Lionel Barber

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 Reform eats into its working-class vote, is Keir Starmer facing a battle for the soul of his party? They also consider the collapse of the political centre, the weakness of Britain’s current leadership class, and why being ‘not Keir Starmer’ may not be enough. Also this week: King Charles’s diplomatic triumph in Washington.

In this week’s episode: Just who is protesting new Covid rules in Europe? In The Spectator this week we have three articles that cover the riots and protests all over Europe about new covid policies. Two of them report the scene on the ground in different countries. Lionel Barber and Nick Farrell write respectively about the situations in Holland and Italy and talk on the podcast about why this is happening now and how much more it could escalate. (00:45)Also this week: Is China having its own hand and the #MeToo moment?A spotlight has been shined on China in recent days, due to the troubling series of events surrounding the Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai.

On the podcast this week, we take a look at the exceptional nature of 'coronomics' and what comes after (00:55), how the Swedish are dealing with coronavirus differently (18:50), and lessons in solitude from a polar explorer (31:15).