Best of the Spectator

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Owen Matthews says that Venice’s residents never stop complaining (1:11); Bijan Omrani reads his church notebook (7:33); Andrew Hankinson reviews Tiffany Jenkins’s Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life (13:54); as 28 Years Later is released, Laurie Penny explains the politics behind Alex Garland’s film franchise (18:25); and, Andrew Watts pr...

Starmer’s war zone: the Prime Minister’s perilous position This week, our new political editor Tim Shipman takes the helm and, in his cover piece, examines how Keir Starmer can no longer find political refuge in foreign affairs. After a period of globe-trotting in which the Prime Minister was dubbed ‘never-here Keir’, Starmer’s handling of international matters had largely been seen as a strength....

My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is the historian William Dalrymple, whose bestselling account of ancient India’s cultural and economic influence, The Golden Road , is newly out in paperback. He tells me why the ‘Silk Road’ is a myth, how Arabic numerals are really Indian – and how he responds to being Narendra Modi’s new favourite author. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

Nadine Dorries is one of the most recognisable Conservative politicians from the past two decades. Elected as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, she notably clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne (who she called ‘two arrogant posh boys’) and lost the whip in 2012 when she took part in the reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here . Loyal to Boris Johnson, she served in his governme...

Relations between Iran and Israel are deteriorating rapidly, with comparisons being drawn to Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be advocating for regime change in Tehran, reportedly encouraging the United States to take military action. Donald Trump, who previously came close to authorising a strike, is now said to be more ca...

In honour of the author Frederick Forsyth, who died early this week, please enjoy this episode of the Book Club podcast, from the archives, in which he joined Sam Leith in 2021 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his classic thriller The Day of the Jackal . On the podcast Frederick tells Sam about banging it out in a few weeks on a typewriter with a bullet hole in it, the shady characters who inf...

The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons is joined by the outgoing boss of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Paul Johnson and the CEO of the Resolution Foundation Ruth Curtice to understand why Britain’s economy is in such a bad place. Given it feels like we are often in a doom loop of discussion about tax rises, does this point to a structural problem with the British economy? And why are...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Sean Thomas reflects on the era of lads mags (1:07); John Power reveals those unfairly gaming the social housing system (6:15); Susie Moss reviews Ripeness by Sarah Moss (11:31); Olivia Potts explains the importance of sausage rolls (14:21); and, Rory Sutherland speaks in defence of the Trump playbook (18:09).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons. Hos...

OnlyFans is giving the Treasury what it wants – but should we be concerned? ‘OnlyFans,’ writes Louise Perry, ‘is the most profitable content subscription service in the world.’ Yet ‘the vast majority of its content creators make very little from it’. So why are around 4 per cent of young British women selling their wares on the site? ‘Imitating Bonnie Blue and Lily Phillips – currently locked in a...

In this week’s Book Club podcast I am joined by Lucy Mangan, author of Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives . She tells me what teenagers did before they had Young Adult books to read, the bizarre demise of the author of Goodnight Moon , and the wisdom of forsaking the busy world for an armchair and a good book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniel Taub, former Israeli Ambassador to the UK, joins Damian Thompson to talk about his new book  Beyond Dispute: Rediscovering the Jewish art of constructive disagreement . In a fast-moving interview, Daniel explains how the art of arguing has shaped Jewish humour and scholarship, and Damian asks him about keeping kosher, life after death – and the influence of the Talmud on  Curb You...

In the new edition of Spectator World, author and anthropologist Max Horder argues that the US is experiencing a change in its psyche, and left-wing violence is being normalised. He joins Freddy Gray on the Americano podcast to discuss the various examples attached to this, and what the dereliction of democratic disagreement means for us all. This episode is also available to watch on Spectator TV...

The Belgian composer César Franck – unfairly associated with kitsch and sentimentality by certain cultural sophisticates – wrote some of the most spiritually inspiring music of the late 19th century.  In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian Thompson talks to the British-Israeli pianist Ariel Lanyi, who has just recorded Franck’s late masterpiece Prélude, Aria et Final on the Linn label. Ariel d...

The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove and assistant editor Madeline Grant interview Rupert Lowe, MP for Great Yarmouth and notorious Westminster provocateur. Earlier this year, Lowe was suspended from the Reform party amid claims of threats towards the party’s then-chairman Zia Yusuf, and a souring relationship with Nigel Farage. Following his political ‘assassination’, he now sits as an independent...

Billionaire Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump have had a very public falling out. Musk, whose time running the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) came to an end last month, publicly criticised Trump’s spending bill (the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’). The row then erupted onto social media with Trump expressing his disappointment with Musk, Musk accusing Trump of ‘ingratitude’ – and e...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Max Jeffery tracks down the Cambridge bike bandit (1:10); Tanya Gold says that selling bathwater is an easy way to exploit a sad male fetish (5:38); Madeline Grant examines the decline of period dramas (10:16); a visit to Lyon has Matthew Parris pondering what history doesn’t tell us (15:49); and, Calvin Po visits the new V&A East Storehouse (23:08).  Produ...

How Reform plans to win Just a year ago, Nigel Farage ended his self-imposed exile from politics and returned to lead Reform. Since then, Reform have won more MPs than the Green Party, two new mayoralties, a parliamentary by-election, and numerous councils. Now the party leads in every poll and, as our deputy political editor James Heale reveals in our cover article, is already planning for govern...

My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is the historian Alice Loxton, whose new book Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives is just out in paperback. In it, she tells the story of the early lives of individuals as disparate as the Venerable Bede and Vivienne Westwood. On the podcast, Alice tells me about Geoffrey Chaucer’s racy past, what Bede was like before he was venerable, and why...

Jun Tanaka is a Japanese-British chef with over 30 years’ experience in some of London’s most famous restaurants, including La Gavroche , Restaurant Marco Pierre White and The Square . In 2016 he opened the Ninth , which was awarded a Michelin star two years later. On the podcast, Jun tells Lara why the smell of baking brings back early food memories, how Japanese packed lunch is superior to Engli...

From the decline of meritocracy to the rise of anti-Western ideology, author Heather Mac Donald joins Freddy Gray to discuss race, merit, and victim hierarchy. Why is the West so desperate to self-cancel? And is now a moment of reckoning considering we're five years on from the BLM protests? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bijan Omrani joins Damian Thompson to talk about his new book  God is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England . They discuss the spiritual and cultural debt the country owes to Christianity. The central question of Bijan’s book is ‘does it matter that Christianity is dying in England?’. The faith has historically played a disproportionate role in many areas of English lif...

London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has called for possession of small amounts of cannabis to be decriminalised following a report by the London Drugs Commission. The report has made 42 recommendations, which include removing natural cannabis from the Misuse of Drugs Act. Former cabinet minister, now Labour peer, Charlie Falconer and Tory MP Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst join Lucy Dunn to discuss whether now is t...

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Arabella Byrne on the social minefield of private swimming pools (1:13); Sean Thomas says that not knowing where you are is one of the joys of travel (5:34); reviewing Helen Carr’s Sceptred Isle: A New History of the 14th Century , Mathew Lyons looks at the reality of a vivid century (11:34); reviewing Tim Gregory’s Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the Worl...

End of the rainbow: Pride’s fall What ‘started half a century ago as an afternoon’s little march for lesbians and gay men’, argues Gareth Roberts, became ‘a jamboree not only of boring homosexuality’ but ‘anything else that its purveyors consider unconventional’. Yet now Reform-led councils are taking down Pride flags, Pride events are being cancelled due to lack of funds, and corporate sponsors a...

Freddy Gray speaks to writer and author Karen Hao, whose new book  Empire of AI  looks at a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI. On the podcast they discuss the impacts of artificial intelligence on society and democracy and how Open AI founder Sam Altman has become a controversial figure.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.