Does Bidenomics make sense?
From our UK edition
35 min listen
With Professor Michael Lind, author of The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite.
Freddy Gray
Tuesday
Wednesday
Will we ever know where Covid came from?
From our UK edition
34 min listen
What was once dismissed by the mainstream media as a right wing conspiracy theory, seems to have made its transition into credible possibility. It now seems very plausible that Covid came from a Chinese lab. But will we ever know for sure? And even if we did, what would we do about it? Freddy Gray talks to historian and journalist Thomas Frank, who recommends we all read this.
Saturday
Is the sexual counterrevolution coming?
From our UK edition
40 min listen
Freddy Gray discusses the revolt against sexual liberalism with Mary Harrington, Louise Perry and Default Friend.
Friday
Out now: the June edition of The Spectator World
Sex sells, we’ve been told, and so — grubby hacks that we are — we have dedicated the June edition of The Spectator World to the subject. But this ain’t your average smut. On our cover, the brilliant Mary Harrington looks at how America’s young elites are turning against free love. Zoe Strimpel discusses her recent experiences on dating apps and wonders why young men seem to have lost interest in sex. Cosmo Landesman asks if women who claim to love pornography are faking it; Bridget Phetasy wonders why men’s magazines such as Playboy aren’t for men any more and Dominic Green takes a Freudian look at America’s race to the bottom. Beyond all the sex, the June edition features a variety of other subjects to arouse your curiosity.
Thursday
TikTok intifada: what’s the role of new media in old conflicts?
From our UK edition
34 min listen
In this week’s podcast, we talk to James Ball, author of this week’s cover story on the ‘TikTok Intifada’ about the themes he uncovers in his analysis of the impact of social media on the conflict in the Middle East. The conversation with James continues with our next guest, Professor Gabriel Weinmann of Haifa University in Israel, the author of an in-depth report on the rise of incendiary, unregulated material on TikTok. As Arab and Israeli youngsters create and consume violent footage on the app, is it time that it was reined in - or is it a lost cause? (00:55)'This is a platform that targets young audiences.
Friday
Can Democrats criticise Israel?
From our UK edition
12 min listen
Apart from former nominee-candidate Andrew Yang, the Democratic Party has remained relatively quiet about the latest escalations in Israel and Gaza. Why won't the Party comment? Freddy Gray talks to Dominic Green.
Friday
Why is Liz Cheney still a Republican?
From our UK edition
19 min listen
They saved her once, but it seems that the Congressional Republicans patience with Representative Liz Cheney has run out. The founder of the GOP said 'a house divided cannot stand', but maybe it's not a divided as the media makes it out. Freddy Gray speaks to Grace Curley, host of The Grace Curley Show.
Friday
What’s wrong with American media?
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.
Tuesday
How COVID-19 killed Hollywood
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.
Monday
Out now: The Spectator’s May 2021 edition
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.
Friday
Is Biden really going to squeeze the rich?
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.
Will Joe Biden really squeeze the rich?
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.
Thursday
Biden’s Rodeo: How were his first 100 days?
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.
Biden’s rodeo: the President’s first 100 days have been a wild ride
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.
Friday
What’s happening in Minneapolis?
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.
Tuesday
Crime and no punishment in Minneapolis
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.
Thursday
Why should we hate ‘vaxports’?
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'.
Friday
Please Twitter, stop playing ‘Guess the Killer’s Race’
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.
Thursday
Did Matt Gaetz do nothing wrong?
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.
Monday
The alarming rise of Big Dope
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.
