Crisis What Crisis with Andy Coulson

Lewis Moody was one of the most fearless players in world rugby. Known as “Mad Dog” for the reckless courage he brought to the pitch, he won seven Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups with Leicester, earned 71 England caps, and played every match of the triumphant 2003 World Cup campaign – coming off the bench in the final to win the lineout that set up Jonny Wilkinson’s unforgettable drop goal.
But his career was also a relentless test of how much his body could take: sixteen operations, repeated fights back to fitness, and years of severe colitis before a shoulder injury forced him to retire in 2012. Then, in September 2025, aged just 47, Lewis was diagnosed with motor neurone disease – a fatal, incurable condition that attacks the brain and spinal cord.
His response has been characteristically fearless, and strikingly open. He announced the diagnosis within weeks, let cameras into his family’s most difficult conversations for the deeply moving documentary Lewis Moody vs MND, and has raised well over a million pounds for MND causes. This is the crisis that can’t be trained, tackled or competed into submission – where the challenge is no longer to keep pushing, but to accept help and find purpose in what comes next.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing a crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM LEWIS
Break the mountain into daily steps. When a challenge is too big to face as a whole, shrink it to what you can do today.
Get to clarity fast, then act. Lewis can reach a decision with very little information and move – sometimes a flaw, but in a crisis, a gift. Once he was clear on going public with his diagnosis, he didn’t agonise; he acted within weeks. Don’t let the search for certainty keep you frozen.
Pressure is a positive; stress is the pile-up. Lewis came alive under pressure – he used the anxiety to focus his energy and perform. Stress was different: the moment too many things stacked up and the container overflowed.
The single most freeing thing he learned was that the brain can be trained like any other muscle. Give the critical inner voice a name, create a little distance from it, and you stop mistaking its noise for the truth.
You don’t have to fight the sadness. His instinct was always to stay upbeat and distract himself. A therapist told him it was okay to let the sadness be sad. Accepting it, rather than battling it, turned out to be the stronger thing.

CHAPTERS
04:12 – Sent off at Twickenham: the day control left his body
09:23 – Finding opportunity in adversity
11:33 – Intrusive thoughts he never spoke about
16:47 – We are not our thoughts
19:50 – A promise to his dad at Twickenham, aged 14
22:01 – Losing his father to Alzheimer’s
23:28 – Turning anxiety into performance
27:48 – The colitis he hid at the height of his career
31:00 – The 2003 World Cup
35:23 – Why losing rugby hit harder than his MND diagnosis
37:58 – The twitching muscle, and the two weeks that followed
42:49 – Why he chose to go public
45:38 – Lewis’s greatest fear
48:28 – The conversations he’ll treasure
55:02 – “Just keep on rowing”: what resilience means now
BUY LEWIS’S BOOK
Fronting Up – https://www.headline.co.uk/titles/lewis-moody/fronting-up/9781035447800/
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This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio).

Former Chief of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove has spent much of his life at the heart of crises that have shaped the world. From Cold War espionage behind the Iron Curtain to 9/11, the war in Afghanistan and even a rocket attack on MI6 headquarters, Richard knows what it means to operate under extraordinary pressure.
As the man known as ‘C’, he was responsible for decisions with Britain's national security at stake.
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis?, I sit down with Richard to discuss his Crisis Compass. The four points of navigation he turns to when facing crisis — a person, a habit, a comfort and a piece of advice.
If you haven’t heard our full conversation yet, we explore his extraordinary 38-year career in intelligence, from being recruited at just 21 to leading MI6 through 9/11, and what a lifetime in the shadows has taught him about resilience, making difficult decisions and keeping a cool head in a crisis.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
CHAPTERS:
01:07 A Person – His wife Rosalind, the influence of his parents and his instinct for self-reliance.
01:43 A Habit – Fly-fishing. The challenge of fishing on the Tamar and the Test, where nothing else matters.
02:22 A Comfort – Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, a good glass of red wine and a collection of 700 bottles.
03:37 A Piece of Advice – Making a decision is the easy part. The real challenge is putting it into action.
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https://www.instagram.com/onedecisionpodcast/
LISTEN TO THE ONE DECISION PODCAST
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/one-decision/id1583753742
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This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Gem Hall (video)

Sir Richard Dearlove is one of the world’s greatest living spymasters. He joined MI6 in 1966 at the age of 21, and over nearly four decades ran agents under intense Cold War surveillance in Nairobi, Prague, Paris, Geneva and Washington, before rising in 1999 to become Chief of the Service — the role known simply as C. His five years at the top were among the most turbulent in the Service’s history: his headquarters was struck by a rocket, 9/11 remade the global security landscape, and Britain went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Since leaving the shadows, Sir Richard has built a second, very public life — Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, business adviser, outspoken commentator, and co-host of the hugely successful foreign-affairs podcast One Decision.
In this conversation, Andy Coulson lifts the bonnet, as far as Sir Richard will allow, on the experiences that formed him, the decisions that defined him, and the lessons a lifetime in intelligence can offer the rest of us.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing a crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM RICHARD
Grasp your opportunities – don’t wait for luck. A successful career isn’t handed to you by chance. It comes from spotting the opening when it appears, and trusting your instinct for how to handle it.
Build a team you can trust. Pick dependable, loyal, focused people, lean on them, and let them carry the weight.
Self-pity gets you nowhere. The Dearlove family creed was simple: you get on with life. Whatever you’re facing, someone has faced worse and carried on.
The most dangerous problems don’t arrive with a bang; they build quietly while no one's looking. Start putting them right today, not when it’s too late.

CHAPTERS
07:15 – What resilience really means to a spymaster
08:54 – His father: an amputee who won Olympic silver on crutches
11:50 – Boarding school at four, and the making of a tough character
13:18 – The tap on the shoulder: joining MI6 at 21
18:58 – Prague: a life lived under constant surveillance
21:07 – Running a double agent behind the Iron Curtain
24:36 – How to read who holds up under pressure – and who cracks
28:03 – Becoming C
30:22 – The rocket attack on MI6
33:36 – 9/11: a shock, but not a surprise
39:07 – Iraq, the intelligence, and his quarrel with Chilcot
42:10 – Leaving the Service
46:51 – Russia, China and the end of the rules-based order
56:25 – Bond, Le Carré, and the myth of MI6
FOLLOW THE ONE DECISION PODCAST
https://www.instagram.com/onedecisionpodcast/
LISTEN TO THE ONE DECISION PODCAST
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/one-decision/id1583753742
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This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Gem Hall (video)

Reverend Richard Coles has lived multiple lives — pop star, priest, broadcaster, novelist. But the greatest crisis of his life came in the form of someone he loved deeply.
Richard watched helplessly as his partner David grappled with an addiction that cost David his job, his licence from the bishop, and ultimately his life.
In this bonus episode of Crisis What Crisis, I sit down with Richard to discuss his Crisis Compass. The four points of navigation that he turns to in order to help survive a crisis – a person, a habit, a comfort and a piece of advice.
If you haven’t heard the full conversation yet — his journey from pop star to priest, the AIDS epidemic that shaped his generation, his years with David, and what he’s learned about hope in the aftermath of loss — go back and find it in the feed. It’s well worth your time.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY:
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters and build real resilience when the pressure is on.
This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley, visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
CHAPTERS:
00:50 A Person – His circle of friends since his teenage years, now neighbours on the South Coast.
01:23 A Habit – Singing. Every Tuesday in the Brighton Festival Chorus.
01:49 A Comfort – Cooking. The whole ritual, start to finish — yes, including the washing up
02:31 A Piece of Advice – From a friend’s motto: “Be authentic and engage.” Work out who you are. Step into the world.
BUY RICHARD’S BOOK
A Carol and a Killing – https://geni.us/ACAROLANDAKILLING
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This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio).

Few people have lived as many lives as Richard Coles. In the 1980s he was the keyboard-playing half of the Communards, whose “Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the biggest-selling single of 1986 – taking him, almost overnight, from the dole queue to flying aboard Concorde and the full pop-star life.
Then, the gay socialist atheist who set out, in all seriousness, to bring down the government through the power of pop, became, of all things, a Church of England priest. Then a celebrated broadcaster, a best-selling novelist, a Strictly contestant, and the inspiration for the BBC sitcom Rev.
But behind the reinventions runs a thread of profound loss. As AIDS swept through his world in the 1980s, Richard watched a third of his circle die – the formative crisis, he says, of his adult life. At 17, before any of the fame, he survived a breakdown and an overdose he fully intended to be his last act. And decades later came the greatest loss of all: his partner David.
In this conversation, Andy Coulson explores a life in which crisis has repeatedly been the doorway to transformation – and what Richard has learned about loss, faith, forgiveness, and how we begin again when the life we knew is taken from us. His latest crime novella, A Carol and a Killing, is out this month.
POWERED BY KINGSLEY NAPLEY
I know what it is to have the right legal support around you when facing crisis. Kingsley Napley are the kind of lawyers I wish more people knew about – there to help you make the right decisions, protect what matters, and build real resilience when the pressure is on. This episode is powered by Kingsley Napley. Visit www.kingsleynapley.co.uk for more details.
FOUR LESSONS FROM RICHARD
Sometimes you just have to step forward. You may be uncertain, apprehensive, but stepping forward, into the unknown, is how a new chapter begins. Crises are unavoidable; the opportunity is in not being defeated by them.
When you get something badly wrong, face it, own it, make amends – and then let yourself be forgiven. Richard did a thing he remains ashamed of. What mattered wasn’t that he deserved forgiveness, but that he sought it, took his medicine, and learned to live with having been forgiven.
Get less interested in yourself. The habits of self-loathing are hard to shake, but Richard found relief not through endless self-examination but through caring less about his own importance – and turning his attention outward, to other people.

CHAPTERS
05:34 – Realising he was gay in a hostile world
12:10 – Seventeen, a breakdown, and the overdose he meant to be final
15:37 – Escape to London, and the friendships that still anchor him
18:26 – Bringing down the government through the power of pop
20:50 – The socialists who were, secretly, perfect Thatcherites
21:40 – Dole queue to Concorde – and the toll fame takes
29:35 – AIDS – the formative crisis
31:29 – The lie he told, the shame he carries, and seeking forgiveness
35:02 – The atheist who walked into a church and came out a believer
38:07 – Walking away from a life he loved to train for the priesthood
45:21 – Loving an addict
50:51 – Learning to live a life around the loss, not without it
BUY RICHARD’S BOOK
A Carol and a Killing – https://geni.us/ACAROLANDAKILLING
FOLLOW RICHARD COLES
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This was a Crisis What Crisis Production – Rex Fisher (producer), Ioana Barbu (studio manager), Fred Sharp (research), Johnny Seifert (audio), Jasper Cullen (video), Gem Hall (video).