Best of the Spectator

On this week's episode, Jonathan Miller says that whoever wins France's election on Sunday, the country is going to the dogs. (01:00) After, Cindy Yu says that China's online censors are struggling to suppress critics of the Shanghai lockdown. (07:47) And, to finish, Laura Freeman reviews a Walt Disney exhibition at the Wallace Collection. (12:06) Entries for this year's Innovator Awards, sponsore...

The cost of living is rising, as is the cost of renting. Zoopla estimates that rents are rising at the fastest rate in 14 years, which means that the average rent in the UK is now over £1000 a month. This is partly a pandemic effect, especially in London as people return to offices. But Covid has also shaken people’s financial security - the Citizens Advice Bureau found that more than one in three...

In this week’s episode: Is Boris going to limp on? In her cover piece this week, Katy Balls writes that although Boris Johnson believes he can survive the partygate scandal, he has some way to go until he is safe, while in his column, James Forsyth writes about why the Tories have a summer of discontent ahead of them. They both join the podcast to speculate on the Prime Minister’s future. (00:44)...

Sam's guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the FT’s foreign affairs columnist Gideon Rachman. In his new book The Age of the Strongman, he takes a global look at the rise of personality-cult autocrats. He tells Sam what they have in common, what’s new about this generation of strongman leaders - and why his book places Boris Johnson in a cast including Putin, Orban, Bolsonaro and Duterte. Hos...

This week on Marshall Matters Winston speaks with Seth Dillon, CEO and owner of American political satire site The Babylon Bee. The Babylon Bee are currently locked out of their Twitter account for a joke that has been deemed “hate speech” by the social media site. But the Bee are refusing to accept this. Seth and Winston discussed comedy through the American cultural divide, the legal issues behi...

‘One Shanghai courier uses own 70,000 yuan to buy necessities for people’, one Weibo hashtag trended last week. Instead of being seen as a damning indictment on what the state’s strict lockdown has induced people to do, the courier was lauded as a community hero and the story promoted by the censored platform. These kuaidi xiaoge (‘delivery bros’) are most likely gig economy workers. The industry...

On this episode: Mark Drew explains how Putin weaponised the Russian Orthodox church (00:49); Luke Coppen says the war in Ukraine has revitalised Poland’s Catholic church (08:17); and Edward Behrens reads his notes on violets. (17:27) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddy Gray speaks to Kat Rosenfield, the author and UnHerd columnist, about Elon Musk's proposal to buy a controlling stake in the social media giant. Rosenfield's latest book, No One Will Miss Her , is published by HarperCollins and is available to buy now.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode: How are the people of both Russia and Ukraine processing the war? Our Russia correspondent Owen Matthews writes in this week’s Spectator  that he has been stunned at how easily some of his Russian friends have accepted the Kremlin’s propaganda. He joins the podcast to explain why he thinks this is, followed by journalist and author of This Is Not Propaganda , Peter Pomerant...

Michael Heath is a British strip cartoonist and illustrator and has been working nonstop since the 1950s. He has been cartoon editor of The Spectator since 1991. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about carrying German bombs into the local pub like milk bottles during the second world war, being given chewing gum by American soldiers, and how during the heydays of Soho, the focus was a lot m...

On this week's episode, we'll hear from Katy Balls on the changing face of No.10. (00:49) Next, Michael Bryant on the history of War Crimes. (06:16) And finally, Michael Simmons on Nicola Sturgeon’s secret state. (11:08) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Arlene Foster is the former first minister of Northern Ireland and was the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party from 2015 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold either position. Arlene moved into politics after joining the Ulster Unionist Party as a Law student at Queen’s University Belfast.  Having grown up in conflict during the Troubles, she remembers an attempted murder of her father by t...

In this week’s episode: Is Putin guilty of war crimes? For this week’s cover piece, The Spectator’s Editor Fraser Nelson looks at the risks and rewards of labelling Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers war criminals. He joins the podcast, followed by Michael Bryant, the author of A World History of War Crimes, who writes in the Spectator this week about what the limits put on acts of war in the pas...

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto. 500 years after Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition circumnavigated the globe, Felipe’s gripping new book Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan goes back to the original sources to discover that almost everything we think we know about this hero of the great age of exploration is wrong. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/...

After defeat in the Second Opium War, Chinese intellectuals wracked their minds for how the Chinese nation can survive in the new industrialised world. It’s a topic that has been discussed on this podcast before – listeners may remember the episode with Bill Hayton , author of The Invention of China , where we discussed the reformers and revolutionaries like Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei. But for s...

On this week's episode, we'll hear from Christopher Howse on the destruction of Ukrainian churches. (00:50) Next, Richard Florida on how Covid has changed London for the better. (13:52) And finally, Olivia Potts on her love of the crisp sandwich. (23:56) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

The Spectator's contributing editor Paul Wood interviews Dr Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution, who also served as a director within President Trump's national security council, where her brief focused on Europe and Russia. This conversation was a joint production with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Founded in 1991, IWPR is a non-profit organization that works with independent med...

In this week’s episode: Is Biden’s approach to the war in Ukraine more calculating than it seems? For this week’s cover piece, in this week’s cover piece, Matt Purple examines Biden’s response to the situation in Ukraine. The good, the bad and the gaffs. He joins the podcast along with the founder of Political Human Emma Burnell. (00:52) Also this week: How many of Ukraine’s churches have been des...

In this week's Book Club podcast, we ask: did the chroniclers of the early Church cover up evidence that the disciples and evangelists of Christ were as often women as men? Sam's guests are the scholars Helen Bond and Joan Taylor, authors of Women Remembered: Jesus' Female Disciples . They pick out the hints and clues that, they say, indicate that women were doing more than just cooking, mourning...

Lance Forman is the owner of H. Forman & Son, Britain's leading salmon smokers and author of Forman's Games. He was elected a Brexit Party MEP for London in the 2019 European election but quit the party to endorse the Conservatives. On the podcast, Lance reflects on his childhood in a traditional Jewish upbringing, eating smoked salmon sandwiches every day for his packed lunch. Lance brings in som...

On this week's episode, we'll hear from Damian Thompson on the Patriarch in league with Putin. (00:58) Next, Jade McGlynn on how Russian TV is presenting the war to its people. (08:46) And finally, Nick Newman asks how should cartoonists respond to war? (17:35) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes and Max Jeffery Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast....

Anji Hunter is the former gatekeeper to Tony Blair's Labour government. She was once described as the most influential non-elected person in Downing Street and became one of Blair's closest confidantes. Acting as an alliance broker, Anji worked across businesses and the media, including Murdoch's empire. After decades by Blair's side, Anji moved to the private sector to take up various roles acros...

In this week’s episode: could President Erdogan broker a peace deal between Putin and the West?  For this week’s cover piece, Owen Matthews has written about how Turkey’s President Erdogan became a key powerbroker between Vladimir Putin and the Western alliance. On the podcast, Owen is joined by Ece Temelkuran, a political thinker, author, and writer of the book How to Lose a Country. (1:13) Also...

Taiwan is not Ukraine. But despite the very important differences in their situations, the Russian invasion can still shed much light on Taiwan's future. Even many Taiwanese think so – and have followed the developments closely, with solidarity marches held for Ukraine, protests at the Russian embassy and the Ukrainian flag lighting up Taiwanese buildings. On this episode of Chinese Whispers, my g...

In this week’s Book Club podcast Sam is joined by Francis Fukuyama to talk about his new book Liberalism and its Discontents . He tells Sam how a system that has built peace and prosperity since the Enlightenment has come under attack from the neoliberal right and the identitarian left; and how Vladimir Putin may end up being the unwitting founding father of a new Ukraine. Hosted on Acast. See aca...