Lara Prendergast is executive editor of The Spectator. She hosts two Spectator podcasts, The Edition and Table Talk, and edits The Spectator’s food and drink coverage.
21 min listen
Dee Rettali is an artisan baker. She founded Patisserie Organic in 1998, and afterwards the Fortitude Bakehouse in London. She is the author of Baking with Fortitude: sourdough cakes and bakes. On the podcast, she tells Lara and Liv about enjoying tinned fish, relying on the custom of cyclists in lockdown, and learning from 1970s French patisserie that baking was better without kitchen machinery.
41 min listen
In this week’s episode: Has the Biden Presidency stalled or crashed?In our cover story this week, Freddy Gray assesses the state of the Biden presidency. With steadily lowering approval ratings, a disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, and this week’s failure of the Democrats to hold on to the Virginia Governorship, how much trouble is the US’s oldest inaugurated president in? Freddy talks to Lara along with Emily Tamkin, the US editor of the New Statesman and co-host of the World Review Podcast. (00:49)Also this week: Should we welcome or fear the Metaverse?Kit Wilson writes in The Spectator this week about Facebook’s new venture into the Metaverse, a concept that most of us probably hadn’t heard of until last week.
32 min listen
In this week’s episode: Can Cop26 deliver on its grand promises? In our cover story this week, Fraser Nelson assesses the state of the upcoming Cop26 summit in Glasgow and questions their very effectiveness in dealing with climate change in a world of global players with very different priorities. He is joined on the podcast by reporter Jess Shankleman, who is covering Cop26 for Bloomberg. (00:48)‘This one’s in Glasgow, but you’d best think of it as the Edinburgh Festival for environmentalism. Lots of fun, lots of debates, lots of protests, lots of street action, but not really any much of concrete substance.’ – Fraser Nelson Also this week: Is it moral to bribe your child to go to church?
30 min listen
Rachel Roddy is an author and food writer based in Rome. She has written for several publications, including the Financial Times, the Telegraph, Food and Wine, The Spectator, and has a weekly column in the Guardian. On the podcast, Rachel talks to Lara and Liv about growing up in Hertfordshire, coping with an eating disorder, why she chose to move to Italy and life under lockdown there over the past 18 months. Her latest book, An A to Z of Pasta, is available to buy now.
34 min listen
In this week’s episode: Who is Eric Zemmour – can he take on President Macron? In our cover story this week, Freddy Gray looks at the rise of Eric Zemmour, the TV presenter who looks set to stir up French politics ahead of next year’s election. Freddy is joined on the podcast by Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief for The Economist and a biographer of French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss. (00:46) Also this week: Is the Prevent anti-radicalisation programme failing?Douglas Murray says in this week’s issue that Prevent is failing to tackle Islamic extremism in the UK. He talks about the changes Prevent needs to make along with William Baldet, a Prevent Coordinator. (11:46) And finally: what’s it like to dine naked?
Travel abroad is now possible, but is less fun than it was. There’s the litany of Covid paperwork. Tests must be ordered from companies with odd-sounding names that seem always to end with an ‘X’. Once abroad, there is the constant worry that you may test positive for the dreaded virus and find yourself banged up far from home for a week or so. The good news is that it is now quite easy to pretend to be abroad even when you are not. ‘Staycation’ is a hackneyed term. What’s more amusing is to cosplay the sense of being in a foreign city without actually leaving London. It’s surprisingly easy to do.
38 min listen
In this week’s episode: Why are a growing number of people putting the planet before parenthood? Madeleine Kearns writes about this phenomenon in this week’s issue and thinks that some of these fears might be unfounded. Tom Woodman author of Future is one of these people that Madeleine’s piece talks about. Tom has very real worries about bringing a child into the world. It's not only the least green thing he could do but also that the standard of living for that child could be severely limited due to a climate catastrophe. (00:47)Also this week: Has Boris Johnson brought Conservatism full circle? That’s the argument Tim Stanley makes in this week’s Spectator. He joins Lara on the podcast along with one of the MPs mentioned in the piece, Steve Baker.
29 min listen
Laurie Woolever is a writer and editor, and for nearly a decade worked as the assistant to the late author, TV host and producer Anthony Bourdain. On the podcast, she talks to Lara and Liv about tending to garden peas from the age of four, finishing co-writing a book with Bourdain after he passed away, and finding comfort at a local bakery during the pandemic.
38 min listen
In this week’s episode: with the energy crisis picking up pace who are set to be the winners and losers in this cold war for gas? Domestically we are seeing queues for petrol, rising gas prices all in the face of the Government’s net-zero agenda. And internationally things are looking just as turbulent, with China buying up as much fuel as possible, America becoming more isolationist when it comes to its energy supply, and Russia feeling more powerful in its place thanks to its Nord Stream 2 pipeline. These are the issues that Seb Kennedy, the founding editor of Energy Flux, addresses in his cover piece this week for The Spectator.
24 min listen
Grizelda is an award-winning cartoonist for publications including The Spectator, the New Statesman and Private Eye. She was Pocket Cartoonist of the Year in 2018. On the podcast, she tells Lara and Liv about her brother's infamous cooking, how she comes up with ideas for cartoons, and why she only knows four recipes.
18 min listen
Ed Balls is an acclaimed broadcaster, writer, economist, professor and former politician who served as shadow chancellor from 2011 to 2015. On the podcast, he tells Lara and Liv about the importance of Sunday lunches growing up, his long history of making bespoke children's birthday cakes and the times he turned his campaign team into a makeshift kitchen staff. All this and more is documented in his new book Appetite, out now.
33 min listen
On this week's episode: why is the Prime Minister so desperate to support the assetocracy? In The Spectator’s cover story this week, after Boris Johnson revealed his plan to pay for social care with a National Insurance increase, Fraser Nelson says there has been an inversion of the welfare state. Is it right to ask the working poor to pay more taxes to help cover the social care of people who could easily fund it themselves? Kate Andrews, The Spectator’s economics editor, joins Fraser to discuss. (00:47) Plus, why is our knowledge of Soviet atrocities so poor? Attempting to fix this, James Bartholomew has been interviewing and recording the stories of survivors of Soviet oppression and torture.
41 min listen
Charlie Stebbings is an acclaimed food director and photographer. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about photographing M&S's melt in the middle chocolate puddings, treating himself to baked beans and red wine and measuring mayonnaise from a syringe.
39 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at the fortress that Australia has built around itself, and ask – when will its Zero Covid policy end (01:00)?Also on the podcast: is it racist to point out Britain’s changing demographics (14:35)? And is trivia just another way for men to compete (27:00)?With former Australian High Commissioner, Alexander Downer; chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus, Layla Moran MP; Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver; York University's Dr Remi Adekoya; Spectator contributor Mark Mason; and QI elf Anna Ptaszynski.Presented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Cindy Yu and Natasha Feroze.
17 min listen
On this week's episode, Lara Prendergast asks if it's so wrong to talk about whether the Covid vaccine affects periods. (01:05) Cindy Yu says China's 'zero Covid' strategy can't last. (06:50) And finally, Gus Carter spends an hour in a sensory deprivation tank.
39 min listen
On this week’s podcast:In the latest issue of The Spectator, we cover the Afghanistan issue extensively, looking at everything from why the West was doomed from the start, to how events in Afghanistan have transformed central Asian politics. On the podcast, journalist Paul Wood and our own deputy editor Freddy Gray, both of whom feature in this week’s issue, join Lara to talk Biden, Boris and the new 'progressive' Taliban. (00:37)'This is not your father's Taliban' - Paul WoodNext up, thousands of women whose menstrual cycles have been affected by the Covid vaccine have now come forward to make their symptoms known, including our host Lara Prendergast, who writes about her experience in this week's Spectator.
It’s fashionable to talk about periods. Books on the subject, with glossy red and pink covers, are bestsellers. They have sassy titles like Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement and Period:Twelve Voices Tell the Bloody Truth. The Periodical is a podcast for ‘everyone who bleeds, and their friends’. And this being our ultra-capitalist world, you can obviously buy a T-shirt, notebook or phone cover with a period-related slogan slapped across it. ‘Anything you can do, I can do bleeding’ is one mantra. I admit to having not engaged much with this world. My period has always seemed to me a private matter, of no interest to anybody else and only vague interest to myself.
26 min listen
Rory Bremner is one of Britain's leading comedians, impressionists and political satirists. On the episode, he tells Lara and Liv about his first impression (of a school history teacher), doing shows with Ainsley Harriott, getting stuck in a storm in Turkey at the same time as Betty Boothroyd, and helping refugees and asylum seekers through food.
35 min listen
Molly Baz is a cook, recipe developer, video host, cookbook author, and a self proclaimed weenie lover. On this episode, Molly talks to Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts about her food revelation with an Italian house-mother in Florence, her time working for Bon Appetit and about her new cook book COOK THIS BOOK, which revolutionises the medium by adding easy to access how-to videos to watch as you cook.
40 min listen
Is there a humane solution to Britain’s migrant crisis?(00:52) Also on the podcast: Why is the WHO so down on e-cigarettes?(16:23) and finally... after a year and a half inside how angry will strangers make us?(27:01) With Douglas Murray; award winning film maker and producer for the Trojan Women project Charlotte Eagar; Christopher Snowdon; Clive Bates the director of The Counterfactual and previous head of ASH; Damian Thompson; and Stuart Prebble creator of the hit TV show Grumpy Old Men.
