Best of the Spectator

The SNP announced their budget last week promising to cut taxes for low income earners. Could this be the smallest tax cut in history? Michael Simmons has the data. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To hear the full episode, search Quite right! wherever you are listening now. This week: Michael and Maddie ask whether the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States has finally reached breaking point. As Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland and his reversal on the Chagos Islands unsettle allies, has the British right begun to turn decisively against him? Was the specia...

On this week’s  Spectator Out Loud : Mickey Down, co-creator of Industry, reads his diary for the week; Charlie Gammell argues that US intervention could push Iran into civil war and terrorism – warning that there are more possibilities than just revolution or regime survival; false dichotomy at the heart of; Sean Thomas bemoans the bittersweet liberation from his libido; and, Douglas Murray...

Thousands of homes across the South East have been without water for four consecutive days. South East Water’s record on water supply interruptions is one of the worst in the sector. Ofwat, the regulator, has placed it in the bottom three companies for disruptions each year from 2020 to last year. What has happened to the water industry in the past decade? And would nationalisation fix it? Michael...

In the 21st century, the theocratic nature of the Iranian regime – ruled by senior Shia clerics – appears to be a rarity. The constitutional role of religion is perhaps matched only by the Vatican City and Afghanistan, though these vary in terms of autocracy – as evidenced by the brutal suppression of protests across Iran in the past few weeks. The regime, installed following the 1979 revolution a...

As Ed Davey condemned Donald Trump's military manoeuvres abroad, Annabel Denham looked on and asked 'what's the point of the Liberal Democrats?'. Thinking about the Lib Dem's longstanding europhile stance, the senior political correspondent at the Telegraph wrote: 'the party that once stood on a tradition of civil liberties now wants us to rejoin a bloc which regulates everything'. Calum Miller MP...

As the world watches events in Iran, and wonders whether the US will intervene, the Spectator’s cover this week examines 'British complicity in Tehran’s terror’. When thinking about what could happen next in the crisis, there is a false dichotomy presented between regime survival and revolution; the reality is more complicated, though there is no doubt that this is the biggest threat to the t...

My guest in this week’s Book Club is Joanna Kavenna, who talks about her witty, philosophically riddling new novel Seven: Or, How To Play A Game Without Rules . She tells me about taking her bearings from Italo Calvino, making up a board game and then being the world’s worst player at it, how AI challenges our sense of ourselves – and how Morten Harket found his way into her fiction. Hosted on Aca...

For the full episode, search 'Quite right!' wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right! , Michael and Maddie examine Nadhim Zahawi’s dramatic defection to Reform UK and ask whether it strengthens the party’s insurgent credentials or exposes a deeper strategic mistake. Is Reform becoming a genuine outsider movement, or simply a refuge for disaffected Tories? And what does the pattern...

Freddy Gray is joined by Robert Bryce, energy expert and author of Robert Bryce’s Substack , to discuss what America’s strike on Venezuela has to do with energy and oil. They examine the strategic importance of heavy crude, the role of China and Russia in the Western Hemisphere, and why electricity grids – not democracy – may be the real battlefield. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

On this week’s  Spectator Out Loud : Justin Marozzi analyses what Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran; Lisa Haseldine asks why Britain isn’t expanding its military capabilities, as European allies do so; William Atkinson argues that the MET’s attack on freemasonry is unjustified; and, Toby Young explains why the chickenpox vaccine is a positive health measure. Produced and presented by P...

Donald Trump’s stunning attack on Venezuela has the world wondering what his next move might be. What does it mean for Iran, Russia, and the future of the global order? Freddy Gray is joined by Owen Matthews and Paul Wood to discuss. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain’s mums are backing Nigel Farage. One in five Mumsnet users intend to vote for Reform at the next general election, the first time a party other than Labour has topped its poll. Having been more negative towards Farage and the right in the past, why are its politically engaged users changing their minds? Are they swayed by issues like single-sex spaces, or does it reflect a wider collapse o...

Can Farage plot a route to Number 10, asks Tim Shipman in our cover article this week. He might be flanked by heavyweights – such as his head of policy Zia Yusuf and Conservative Party defector Danny Kruger MP – but he will need a lot more people to pull off his biggest upset for British politics yet. Where will they come from? And what’s the balance he needs to strike between being radical enough...

Freddy Gray is joined by Joshua Trevino, Chief Transformation Officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Senior Director of the Western Hemisphere Initiative at the America First Policy Institute. They discuss the complex history of so-called 'narco-states' and how they came to dominate vast parts of Latin America. Trump’s assault on Venezuela may prove to be the first of several military o...

For the full episode, search 'Quite right!' wherever you are listening now. This week: Michael and Maddie dissect Donald Trump’s audacious raid on Venezuela and ask what it reveals about power, national interest and the unravelling of the rules-based order. Was America acting like a rogue state – or simply doing what states do when their interests are at stake? And could Britain learn a thing or t...

Regular listeners will remember back in May we recorded a podcast debating whether Kemi Badenoch was the right fit for Tory leader. At that point in time the Conservatives were falling in the polls and she was facing allegations of laziness and a lack of a political vision. Spool forward to the end of the year and she is in her strongest position ever. She looks more assured in PMQs, her conferenc...

On this week’s  Spectator Out Loud : Cosmo Landesman says life is too short to watch boring shows; Alex Diggins reports back from the Bukhara art biennial; Lucy Dunn provides her notes on BuzzBallz – which featured at the Spectator’s Christmas party; and, Richard Bratby reviews  L’amour des trois oranges  at the Royal Northern College of Music and  Ariodante  at the Royal...

The US launched a military operation in Venezuela, targeting the regime in Caracas and detaining President Nicolás Maduro, who has been transferred to New York where he faces charges of narcoterrorism. Donald Trump has described the move as a decisive defence of American interests, but critics point point to the double standards when it come to Trump's ‘America First’ doctrine. Jacob Heilbrunn, ed...

James Heale sits down with Sir John Curtice, the doyen of British polling, to take stock of an extraordinary year in UK politics and to look ahead to what 2026 might hold. Curtice explains why the rise of Reform UK during the spring local elections marked a historic turning point – establishing the longest period in polling history where a party outside the traditional Conservative–Labour duopoly...

A far cry from the ‘roaring twenties' of the early 20th Century, the 2020s can be characterised as the ‘boring twenties’, argue Gus Carter and Rupert Hawksley in our new year edition of the  Spectator . Record numbers of young people are out of work but even those with jobs face such a dire cost-of-living situation that they have no money left over to spend on fun. Traditional cultu...

For the full episode, search 'Quite right!' wherever you are listening now. This is an extract from the second of a two-part discussion with Dominic Cummings, in which he reflects on his time in government – what he got right and what he regrets – and what he believes must change for the country to thrive. In part two, Dominic diagnoses the ‘pre-revolutionary’ mood of British politics, marked by v...

Sam Leith is joined by Philip Hensher to pick over their books of the year. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dominic Cummings joins Michael and Maddie to reflect on his time in government – what he got right and what he regrets – and what he believes must change for the country to thrive. Part one: 30 December 2025 (9am GMT)  Part two: 1 January 2026 (9am GMT)  Search 'Quite right!' wherever you are listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From scandals and cabinet chaos to Trumpian antics and the ‘special’ relationship that some say is anything but,  The Spectator  presents The Year in Review – a look back at the funniest and most tragic political moments of 2025. Join  The Spectator ’s editor Michael Gove, deputy editor Freddy Gray, political editor Tim Shipman, deputy political editor James Heale and parliamentary...