Alas Vine & Hitchens

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah Welcome are asking why is Sir Kier Starmer choosing not to condemn marriage between first cousins in some cultures? And what it might take for the Iranian people to be heard as civil unrest and revolution spread throughout the country?    Plus, why America is ruining the English language, the idea that Russia is a military world power is compl...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah look to the year ahead, as Peter wonders why this nation’s leaders and heads of the armed forces are rattling their sabres as they attempt to put the country on a war footing.   Plus, our duo on Conservatism (just what is it?) Christianity, the legacy of John Smith MP, the superiority of Japanese trains - any trains in comparison to our dilapi...

On this week’s episode, Peter is poring over the latest US national security strategy and being rather surprised by what he finds there. While Sarah is looking at why some people are calling for a resumption of the cancelled Lord Leveson Inquiry and therefore suggesting we blinker the free press.    Plus, our duo on the Arkansas Razorbacks (again), the legacy of Roy Jenkins, wh...

On this week’s episode, Peter wonders if it ever matters that Kier Starmer and Tony Blair were once Trotskyists? As well as addressing some recent, stinging criticism from a fellow Mail columnist… And Sarah ruminates on the Australian government’s ban on social media for children, and asks is it enough, or should we just wrestle the smartphones from their hands completely?   Plus, our du...

On this week’s episode, Sarah Vine addresses her thinning pate and loss of hair that has plagued her most of her adult life and why she’s now finally decided to cast her wig aside! Meanwhile, Peter looks at the incredible story of Nazanin Zaghari Ratcliffe, the woman held hostage by the same Iranian forces who took his friend prisoner too.   Plus, Peter and Sarah ruminate on dual na...

On this week’s episode, Sarah and Peter travel to St Peter's College, Oxford, where Peter ruminates on an increasingly unlikely peace deal in Ukraine, and Sarah begins by asking why Christmas starts earlier each year before regaling the student audience with tales of Christmas past more woeful that Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.   Plus, Peter and Sarah take on all comers, and each othe...

On this week’s episode, Sarah and Peter are asking why new trials for puberty blocking drugs in children have been announced after a government decided to ban it last year? And they’d really like to know why David Lammy would like to take our juries away from certain cases after once tweeting that the jury was the one of the pillars of our judicial system.    Plus, which countries d...

On this week’s episode, Peter, once described as ‘godless Trotskyist’ by The Guardian, will be ruminating on the legacy of one Leon Trotsky while Sarah will be asking if it’s ever okay to call someone piggy, no matter if you are the leader of the free world or a so-called alternative comedian with a national newspaper column.   Plus, debating Ann Coulter, Welsh authors you must read...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah ask why crazed ideologies seem to have taken root at the heart of both the BBC and the publishing world as we examine the corporation’s latest missteps and the scandalous case of author Kate Clanchy’s cancellation.   Plus, being berated on social media over shots of your bookshelf, trying to take the train to Glasgow on a Sunday (a schoolgirl...

On this week’s episode, Peter wants to know if the government really going to strip Andrew of his Falkland campaign medals and, in the light of this week’s attack, Sarah will be asking what kind of security do our transport systems need to make us feel safe? Plus, don’t get them started on parking permit portals, underwired bras, and the awfulness of some architects, but do ask them what hist...

On this week’s episode, Peter will be asking why Britain’s infrastructure is so very awful and why are we concreting over so much over the countryside and then sticking ugly new buildings all over it. While Sarah is dumbfounded by the fact that the Home Office costs £23billion and spends it time blundering from one debacle to another. Plus, Sarah reveals what ministers really fight over....

On this week’s episode, Peter is rejoicing in the news that the clocks revert to true time on Sunday, whatever that might mean, and Sarah is asking why the hell we closed down schools during the Covid 19 pandemic and what long-term damage it’s done to our kids. Plus, why does Sarah think politics in its current form is beyond saving, and why her dad had many, many accents. While Peter wonders...

On this week’s episode, on what would have been Margaret Thatcher’s hundredth birthday, Peter and Sarah tussle over the former PM’s legacy, charisma and what she did or did not do for this country. Elsewhere, Sarah asks why should King Charles solve the problem that is Prince Andrew when the King’s brother should admit he’s a liability and retire from the public eye?  Plus, where do our hosts...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah ask why parks shit down at the first sign of inclement weather? Why do under twenty-five-year-olds feel the need to rail against something, but not bother to read up on it first (we’ve all been there)? Elsewhere, Peter recalls chasing a bicycle thief while hitting him about the head with a bag of dirty laundry. Not to be outdone, Sarah admits to punching her...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah debate the idea of Digital ID cards, wonder at the minutiae we’re obsessed with as a nation, also, what did Sarah make of Michael Gove’s admission of his drug taking past? And sticking with history, where would our intrepid pair travel to if they could go anywhere in time and what one artifact or memento would they bring back with them?  On our reading...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah tussle with medical tourism and bloody murder. Peter wants to know what drives an assassin to kill and Sarah is asking why we’re allowing our already overrun NHS to become a destination for so called health tourists. Elsewhere, modern Methodism, being heckled by Danny Kruger while he was still a staunch Tory and is it the Union Jack or Union Flag or can...

On this week’s episode, Peter, and Sarah struggle to think of Camilla as Queen but for quite different reasons, though Sarah did very much enjoy her cosy supper at Clarence House, not least the excellent wallpaper and furnishings. While both bemoan the sinking state of Britain’s submarine fleet, and Peter recalls the time it was leaked that we once leased our missiles from the US much to the fury...

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah discuss vexillology, or flags for the layman. Not least how Peter was once saved by flying a rather tattered Union Jack while attempting to flee Somalia. While Sarah pores over our copious emails to mull over the suggestion from a listener that we take illegal migrants and put them in the army or at least to work. Elsewhere, someone’s been dreaming...

In this exclusive episode, Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens managed to grab lady of the moment Nadine Dorries, fresh from her unveiling at Reform’s conference. They tackle the state of the right, where it all went wrong for the Conservatives, whether the union to end all unions if one the cards, and yes… whether singing on stage is an acceptable face of a serious party. It’s a hum-dinger - you won’...

On this week’s episode, should we be worried about Keir Starmer’s digital IDs when, according to Sarah, we’re a slave to the digital idiom as it is. Not that Peter quite sees it like that.  Nor do the pair see eye to eye on the raising of children and what staying at home means for the parents or baby. Voices were raised, thoughts were shared, it would be untrue to say compromises were met. E...

On this week’s episode, Sarah wonders if Kier Starmer’s perceived weakness in leadership might have kicked open the door for Nigel Farage to come through? And Peter would like to ask; the hijab, a sign of oppression, or something that as a society should make us think more? Elsewhere, did any government in living memory impress Peter? Don’t count on it. Why did Christopher Hitchens once...

On this week’s episode, Sarah wonders if it’s worth putting into your pension pot anymore as new government policies promise to make your golden years anything but. While Peter would like to ask why does nobody likes appeasement until it suits them? Not that Sarah can help with that, she’s one of life’s great appeasers.  Elsewhere, all things considered, Peter would rather be a rich Edwardian...

Peter would like to know why Britain slept walk in to the First World War and what our country might look like if we’d never stumbled into that national tragedy. Elsewhere, Sarah and Peter pore over our bag of electronic mail and ruminate on everything from the benefits of counselling (Sarah is for it, Peter less so), how to write a novel – not that either have – the power of Billy Wilder’s The Ap...

In light of the recent documentary, Lucy Letby: Beyond Reasonable Doubt? Peter reiterates his call for a retrial of the convicted nurse. Elsewhere, Sarah asks if students are so worried about AI spoiling their chances of building a career, then why are they all using ChatGPT to write their exam papers? Also, Peter’s written a thriller, well, the first chapter at least. We can reveal very little of...

Peter is up in arms – who knew? – over Sarah’s use of centimetres over inches even though she was raised on the continent and it’s all she knows. A measure of distance which, he insists, are simply made up. For her part, Sarah tells us that if you’re going to employ a nanny, make sure it’s not an English one. Elsewhere, Sarah, admits she enjoys going to church, if only because it’s the one place w...