that led to the first bomb being dropped… and how it managed to surprise Britain.
Thanks for listening. In our next episode we take you right behind the scenes of the military action and hear about all of the drama that ensued, including the moment Sir John Sawyers took an informant for a secret dinner…
Can’t wait? Subscribe now to get all three parts of Inside the Room: The Libya Conflict. You will also get access to our debrief episode The Inquiry, as well as early and ad-free access to our regular episodes of EMQs.
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Credits:
Research: Monica Lillis, Ayla Krachai, and Sam Burton
Production support: Tom Jackson
Production: Caillin McDaid and Nasreen Arain
Video Editor: Avi Asher and Oliver Geraghty
Executive Producer: Ellie Clifford and Henrietta Harrison
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, my So, So welcome to another series of Inside the Room with me Ed Balls and George Osborne. |
| 0:29.1 | Yes, this is the series where we take a deep dive into some of the big moments in our recent political history. |
| 0:36.0 | And we talk to the decision makers and we take you |
| 0:39.2 | inside the room where these decisions were actually made. |
| 0:42.3 | That's right. |
| 0:43.3 | Over the last few years, we've had David Cameron, Michael Gove, Nicholas Sturgeon. |
| 0:46.3 | You can catch up on all of those more on YouTube and up to now they've been about domestic |
| 0:50.0 | politics but today we're going to do something a little different. |
| 0:52.3 | Yeah. |
| 0:53.3 | In light of the recent conflict in the Middle East, of course, the American and Israeli action in Iran, it's got us thinking |
| 0:59.0 | about conversations that will be going on inside war rooms, inside cobras, inside cabinets |
| 1:05.2 | across the world, and working out how you conduct military interventions and are they always doomed to be messy. So we're going |
| 1:13.0 | to take you back to a period that I was involved in. I was in the cabinet at the time. This is |
| 1:17.9 | 2010 and 2011 in particular and it's the outbreak of the Arab Spring and that leads to the |
| 1:24.1 | intervention in Libya. As you say, George, I was in Parliament, but not in the room anymore, sadly. We were in |
| 1:31.2 | opposition. You, George, were there with David Cameron in the war room throughout this conflict. |
| 1:36.1 | And of course, it wasn't just a story about what was going on in Britain or indeed in Libya. |
| 1:40.4 | The French dimension was incredibly important, so we'll talk a bit about what was going |
| 1:43.9 | on in Paris. |
| 1:44.5 | And, of course, you couldn't ignore, and you never can ignore Washington, D.C. |
| 1:48.0 | So we're going to be talking also about the Obama administration. |
| 1:50.9 | It's a complex story. |
... |
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