Freddy Gray speaks to author Jacob Heilbrunn about what another term in office for Donald Trump might mean for America's foreign policy, its relationship with Israel, and the war in Ukraine. How have his views changed since last time? And what will his relationship with Putin be like?
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Quentin Letts takes us through his diary for the week (1:12); Owen Matthews details the shadow fleet helping Russia to evade sanctions (7:15); Michael Hann reports on the country music revival (15:05); Laura Gascoigne reviews exhibitions at the Tate Britain and at Studio Voltaire (21:20); and, Michael Simmons provides his notes on the post-pub stable, the doner kebab (26:20). Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.
New York Post writer Miranda Devine joins Freddy Gray to discuss Joe Biden's unpopularity. Why are Americans increasingly not supporting him? And how have Biden family scandals and rumours affected trust in the President? In a week that Biden gave a commencement speech, they also discuss the recent controversy over NFL kicker Harrison Butker's speech. What insight does the reaction to the speech tell us about America today? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.
It’s a bumper edition of The Edition this week. After Rishi Suank called a surprise – and perhaps misguided – snap election just a couple of hours after our press deadline, we had to frantically come up with a new digital cover. To take us through a breathless day in Westminster and the fallout of Rishi’s botched announcement, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls joins the podcast. (01:35) Next: Our print magazine leads on the electric car bust. Ross Clark runs through all the issues faci...
My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Conn Iggulden, probably the best selling author of historical fiction of our day. This week Conn publishes Nero, the first in a new trilogy about the notorious Roman emperor. He tells me about how he learned to write historical fiction, his years-long path to overnight success, and the advantages (and disadvantages) of having an audience comprised of men who can't seem to stop thinking about the Roman Empire.
Tom Hayward is an award-winning food writer, a broadcaster, and proprietor of the bakery Fitzbillies in Cambridge. He writes regularly for the FT Magazine and often appears on BBC Radio 4. Following the bestsellers Food DIY , Knife , and Loaf Story , his eighth book, Steak: The Whole Story , is out on the 23rd May. On the podcast, Tim tells Liv and Lara about his childhood concoction 'dead man's finger', the secret to great beef and the joys of a 6pm martini....
Matt McDonald, managing editor of the US edition of The Spectator, joins Freddy Gray to discuss whether Biden is losing the swing states, the potential outcome of the Trump-Biden TV debates, and who the polls are spelling trouble for. Produced by Megan McElroy.
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Max Jeffery interviews Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Massoud (1:13); former prisoner David Shipley ponders the power of restorative justice (8:23); Patrick Kidd argues that the Church should do more to encourage volunteers (14:15); Cindy Yu asks if the tiger mother is an endangered species (21:06); and, Hugh Thomson reviews Mick Conefrey’s book Fallen, examining George Mallory’s tragic Everest expedition (26:20). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons....
Shabana Mahmood is the shadow secretary of state for justice. She was born in Birmingham to migrant parents. After studying Law at Lincoln College, Oxford, where Rishi Sunak was a contemporary, she qualified as a barrister and lived and worked in London. First elected to Parliament in 2010, representing Birmingham Ladywood, she was one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs. On the episode, Katy Balls talks to Shabana about her upbringing in the UK and in Saudi Arabia; how her faith is central to w...
This week: Veep show: who will Trump pick for his running mate? Freddy Gray goes through the contenders – and what they say about America (and its most likely next president). ‘Another thought might be buzzing around Trump’s head: he can pick pretty much whoever he wants because really it’s all about him. He might even choose one of his children: Ivanka or Donald Junior. What could sound better than Trump-Trump 2024?’ Freddy joins the podcast. (02:10) Next: Will and Lara take us through some of ...
Freddy Gray talks to American columnist and commentator Guy Benson about who is in the running to be Trump's VP. Who does Trump want? But more importantly what does the Trump ticket need? Also: Biden/Trump debates appear to have been confirmed. Who will the debates benefit most? And how relevant are they in the digital age? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.
A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! On this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Olivia Laing to talk about her new book The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise . Olivia explores what it is we do when we make a garden, through her own experience of restoring the beautiful garden in her now home. She tells me about what gardens have meant in literary history and myth, how they have occluded certain real-world injustices even as they stand in for utopias, and why Candide 's in...
Last week, President Xi Jinping visited Serbia. An unexpected destination, you might think, but in fact the links between Beijing and Belgrade go back decades. One event, in particular, has linked the two countries – and became a seminal moment in how the Chinese remember their history. In 1999, the Chinese embassy in Belgrade was bombed by US-led Nato forces. Three Chinese nationals died. An accident, the Americans insisted, but few Chinese believed it then, and few do today. The event is still...
Freddy Gray talks to writer and philosopher Curtis Yarvin about how Alexander Hamilton was America's Napoleon, why Putin is more of a royal than King Charles, and why Yarvin admires FDR. Yarvin is voting for Joe Biden at the next election, but not for the reasons you might think. Could Biden 2024 strengthen the case for American isolationism? Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.
Freddy Gray speaks to the journalist Nellie Bowles about her new book : Morning after the Revolution: Dispatches from the wrong side of History. As someone who had fit into the progressive umbrella, her book recounts issues that arose when she started to question the nature of the movement itself. Freddy and Nellie discuss the challenges of the progressive-conservative divide, bias within the media, and whether privilege is America's version of the class system. Produced by Patrick Gibbons....
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Philosopher Slavoj Zizek takes us through his diary including his Britney Spears Theory of Action (1:08); Angus Colwell reports from the front line of the pro-Palestinian student protests (8:09); Svitlana Morenets provides an update on what’s going on in Georgia, where tensions between pro-EU and pro-Russian factions are heading to a crunch point (13:51); Cindy Yu analyses President Xi’s visit to Europe and asks whether the Chinese leader can keep his few Euro...
Lisa Cameron was born in Glasgow and grew up in East Kilbride, the constituency she now represents. After three elections under the SNP, she memorably defected to the Scottish Conservatives in 2023. At the time, Humza Yousaf described it as the least surprising news he’d had since becoming first minister. On the podcast, Lisa tells Katy about the need for increased investment into mental health provision, her defection from the SNP to the Tories and why Scottish independence is a failed experime...
This week: On Monday, tents sprung up at Oxford and Cambridge as part of a global, pro-Palestinian student protest which began at Columbia University. In his cover piece, Yascha Mounk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, explains how universities in both the US and the UK have misguidedly harboured and actively encouraged absurdist activism on campuses. Yascha joined the podcast to discuss further. (01:57) Next: Bugs, biscuits, trench foot: a dispatch from the front line of the protests. Th...
This week, my guest on the Book Club podcast is the poet Jackie Kay, whose magnificent new book May Day combines elegy and celebration. She tells me about her adoptive parents – a communist trade unionist and a leading figure in CND – and growing up in a household where teenage rebellion could mean going to church. We also discuss her beginnings as a poet, her debt to Robbie Burns and Angela Davis and how grief itself can be a form of protest.
Michael Zee is an author, cook and the creator of SymmetryBreakfast, which started as an Instagram account, before amassing over 670,000 followers and becoming one of the ‘most popular food books of 2016’. He is now based in Italy and known for his particular brand of British-Chinese fusion food. His third book, Zao Fan: Breakfast of China , is out now. On the podcast he tells Lara about working in his father's restaurant, the joy of char siu bao and where to find the best Chinese food in Italy....
Freddy speaks to Norman Ornstein, political scientist and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They discuss the possibility of Donald Trump becoming a dictator, his ongoing court cases, and if there's a double standard in the treatment of Trump vs Biden.
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : Sean Thomas worries that Paris has lost some of its charm (1:21); Kara Kennedy reports on US-style opioids arriving in Britain (8:43); Philip Hensher describes how an affair which ruined one woman would be the making of another (15:32); Damian Thompson reflects on his sobriety and his battle with British chemists (23:58); and, Toby Young argues a proposed law in Wales amounts to an assault on parliamentary sovereignty (29:26). Produced and presented by Patrick...
Freddy speaks to Victor Davis Hanson, classicist, military historian and political commentator. They discuss his new book The End of Everything, and ask whether the west should be taking note of history in order to avoid annihilation, and where the US is heading.
This week: Survival plan: is Rishi ready for the rebels? Ever since his election, Rishi Sunak has been preparing for this weekend – where the most likely scenario is that dire local election results are slow-released, leaving him at a moment of maximum vulnerability. He has his defences ready against his regicidal party, says Katy Balls: the Rwanda plan, a welfare reform agenda and a 4p NI cut (with hints of 2p more to come). And while the rebels have a (published) agenda they do not – yet – hav...
On this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Ariane Bankes, whose mother Celia was one of the great beauties of the early twentieth century. Ariane's new book The Quality of Love: Twin Sisters at the Heart of the Century tells the story of the defiantly bohemian lives of Celia and her twin sister Mamaine, whose love affairs and friendships with Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Albert Camus, Edmund Wilson and Freddie Ayer put them at the centre of the political and intellectual ferment of their ...
Freddy Gray speaks to writer, podcaster and musician Coleman Hughes. His latest book The End of Race Politics, The: Arguments for a Colorblind America put forward Martin Luther King's teachings for a colourblind society. On the podcast they discuss Coleman's recently appearance on The View ; whether Coleman thinks Trump is racist and how the Israel-Gaza war exposed the failings of US universities.
Last week, President Joe Biden finally signed into law a bill that would take TikTok off app stores in the US, eventually rendering the app obsolete there. This is not the end of the saga, as TikTok has vowed to take legal action. In the US, the drive to decouple from Chinese tech continues to rumble on. In this episode, we’ll be taking a look at the reverse trend – the Chinese decoupling from American tech. It’s a story that tends to go under the radar in light of bans and divestments from the ...
Freddy speaks to Angus Hanton, entrepreneur and author of Vassal State: How America Runs Britain , and William Clouston, leader of the Social Democratic Party. They discuss the ‘Special Relationship’ between the US and the UK, and ask whether it might be detrimental to British business.
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud : reporting from St Helena, Douglas Murray reflects on the inhabitants he has met and the history of the British Overseas Territory (1:12); Lionel Shriver opines on the debate around transgender care (9:08); following a boyhood dream to visit the country to watch cricket, Mark Mason reads his letter from India as he travels with his son (17:54); and, Graeme Thomson reviews Taylor Swift’s new album (22:41). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons....
Young, female entrepreneurship is on the rise. Two years ago, 17,500 businesses were founded by women aged 16-25, which is 22 times greater than in 2018. Now, 20 per cent of all businesses across the UK are all-female-led. Yet, when it comes to investment, women consistently underperform their male counterparts. Why? And should more be done to support female entrepreneurs? To shine a light on some of these issues is Anneliese Dodds MP, the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, and ...
