From our UK edition
34 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by Steve Edginton, video comment editor at the Telegraph and host of the Off Script podcast to discuss curious case of Sir Kim Darroch. A former civil servant has accused the government of an attempt to cover up “crimes” by the former British ambassador to the US, who he claims leaked intelligence to his lover. What has this done to the Anglo-American relations on the week Rishi Sunak visited Washington?
From our UK edition
Insanity, they say, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. If that’s true, then what the American justice system is doing to Donald Trump is barking mad. Yes, he’s been indicted, again – on seven federal criminal charges. It’s all unprecedented, again – he’s the first president ever to face, blah, blah, blah. We’re all familiar with the ‘Trump facing…’ news loop by now. America is stuck in Trump legal groundhog day — he’s remorselessly prosecuted, over and over, on so many fronts. He always responds the same way, protesting his INNOCENCE in capital letters on Truth Social, saying he can’t believe this is happening in America. Then his team fires out fund-raising emails. Last time it was the civil rape case in New York.
From our UK edition
31 min listen
This week: Prince Harry has taken the stand to give evidence in the Mirror Group phone hacking trial which The Spectator’s deputy editor Freddy Gray talks about in his cover piece for the magazine. He is joined by Patrick Jephson, former private secretary to Princess Diana, to discuss whether Harry's 'suicide mission' against the press is ill-advised. (01:22) Also this week: In The Spectator professor Robert Tombs details the trouble with returning the Benin Bronzes back to Nigeria, arguing that their restitution is more complicated than some claim.
From our UK edition
Self-pity is one hell of a drug. On Tuesday, a day late, Prince Harry appeared in the High Court to ‘give evidence’ against the Mirror. The only testimony he was willing to provide, however, was his familiar gloop about the pain he suffered growing up rich, famous and royal. He can’t help himself, poor boy, and we should probably stop indulging him. We won’t, though. In a 49-page witness statement, the Duke of Sussex tried once again to make peace with himself by blaming the press for everything. ‘You start off as a blank canvas while they work out what kind of a person you are and what kind of problems and temptations you might have,’ he declared.
From our UK edition
24 min listen
Andrew Neil, The Spectator's chairman and super fan of the HBO show, Succession, joins this episode to talk to Freddy about where the show overlapped with the real life media empire of Rupert Murdoch, who has his own problems of succession to think about. This conversation was originally filmed as an episode of 'The View from 22' from Spectator TV, which you can watch here.
From our UK edition
If Budweiser is the King of Beers, as its slogan claims, then Bud Light has long been the Queen. Launched over 40 years ago, in 1982, and now the world’s most successful low-calorie beer, ‘B Minus’ occupies a funny sweet spot in America’s sprawling consumer conscience. Also known as ‘redneck soda’, ‘frat water’ and ‘turtle jiz’ – Bud Light is a product that conveys a mass-marketable sense of irony. That’s what ad men dream about. But then, two months ago, Anheuser Busch, Bud’s parent company, did something stupid. Some marketing whizz decided it would be super-provocative to ‘partner’ – as marketing drones like to say – with the trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
From our UK edition
Joseph Robinette Biden, a practising Catholic, has travelled a long way when it comes to gay rights. In 1996, as Senator for Delaware, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which blocked the federal recognition of same-sex unions. Two years earlier he voted to cut funding to schools that taught the acceptance of homosexuality. In the 1970s, when asked about homosexuals in the US military, he replied: ‘My gut reaction is that they are a security risk but I must admit I have not given this much thought… I’ll be darned!’ Saudi Arabia is the world’s second-biggest oil producer and so it gets a pass.
From our UK edition
68 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to two American academics, Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne, to discuss America’s role in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
From our UK edition
39 min listen
This week: In his cover piece, journalist Mark Galeotti asks whether Putin can be outsmarted by Zelensky’s counter-offensive. He is joined by The Spectator’s own Svitlana Morenets to discuss Ukraine's next move. (01:08) Also this week: Journalist David Goodhart writes a moving tribute to his friend Jeremy Clarke, The Spectator’s much-missed Low Life columnist who sadly passed away earlier this week. David is joined by Cass Pennant and Freddy Gray, The Spectator’s deputy editor, to remember the life and writing of Jeremy Clarke. (12:52) And finally: The Spectator’s deputy features editor Gus Carter writes this week about the curious business of fertility.
From our UK edition
People imagine that the real world is similar to the dark side of the TV show Succession. For some reason we enjoy thinking that media barons and tech tycoons pull the strings of global power, creating the election-deciding narratives which the bovine public then swallows whole. But the truth, as Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis showed so spectacularly with their disastrous campaign announcement on Twitter last night, is much more like the funnier bits in Succession. It’s cock-up not conspiracy. His candidacy makes so much sense in theory.
From our UK edition
Boris Johnson, Britain’s most sought-after Churchill impersonator, visited Texas on Monday to urge a group of rich right-wing Americans to never, never, never give in to Vladimir Putin. ‘I just urge you all to stick with it,’ Agent Bojo told a private lunch of conservative politicians and donors in Dallas. ‘You are backing the right horse. Ukraine is going to win.’ Johnson wasn’t paid to speak at the lunch, though it’s worth noting that he only stopped over in Texas on the way to the SCALE Fintech conference in Las Vegas, where he is expected to receive a six-figure sum for talking about the future of innovation alongside Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the US. Nobody said freedom was free.
From our UK edition
Joe Biden became America’s president in 2021 because the alternative was four more years of Donald Trump. If Ronald Dion DeSantis, who has announced his candidacy on Twitter today, wins the Republican party nomination next year, it will also be because the alternative is you-know-who. Trump fatigue is a real phenomenon: even many Trump supporters think it’s time to move on, which is the key to the 44-year-old DeSantis’s appeal. He is Trump but he gets stuff done. He is Trump but you get two terms. At the same time, DeSantis’s biggest problem is that he’s up against Donald Trump, one of the most effective political campaigners of the 21st century.
From our UK edition
42 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Michael Anton, professor at Hillsdale College and former member of the National Security Council under George W Bush and Donald Trump. On the podcast Freddy and Michael discuss his speech at the National Conservatism conference about Winston Churchill’s Grand Strategy in an American context.
From our UK edition
39 min listen
Freddy Gray is joined by filmmaker, Alex Holder who had access to Trump’s inner circle when making the documentary Unprecedented. On the podcast, they discuss Trump's supporter base, his relationship with his children and why Ivanka is the favourite.
From our UK edition
21 min listen
Following the arrest of George Santos on criminal charges, we've revisited a podcast with Shawm McCreesh, a features writer at New York Magazine who spent time with Republican Congressman, George Santos.
From our UK edition
Can a man who has been found ‘civilly liable’ for sexual abuse in court be elected president of the United States? In a normal world, such a verdict might reasonably be expected to torpedo any candidate’s ambitions. But American politics today is the opposite of normal. A Manhattan jury yesterday ordered Donald Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in damages — $2 million for her injuries for being molested by him and nearly $3 million for his defamation of her for denying her claims. Four years ago, in print, 79-year-old Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York department store in late 1995 or early 1996. Trump wholeheartedly denies the charge and the court did not find him guilty of rape.
From our UK edition
Since Joe Biden confirmed that he will run for re-election, the odds of Kamala Harris becoming the first female president of the United States have shrunk – and significantly so. For Harris to take over from Biden, several things would have to happen. Biden would have to keep her as his vice-president for the 2024 campaign. Let’s assume, not with total confidence, that the 80-year-old Biden is still alive and well enough to lead by the start of 2025. If not, his vice-president would anyway take over as commander-in-chief, possibly only for a matter of days. But if Biden won in 2024 and didn’t complete his second-term, it would be all hail Kamala, the lady chief, possibly for several years or more. Brace yourself.
From our UK edition
30 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to journalist Ben Smith, whose new book Traffic is an origins story for digital media. On the podcast they discuss how a new genre of journalism was birthed from a desire to cause trouble online, whether woke culture spawned from digital media and if we are nearing the end for the social internet.
From our UK edition
33 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Ed Condon who is the editor of The Pillar. On the podcast they talk about Biden's Catholicism; how it plays out in his politics and whether it will be a big part of his presidential campaign.
From our UK edition
‘Democracy,’ said H.L. Mencken, ‘is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.’ As we approach 2024, America seems to be proving his point. On Tuesday, a highly unpopular octogenarian President announced that he would be running for re-election next year. Most of Joe Biden’s supporters don’t want him to run and a vast majority of young Democrats would prefer someone younger stood in his place. But everybody knows the reason Biden is staggering on. It’s because his Republican opponent in 2024 will in all likelihood be the man he beat in 2020: Donald J. Trump, arguably the most divisive leader in American history.
