Quite right!

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant confront the horror of the Bondi Beach massacre and ask why anti-Semitic violence now provokes despair rather than shock. As Jewish communities are once again targeted on holy days, they examine the roots of Islamist ideology and the failure of political leaders to name it. Why has anti-Semitism metastasised across the radical left, the Islamist world, and the far r...

Submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie at spectator.co.uk/quiteright. This week on Quite right! Q&A : should Britain reinvent the Commonwealth – and should Ukraine be invited to join? Is the Commonwealth an embarrassing relic… or an untapped strategic asset? Then: what if Jeremy Corbyn had actually won in 2019? Maddie and Michael sketch the counterfactual Britain – from a Jezza-led loc...

After a summer in which Nigel Farage seemed to bend the news cycle to his will, Michael and Maddie ask whether the party’s momentum is slipping. Do the allegations dredged up from Farage’s schooldays mark a decisive turning point – or, perversely, strengthen his outsider appeal? And with questions over Reform’s election spending, defections from the Conservatives, and the small matter of finding 5...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to spectator.co.uk/quiteright. This week on Quite right! Q&A: was lockdown the right call – and what did Britain get catastrophically wrong? Michael and Maddie unravel the ‘sins’ of the Covid era, from criminalising everyday behaviour to the rise of snitch culture. Did Sweden show there was a better way? Then: is conservatism suffering from...

This week: Rachel Reeves reels as Labour’s Budget unravels – and a far-left Life of Brian sequel plays out in Liverpool. After a bruising seven days for the Chancellor, Michael and Maddie ask whether Reeves’s position is now beyond repair. Did Keir Starmer’s bizarre nursery press conference steady the ship – or simply confirm that the government is panicking? And is the resignation of the OBR chai...

This week: After leaked EHRC guidance threw Labour’s position on biological sex into disarray, Michael and Maddie ask whether Bridget Phillipson is deliberately delaying clarity on the law – and why Wes Streeting appears to be retreating from his once ‘gender-critical’ stance. Is Labour quietly preparing to water down long-awaited guidance? And has the return of puberty-blocker trials pushed the c...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright This week on Quite right! Q&A: Is the Treasury still fit for purpose – or has ‘Treasury brain’ taken over Whitehall? Michael and Maddie dig into the culture and power of Britain’s most influential department, from the Oxbridge-heavy ‘Treasury boys’ to a ‘visionless’ Chancellor. Then: after Michael’s suggestion...

This week: a Commons showdown over asylum – and a cold shower for Net Zero orthodoxy. After Shabana Mahmood’s debuts Labour’s new asylum proposals, Michael and Maddie ask whether her barnstorming performance signals a new star in Starmer’s government – or whether the Home Secretary is dangerously over-promising on a problem no minister has yet cracked. Is her Denmark-inspired model workable? Can s...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright This week on Quite right! Q&A: Could Britain see a snap election before 2029? Michael and Maddie unpack the constitutional mechanics – and explain why, despite the chaos, an early vote remains unlikely. They also turn to Labour’s troubles: growing pressure on Keir Starmer, restive backbenchers, and whether Ang...

This week: a crisis at the BBC – and a crisis of standards in our schools. Following the shock resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, Michael and Maddie ask whether the corporation has finally been undone by its own bias, and discuss how it can correct the leftward lurch in its editorial line. Then: Labour’s new education reforms come under the microscope. As Ofsted scraps single-word judg...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright This week on the first ever Quite right! Q&A: What’s your most left-wing belief? Michael & Maddie confess their guilty liberal secrets on the Elgin Marbles, prison reform and private equity – or ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’. Also this week: who would you trust to save your life on a desert island – Bo...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright 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 that have been flying in advance of the Budget at the end of the month. Was she softening the public up for tax rises, or trying to save he...

To submit your urgent questions to Michael & Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright 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 inquiry – Michael and Maddie ask: is the Home Office now beyond repair? Why is Britain’s most important department also its most dysfuncti...

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 can the monarchy carry its most toxic member? Or should the Duke of York be stripped of his titles and sent into exile? Then to Birmingham, where sectarian politics, bin strikes and football collide. After Israeli fans were bar...

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 for China. Was the case dropped out of incompetence, or out of fear of offending Beijing? As Michael puts it, ‘Either we’re not being told the truth, or this is a government of staggering incompetence.’ They also unpick the g...

This week, Michael and Maddie record Quite right! in front of a live audience at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester – with attendance down, the big question is whether Kemi Badenoch can survive as leader of the opposition. There is the unmistakable air of fatalism among MPs staring down electoral annihilation – but would another change in leadership cement the Tories as pathologically...

This week, Michael and Maddie report from the Labour party conference in Liverpool and unpick Keir Starmer’s big speech. Was his attempt to reclaim patriotism for Labour a genuine statement of values – or a clumsy exercise in stereotypes about steelworkers, chip shops and football nostalgia? And why does Labour’s attack line on Nigel Farage risk sounding like political ‘nuclear warfare’ that could...

This week, Michael and Maddie lift the lid on the strange rituals of party conference season and why the ‘goldfish bowl’ reality of a week in Birmingham (or Manchester, or Liverpool) often leaves politicians with ‘PTSD’.  They then turn to the government’s revived enthusiasm for digital ID cards. Is this a sensible fix for illegal immigration – or, as Michael puts it, ‘snake oil rubbed onto a...

This week Michael and Madeline unpick the shock defection of Danny Kruger to Reform UK’s ‘pirate ship’ – as described by Michael – and ask whether this coup could mark the beginning of the end for the Conservative party. They also dive into Westminster’s most charged moral debates: the assisted dying bill in the Lords and the quiet decriminalisation of abortion up to birth. What do these changes s...

In this bonus episode Michael and Madeline tackle two extraordinary political stories. First, the dramatic resignation of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador, following renewed scrutiny of his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Why did Keir Starmer take so long to act – and what does the debacle reveal about his leadership style? Then, across the Atlantic, America is reeling from the assassination o...

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant return with another episode of Quite right!, The Spectator ’s new podcast promising sanity and common sense in an increasingly unhinged world. This week, they dissect Keir Starmer’s brutal reshuffle – from the ‘volcanic ejection’ of Angela Rayner to the rise of Shabana Mahmood, the ‘uncompromising toughie’ now in charge of the Home Office. What do these moves reveal...

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant launch ‘Quite right!’, the new podcast from The Spectator that promises sanity and common sense in a world that too often lacks both. In their first episode, they take stock of a political summer dominated by Nigel Farage, a Labour government already facing mutiny, and the curious spectacle of Tory MPs moonlighting as gonzo reporters. From J.D. Vance’s Cotswold sojo...

Welcome to Quite right! – the new podcast from The Spectator launching on Wednesday 3rd September and hosted by Michael Gove & Madeline Grant. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts . Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...