RHLSTP Book Club 162 - Jonathan Freedland

RHLSTP with Richard Herring

British Comedy Guide

Comedy, Performing Arts, Tv & Film, Arts

4.8 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 28 November 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

RHLSTP Book Club #162 - The Traitors Circle - Richard talks to journalist and author Jonathan Freedland about his non-fiction thriller, The Traitors Circle, which isn’t about the TV series, but the horrific consequences of failing to discover a traitor in your midst in real life. They chat about the parallels between Nazi Germany and other more recent political developments, the surprising group of people who resisted Hitler in varying degrees and the complicity of the vast majority. How one of the characters in the story was at the heart of development of mass extermination and how others were willing to go along with mass murder, the incredible luck that Hitler enjoyed in the various assassination plots that he survived, the fervour with which his supporters continued his work, even as their enemy was at the gates and how there is no justice for the traitor at the heart of the circle. Plus how in spite of the horror of the subject, the bravery and rebellion of the people who opposed the regime is an incredible positive and what effect does a subject like this have on the author.

Buy the book here https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-traitors-circle-the-rebels-against-the-nazis-and-the-spy-who-betrayed-them-jonathan-freedland/7872819

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello IT nerds and anyone else who's chance to cross this by accident.
0:03.5	Welcome to my podcast feed.
0:05.4	The big news is we have guests for the 1st December, Rahalasthapa, at the Leicester Square
0:10.1	Theatre, where I'll be talking to Richard Osmond, best-selling author and nascent podcaster.
0:17.0	He thinks he can do podcasts.
0:18.4	What does he know?
0:19.4	And also Matthew Bainton, who's shortly appearing in the champion, a champion's edition of Taskmaster and from ghosts and everything. It's an amazing bill. The tickets are selling really fast. I think there might be a couple of £18.50 tickets left if you're quick, but then it goes up to something like 21. So book quickly. Go to rich herring.com slash Rahalisterpa for the links for that.
0:40.0	And all the upcoming Rahalashtabas in Leicester, Chelmsford and London.
0:44.8	There's three or four more in the Leicester Square Theatre in the new year.
0:47.5	Anyway, look, let's sit back, relax.
0:49.4	Richard Herring.com slash Rahalisterpah. Go there now.
0:52.0	Sit back, relax and enjoy the podcast.
0:55.4	Thank you so much for downloading and enjoy this offering hello welcome to another rahalista book club this week i've been reading the
1:05.9	traitor's circle by jonathan three glen who joins me now I mean, the first thing we have to say,
1:12.1	just the timing of this book,
1:15.1	it does feel like it might be about something other than it is about.
1:19.6	Yes.
1:20.6	It is not about the TV show The Traitors.
1:23.8	Well, not.
1:24.7	I mean, it sort of is, but in a horrible way,
1:30.3	is that proved to be a good thing or a bad thing that this is? Probably a good thing. I mean, visually, you know, if people could see
1:35.8	the cover, they would see, it's not the graphic that they recognise. It's instead, it's a sort of
	...

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