From our UK edition
20 min listen
What's wrong with American media? The Sunday Times's Josh Glancy, formerly Washington correspondent at the newspaper, joins Freddy Gray to discuss the how the last five years have changed the institution.
We hear a lot about the pandemic accelerating existing social trends. Traditional retail was dying; now it’s all but dead. Office real estate was under threat; now it’s increasingly worthless. The atomization of human existence was on its way. Now it’s our reality. Another trend that COVID-19 has sped up is the growing irrelevance of Luvvie Lalaland, the Oscars and self-important celebrity actors. I wrote here last year that social media had killed the movie star because nobody cared about big award ceremonies anymore. We are all bored to tears now by morality lectures from the rich and the famous. I had jumped the gun, somewhat. In the 2010s the Oscars were in decline, but the 2020 ceremony still drew in a TV audience of 23.6 million. This year, that number collapsed to 9.
It’s China’s game, and we are all pawns. In the new May 2021 edition of The Spectator, Ian Williams looks at how the Chinese government is using social media and misinformation warfare to stoke American political and racial tensions. Using troll accounts, some of them official, as well as its own social media channels, such as TikTok, Chinese propagandists can highlight divisive issues in America while distracting attention from their own country’s myriad human rights abuses. In this, the Chinese Communist party has been far more effective that Vladimir Putin’s Russia in causing disillusionment and despair in 21st century America. Elsewhere, Lionel Shriver explains how national self-hatred went mainstream in America.
From our UK edition
17 min listen
The Biden administration has announced that it will hike the highest rate of income tax and almost double capital gains tax to pay for its enormous spending plans. But will they stop there, or are more taxes on the less well off coming down the line? Freddy Gray speaks to Kate Andrews.
The American Recovery Plan Act: $1.9 trillion. The American Jobs Plan: $2 trillion. The American Family Plan $1.5 trillion. It’s fair to say that the Biden administration’s attempts to transform the country are adding up. We keep being told, by the very enthusiastic pro-Democrat press corps, not to underestimate the radicalism of the new president, and Joe Biden is eager to prove the point. He really is proposing to remold the American economy and his government is wasting little time. He and his advisers clearly take the FDR comparisons seriously. But the trouble with gargantuan government spending is that, even in the topsy-turvy world of pandemic economics, the people of the country eventually have to foot the bill.
From our UK edition
30 min listen
Joe Biden is approaching his first 100 days in office. How has he fared, and has he delivered on his promise to bring about a return to normalcy? (1:15) Plus, the proposed European Super League wasn’t super after all. The six English teams invited to join the league pulled out earlier this week, and the plans have now been shelved. But will it still happen eventually? (10:30) And finally, what’s it really like to live in a listed building? (19:30)With the Spectator's US editor Freddy Gray; our economics correspondent Kate Andrews; journalist Damian Reilly; veteran football reporter Julie Welch; Spectator contributor Hamish Scott; and Liz Fuller, a buildings at risk officer for Save Britain’s Heritage. Presented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Max Jeffery and Sam Russell.
From our UK edition
Joe Biden, the 46th President of the United States, has never been able to keep his mouth shut. Throughout his absurdly long career in politics, he has always said too much, made stuff up, gone too far. His friends and fans just shrug it off. ‘That’s our Joe.’ The trouble is, Biden is now America’s Commander-in-Chief, leader of the not-so-free-anymore world, and his loquaciousness — and the mental fuzziness it betrays — is becoming a problem. Take, for instance, his decision this week to intervene before the jury reached its verdict on the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white police officer now found guilty of the murder last year of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. ‘I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict.
From our UK edition
26 min listen
Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who knelt on George Floyd's neck, is currently on trial in Minneapolis. What does the evidence say, will the city stay peaceful when the verdict is delivered, do violent viral videos do more harm than good, and should the country's political leaders call for order? Freddy Gray speaks to Scott Johnson, a lawyer and contributor to Power Line.
So far in the 2020s, American citizens have been hectored endlessly about wearing masks, staying safe indoors and standing apart out. Yet the people who smash up neighborhoods are encouraged to keep expressing their pain. The concept of law and order is therefore becoming a twisted joke. Yes, Minneapolis is rioting again — another police violence video circulated on the internet, another round of anarchy, another bonfire of American values. This time it’s Daunte Wright, a young man shot dead as he tried to escape the police in Brooklyn Center, a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. The officer responsible, a woman called Kim Potter, seems to have believed she was using a Taser to stop Wright. But she got him with a gun instead.
From our UK edition
28 min listen
Vaccine passports seem all but inevitable in the UK and parts of the US. While some are relatively relaxed about the prospects of a de facto bio-security ID card, others are not. Spectator US contributor Bridget Phetasy is one of them, and on this episode tells Freddy Gray why she hates the 'vaxport'.
Another day, another killing in America, another depressingly instant social-media argument over the perpetrator’s skin color. This time a man rammed his car into two Capitol Hill police officers in Washington DC. One, Officer William Evans, died. The other is seriously injured. The attacker then emerged from his car wielding a knife at other officers before he was shot and killed. Once again, various blue-checked Twitterers decided to assume that the killer must be some angry white Trump supporter, presumably because the last time the Capitol was attacked it was by a horde of angry Trumpists. But there was no evidence to suggest the killer was white. Indeed, in a video clip of the man being wheeled away having his chest pumped, his skin appeared dark.
From our UK edition
37 min listen
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that congressman Matt Gaetz is being investigated over whether he had sex with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him. Freddy Gray speaks to Roger Stone, former adviser to Donald Trump and a friend of Gaetz, about the story.
From our UK edition
18 min listen
Young people are now more likely to consume marijuana than smoke tobacco. Is weed just a benign stimulant, or is Big Dope pushing a drug that could lead to a schizophrenia epidemic? Freddy Gray speaks to Madeleine Kearns, staff writer at National Review and the author of the cover piece in the new US edition of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
20 min listen
A piece of digital art by the illustrator Beeple has sold for $69 million. Is it worth the cash, or just a picture on a screen? Freddy Gray talks to Nima Sagharchi, director of Middle Eastern, Islamic and South Asian art at Bonhams auctioneers.
From our UK edition
22 min listen
In the wake of the Atlanta shootings, Freddy Gray talks to Andy Ngo, journalist and author of Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy about Ngo's experiences of racism as an Asian-American and what's behind the rise in violence against the group.
From our UK edition
31 min listen
With historian Michael Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
OK, I’ll stick my neck out — Meghan Markle is never, ever going to be president of the United States of America. If I’m wrong, kill me. I mean it. No grudges — set me on fire, chop off my head, take me out with a drone missile marked #Loveislove. I wouldn’t want to live. We hear this week, through amusingly dubious sources, that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex is ‘considering running’ for the White House ‘if Joe Biden rules out a second term’. The British tabloids are talking about ‘mounting speculation’ which is what they say when they know they are publishing gibberish for clicks.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that America seems to have gone crazy right about the time that cannabis became legal. In our latest April edition, we cover Big Dope, or the alarming power of the cannabis industry. Madeleine Kearns looks at the disturbing health consequences of widespread marijuana consumption as well as the enormous profit-motives that cloud any serious discussion about the downsides. Why worry when the poor can get high and the rich can get richer? We may soon find out. Mary Eberstadt also asks if, given all the other crises plaguing American society, more drugs are what we need. That’s all strong stuff. And we have plenty more for you to put in your mental pipe and smoke. — Our lead editorial explains how the border crisis could define Biden’s presidency.
From our UK edition
19 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to historian Patrick Allitt, the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, about how much the Harry and Meghan interview has really cut through to the American public.
From our UK edition
36 min listen
Is it fair to blame Meghan for the Royal Family's problems? (00:55) Why is China censoring a book of Dante's poetry? (12:40) Would you go to moon? (24:50)With The Spectator's US editor Freddy Gray; The Spectator's restaurant critic Tanya Gold; author Ian Thomson; Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies at King's College London; The Spectator's commissioning editor Mary Wakefield; and Spectator columnist Matthew Parris.Presented by Cindy Yu.Produced by Max Jeffery, Natasha Feroze and Matthew Sawyer.
