Best of the Spectator

A year on from his presidential election victory, what lessons can Britain learn from Trump II? Tim Shipman writes this week’s cover piece from Washington D.C., considering where Keir Starmer can ‘go big’ like President Trump. Both leaders face crunch elections next year, but who has momentum behind them? There is also the question of who will replace Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United St...

Sam Leith's guest this week is Graham Robb. In his new book The Discovery of Britain: An Accidental History, Graham takes us on a time-travelling bicycle tour of the island's history. They discuss how Graham weaves together personal memories with geography and history, his 'major cartographic scoop' which unlocks Iron Age Britain and contemporary debates about national identity. Graham also has a...

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right! : Rachel Reeves goes on the offensive – and the defensive. After her surprise Downing Street address, Michael and Maddie pick over the many kites th...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Luke Coppen looks at a new musical subgenre of Roman Catholic black metal; Mary Wakefield celebrates cartoonist Michael Heath as he turns 90 – meaning he has drawn for the Spectator for 75 years; looking to Venezuela, Daniel McCarthy warns Trump about the perils of regime change; Michael Simmons bemoans how Britain is beholden to bad data; and, Hugh Thomson look...

Freddy Gray sits down with academic James Orr at the Battle of Ideas in London for a live Americano podcast to discuss Vice President J.D. Vance. Having been described as 'Vance's British sherper', James responds to how likely it is that J.D. Vance will be President one day, which weaknesses could hold him back and how Vance's unique closeness to Trump in office has given him vital experience to l...

Are the rich fleeing Britain? That's what the numbers suggest, but some activist groups have hit back that the data is dodgy. For the second episode of Reality Check The Spectator's economics editor Michael Simmons explains why the data shows that the wealthy are leaving Britain, and why this matters for everyone else. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘On the day of the local elections, when the Tories suffered a historic setback, Kemi Badenoch went to the gym and got her hair done,’ Tim Shipman reveals in the magazine this week. Aides insist that Badenoch has since ‘upped her game’. Her PMQs performances are improving and the CCHQ machine seems to have whirred into gear, making sure that Labour’s embarrassments – from Angela Rayner’s flat to t...

Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, according to Damian Thompson. Artificial intelligence is now so incredible that even educated westerners are falling back on the occult, and Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming obsessed with heaven and hell. An embrace of the occult is not just happening in California but across the world – with ‘WitchTok’, a new trend of middle-class women embracing...

Nat Jansz joins Sam Leith to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Moomin novels. The first of these, Comet in Moominland , was revised by author Tove Jansson a decade after the original publication date. To celebrate the anniversary Sort of Books , co-run by Jansz, is publishing this revised edition for the first time in English. Jansz discusses why she finds the books so compelling, the influenc...

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right! : the great Home Office meltdown. After a week of fiascos – from the accidental release of a convicted migrant to the collapse of the grooming gangs...

Piers Morgan sits down with Andrew Doyle in Glasgow to discuss Piers’s provocative new book,  Woke Is Dead , and share their unfiltered views on the state of the world today. Rather than celebrating the death of woke, Piers’s book advocates for the return of common sense and a less divided, more sensible society.  Piers Morgan: Woke Is Dead with Andrew Doyle  will explore why Piers belie...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Max Jeffery examines Britain’s new hard left alliance; Sam Leith wonders what Prince Andrew is playing; Michael Henderson reads his letter from Berlin; Madeline Grant analyses the demise of the American ‘wasp’ – or White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant; and, Julie Bindel ponders the disturbing allure of sex robots.   Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons. Hoste...

How did faith shape Margaret Thatcher’s politics? To mark the centenary month of Margaret Thatcher’s birth, Damian Thompson introduces a conversation between the Spectator’s Natasha Feroze, Thatcher’s biographer Lord Moore and Bishop Chartres who delivered the eulogy at her funeral. They discuss her relationship with faith, how both her family background and her training as a scientist influenced...

With a Gaza ceasefire deal, President Trump's attention has turned to ending the war in Ukraine. A meeting with Putin was suggested, before coming to nothing. Owen Matthews joins Freddy Gray to talk about the fundamental differences between Trump and Putin, the limits on Ukraine's President Zelensky when it comes to negotiation and why the global west keeps misunderstanding Russia time and time ag...

‘The Ultras’ are the subject of The Spectator’s cover story this week – this is the new Islamo-socialist alliance that has appeared on the left of British politics. Several independent MPs, elected amidst outrage over the war in Gaza, have gone on to back the new party created by former Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. The grouping has got off to a rocky start but – as Angus Colwell and...

Reality Check, The Spectator’s new data-driven show hosted by economics editor Michael Simmons, kicks off with a big name: Arthur Laffer. The man who taught Reagan to cut taxes tells Michael why Britain’s economy is 'disappearing', why the Bank of England shouldn’t exist, and why he still believes low taxes – and a little optimism – can send Britain 'to the moon and the stars.' Hosted on Acast. Se...

Sam Leith's guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the crime writer Peter James. Peter has contributed the introduction to a new edition of the classic thriller  The Eagle Has Landed , which is 50 years old this month. He tells Sam what it was that made Jack Higgins's novel so groundbreaking, about what it takes to make you root for the bad guys, how thrillers and detective stories di...

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right! : the slow-motion disgrace of Prince Andrew. As Virginia Giuffre’s new book reignites the Epstein scandal, Michael and Maddie ask: how much longer c...

The Best of Notes on ... gathers the funniest, sharpest and most wonderfully random pieces from  The Spectator’s  beloved miscellany column. For more than a decade, these short, sharp essays have uncovered the intrigue in the everyday and the delight in digression. To purchase the book, go to spectator.co.uk/shop On this special episode of Spectator Out Loud, you can hear...

Was this Donald Trump's most phenomenal week yet? Freddy Gray and Kate Andrews discuss the President's success in orchestrating a Gaza peace plan, his 'Mean Girls style' of dealing with world leaders, and how to interpret his comments about not being 'heaven bound'. They also talk about how Trump might bailout Argentina - but only if Javier Milei wins upcoming elections.  Hosted on Acast. See...

Broadcaster, writer, actor – and former MP – Gyles Brandreth joins Lara Prendergast on this episode of Table Talk to discuss his memories of food, from hating dates and loving 'bread sandwiches' to his signature dish of fish fingers and his love of eating baked beans cold from a can. Gyles also tells Lara about getting permission to eat swan, his encounter with Raymond Blanc and his friendship wit...

To mark the centenary of Thatcher’s birth, Michael Gove is joined by Charles Moore, her biographer, and Peggy Noonan, speechwriter to Ronald Reagan, to reflect on the chemistry that bound the two conservative leaders. Both outsiders turned reformers, they shared not only ideology but temperament – ‘They were partners in crime,’ says Peggy. Yet it wasn’t all harmony. As Charles notes, the pair weat...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Nick Boles says that Ukraine must stand as a fortress of European freedom; James Ball reviews If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI, by Eliezer Yudowsky and Nate Sores; Andrew Rosenheim examines the treasure trove of John Le Carre’s papers at the Bodleian; Arabella Byrne provides her notes on skip-diving; and, in the battle of...

‘Here be dragons’ declares the Spectator’s cover story this week, as it looks at the continuing fallout over the collapse of the trial of two political aides accused of spying for China in Westminster. Tim Shipman reveals that – under the last Conservative government – a data hub was sold to the Chinese that included highly classified information; one source describes this to him as a ‘stratospher...

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right! Michael and Maddie turn their sights to Westminster’s latest espionage scandal – and the collapse of the case to prosecute two men accused of spying...