Episode 052

None of the leaders of Britain's big three political parties are popular. But there's unpopular and then there's Ed Miliband. Cue the long knives and the metaphorical prospect of men in grey suits paying a house call to tell him his time is up. Damien McBride was once one of those grey-suited men. A veteran of the Blair-Brown fratricide, he got down and dirty and survived to tell the tale. He’s a man who knows where the bodies are buried - though, again, only metaphorically - and he joins us this week to tell us a thing or two about the dark arts of inner party power struggles and intrigue .

And in part two a report from the front in Syria: the medical front that is. More than three years into the civil war and foreign invasion of Syria, the medical services available to the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded could scarcely be more strained. Sanctions and war have transformed the medical front in Syria into killing fields but with much dignity and honour many doctors and nurses have remained at their post. One such doctor is Mr Ahmad Al Khaddour, cardiothoracic surgeon, and the personification of that dignity. He joins Sputnik this week to tell of the many heroes of that war torn country.

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