Podcast
Lara Prendergast and William Moore host weekly conversations with Spectator writers and friends of the magazine. Over a glass of sherry, they discuss the biggest news stories – and how they are covered in that week’s edition of The Spectator.
Lara Prendergast and William Moore host weekly conversations with Spectator writers and friends of the magazine. Over a glass of sherry, they discuss the biggest news stories – and how they are covered in that week’s edition of The Spectator.
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s deputy editor and editor of Spectator World Freddy Gray, commissioning editor Lara Brown, and deputy political editor James Heale. This week: will Andy Burnham call an early general election? Tim Shipman’s cover story asks whether the Prime Minister might go to the polls before
Play 41 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s associate editor and director of the Free Speech Union Toby Young, journalist and author Esther Walker, and Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens. This week: the men on the spectrum who rule the world. Charles Steel writes in the magazine about the wealthy, obsessive
Play 40 mins
The Edition
William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, The Spectator’s commissioning editor and writer at large Tali Fraser, and the Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party Alex Burghart MP. This week: has Labour stopped just stopping oil? Michael reveals that ministers are expected to approve the Jackdaw gas field within days, while
Play 34 mins
The Edition
Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, columnist and journalist Melanie McDonagh, and the Daily Mail’s parliamentary sketchwriter Quentin Letts. This week: has Reform UK lost its magic? Ahead of the party’s conference, Tim reveals its plans for the first 100 days of a Reform government – and asks whether Nigel
Play 34 mins
The Edition
Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, author and critic Philip Hensher, and comedian and co-host if the Triggernometry podcast Frances Foster. This week: are good teachers under siege? The panel discuss Michael Gove’s cover story on the education establishment, from collapsing classroom discipline to the ‘pathetically low ambition’ of those
Play 45 mins
The Edition
William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, commissioning editor Tali Fraser and actress Maureen Lipman. This week: has the West lost the will to defend itself? The panel discuss the threats posed by China, Russia and Islamism – and whether Western societies have become too reluctant to defend their own values.
Play 45 mins
The Edition
William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s associate editor Toby Young, commissioning editor Lara Brown and newsletter editor and restaurant critic Angus Colwell. This week: What has gone wrong with British universities? Lara unpacks the wider academic crisis in the wake of the Jason Arday scandal, from ‘surviving the apocalypse’ courses at Warwick to maths
Play 52 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s columnist Rory Sutherland, political editor Tim Shipman and drinks editor Jonathan Ray. This week: What has been the damage of Labour’s punitive war on private education? Rory questions whether the sector had helped itself in the years prior, but did the policy itself ever
Play 62 mins
The Edition
This week: has Andy Burnham really brought change to Downing Street – or merely repackaged Labour’s old guard? Has Ed Miliband been sidelined by being sent to the Foreign Office, a ‘non-job’ in which he can do little harm? The panel also asks whether Burnham is prepared to make the difficult decisions required of a
Play 37 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s political editor, Tim Shipman, commissioning editor and writer at large Tali Fraser, and the historian Antony Beevor. This week: what will Andy Burnham actually do in Downing Street? Tim reveals what to expect from the incoming prime minister’s first ten days, from a blitz
Play 37 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, deputy editor of the US edition Gus Carter and the Mail on Sunday’s restaurant critic Tom Parker Bowles. This week: Nigel Farage’s greatest gamble. After resigning as MP for Clacton to trigger a by-election, Farage has tried to turn questions
Play 30 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray, assistant content editor John Power and former Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt. This week: Labour’s lame duck period drags on, with Keir Starmer searching for a legacy before he leaves office. This week he has announced more money for
Play 30 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, the drinks writer Henry Jeffreys and the founder and chair of iNHouse Communications – and former director of communications for Theresa May – Katie Perrior. This week: another year, another prime ministerial resignation – it’s all becoming a little too common in British politics. The
Play 46 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s assistant editor Isabel Hardman and the editor of The New Statesman Tom McTague. Plus, in a special episode this week, the Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons joins for the first half of the episode, before political editor Tim Shipman jumps in later on. This week: was Brexit worth it? As
Play 55 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator‘s commissioning editor Lara Brown, the columnist for the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression newsletter Louise Perry and the Telegraph journalist and presenter of Ukraine: The Latest Francis Dearnley. This week: Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now gone on longer than the first world war and it shares much of the horrors
Play 51 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator‘s political editor Tim Shipman, the writer Guy Stagg and the author and host of How to Fail Elizabeth Day. This week, the guests discuss whether Nigel Farage’s Reform UK can see off the threat from Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain. Restore Britain’s success may be modest and,
Play 47 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator‘s deputy editor Freddy Gray, associate editor – and host of the Holy Smoke podcast – Damian Thompson and consultant psychiatrist and Daily Mail columnist Dr Max Pemberton. This week, the guests examine the Pope’s encyclical about Artificial Intelligence (AI), Magnifica Humanitas, which warns of the
Play 48 mins
The Edition
For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator‘s John Power, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel and former adviser to Boris Johnson – and co-host of the In The Room podcast, Cleo Watson. They explore the idea that the Strait of Hormuz, not Makerfield, will determine the fate of the current Labour government. Starmer may be facing a
Play 36 mins
The Edition
This week: William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s political correspondent Noa Hoffman, Telegraph columnist and Planet Normal co-host Liam Halligan, and The Spectator’s real life columnist Melissa Kite. They unpack Tim Shipman and Noa Hoffman’s cover piece on the mounting coup against Keir Starmer. As Wes Streeting makes his move, Ed Miliband waits in
Play 45 mins
The Edition
This week: Lara Pendergast is joined by Tim Shipman, Lionel Barber and Alice Loxton, author of Eleanor: A 200-Mile Walk in Search of England’s Lost Queen. They unpack Michael Gove’s cover piece which asks whether the local elections will push Labour further to the left. As the Greens threaten Labour in its metropolitan heartlands and
Play 35 mins
The Edition
In this week’s podcast, William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, assistant editor Isabel Hardman and Times columnist and Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips. The panel unpacks Mary Wakefield’s cover story on the rise of shoplifting – and what it reveals about’ shameless Britain’. After a Morrisons manager was reportedly sacked
Play 45 mins
The Edition
In this week’s podcast, the panel unpacks Tim Shipman’s explosive cover story, including a leaked message suggesting just how closely Starmer backed Mandelson’s appointment from the start – and why the Prime Minister is now struggling to shift responsibility as the fallout grows. Host Lara Prendergast is joined by William Moore, historian Peter Frankopan and
Play 40 mins
The Edition
The Pope is ‘WEAK on crime and terrible on foreign policy’ – this was the verdict of the President of the United States this week, as he appeared to deepen his row with the leader of the Catholic Church. In the magazine this week, Damian Thompson reports on why the President appears to have engaged in
Play 50 mins
The Edition
Has Britain become a freeloader’s paradise, asks the Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons in our cover piece this week. Michael analyses ‘the benefits of benefits’, at a time when Britain’s welfare bill is burgeoning and most households are struggling with cost of living. For example, while a family of four can expect to pay £111
Play 49 mins
The Edition
Is British politics becoming more religious? Madeline Grant certainly thinks so, arguing – in the Spectator’s cover article – that the next election could be the most religious for decades. Issues like immigration and Islam, assisted dying – and even the establishment of the Church of England are likely to play a role. The current Labour
Play 39 mins
The Edition
It is undoubtable that – under the leadership of Zack Polanski – the Green Party have soared to new heights. Having won their first parliamentary by-election in February, polls consistently show them as a force to be reckoned with on the left of British politics. Much of their success has come at the detriment of
Play 51 mins
The Edition
Nigel Farage is a shark – hell bent on devouring Britain’s political class, as illustrated with the Spectator‘s cover story this week, co-authored by James Heale and Tim Shipman. Yet, from rows over the pension triple lock to stagnation in the polls, it isn’t clear that Farage has a strategy for power. Reform may win
Play 45 mins
The Edition
As oil prices rise, the Spectator’s cover story this week – written by deputy editor Freddy Gray – wonders if Trump’s gamble has backfired, and Operation Epic Fury could end up more like Operation Epic Fail. What does it mean to describe Trump’s plan as ‘failing’? And can we judge him by the same metrics that we have
Play 47 mins
The Edition
As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, what is Trump’s game plan? The Spectator’s cover piece this week, by Geoffrey Cain, argues that Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China; every dictator gone, weakens the Chinese regime. As Freddy Gray explains further on the podcast, Trump’s worldview is shaped by the events he grew up
Play 50 mins
The Edition
Britain’s banks have a hold over Rachel Reeves, declares Michael Simmons in the Spectator’s cover piece this week. Almost two decades on from the 2008 financial crash, the UK has failed to reform the system and – as ordinary people face a cost-of-living crisis – Labour is in hock to big business. Is the Chancellor too
Play 35 mins