Madeline Grant is The Spectator’s assistant editor and parliamentary sketch writer.
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To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, visit spectator.com/quiteright. In this week’s Q&A, Michael and Maddie ask whether Britain is driving its young and ambitious abroad. As more professionals head to places like Dubai in search of opportunity, they debate whether the real problem lies not with those who leave, but with the
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As the conflict in the Middle East escalates, what is Trump’s game plan? The Spectator’s cover piece this week, by Geoffrey Cain, argues that Trump’s ultimate target in this war is China; every dictator gone, weakens the Chinese regime. As Freddy Gray explains further on the podcast, Trump’s worldview is shaped by the events he grew up
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‘I’d like to remind members of the need for good temper and moderation in the language they use in this chamber.’ Sir Lindsay Hoyle began PMQs with this rather pathetic appeal to respectful debate. Given the current relationship between the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition, it was a bit like a sincere
“Did you ever think that maybe there’s more to life than being really, really, really, ridiculously good-looking?” So asks Derek Zoolander, before pulling his trademark pout, exhibiting cheekbones that look like they were engineered by Brunel. Zoolander came out a quarter-century ago, but now looks prophetic. Ben Stiller’s gullible, self-obsessed moron would fit right in
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This week: Michael and Maddie debate the escalating crisis in Iran and ask whether Donald Trump truly has a strategy – and whether Keir Starmer has one at all. They examine what Trump’s strikes are meant to achieve, whether regime change in Tehran is the real objective and why parts of the American right are
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‘Mr Speaker, this government has the right economic plan for this country.’ It’s never a good sign for a sombre economic statement when your opening line gets a hearty laugh. Rachel Reeves stood up to give a Spring Statement on the economy which might just as well have been a hostage video. The Chancellor’s delivery
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Politics students of the future – if there are any who can see the full length of study without recourse to industrial amounts of anti-depressants – will study the Gorton and Denton by election, which saw the Greens’ Hannah Spencer beat not only Labour but also Matt Goodwin of Reform. So they all appeared in
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In the film Goodbye Lenin, a German family has to convince a fussy, old woman who is also a committed socialist that everything going on outside her window is fine and dandy when, in fact, the Iron Curtain has fallen, the entire lie on which her life was built has crumbled and that this is
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Sunday marks what would have been the 100th birthday of Kenneth Williams. It’s tempting to try to imagine what he would have been like had he lived longer, though the absurdity of our age might have been beyond even his acid observation. That’s perhaps the most interesting aspect of Williams: he can’t be imagined in
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53 min listen
This week, Michael and Maddie consider Reform UK’s succession plan. With Nigel Farage unveiling his new shadow cabinet, attention shifts to the bigger question: who comes after him? Is Reform preparing for life beyond its founder – and if so, who stands ready to inherit the crown? Also this week, they examine the fallout from
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To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, visit spectator.com/quiteright. In this week’s Q&A, Michael and Maddie ask whether Britain should abolish the monarchy. In the wake of fresh controversy surrounding members of the royal family, they debate whether scrapping the institution would be a long-overdue democratic correction – or a profound strategic mistake.
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Sir Keir got probably the biggest cheer he’s had all year at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Unfortunately for him, it came from the Tory benches. After all the Mandelson revelations, it now transpires that Sir Keir gave a peerage to his former director of communications (a chocolate teapot job if ever there was one), Matthew
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In February 1974, a frustrated Ted Heath, unable to achieve anything in government against constant opposition by the mighty trade unions, called an election. One basic question was front and centre of the campaign: ‘Who governs Britain?’ Soon the answer came back: ‘Not you, mate.’ In fact, it would take Margaret Thatcher’s victory to clip
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This week: Michael and Maddie examine the crisis engulfing the Labour party and ask whether Keir Starmer is facing a Boris-style collapse of authority. They explore what could be to come in the continued fallout from the Peter Mandelson affair, the rebellion over the release of government files, and what Starmer’s pattern of scapegoating aides
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Ever wondered what Custer’s last stand would have been like if the dashing but judgement-phobic cavalry general had in fact been an adenoidal human rights lawyer? Wonder no more! The long-drawn-out fall of Sir Keir took another twist today as he tried to marshal his troops in a last desperate defence of his position. The
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To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, visit spectator.com/quiteright. In this week’s Q&A, Michael and Maddie unpack the controversy over whether Rishi Sunak is English or British – and why a debate about national identity has become so politically charged. Is Englishness a civic identity, an ethnic one, or something more elusive? And
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It was always going to be a good one wasn’t it? There was almost a sense of guilt watching today’s PMQs. My fellow sketch writers and I felt like the people who slow down to get a good view of a particularly horrific pile-up on a dual carriageway. Confirmation of this came when the Prime
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After my grandmother died a few years ago, we couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of most of her possessions. What had started as a storage room at my parents’ house quickly morphed into a living, breathing pile. It gradually invaded the spare bedroom and was making encroachments into my mother’s study. Answering the call
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46 min listen
This week: Michael and Maddie examine the fallout from the Epstein files and ask how a story of questionable judgment became a far more serious test of trust at the top of British politics. As new revelations emerge about Peter Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, has a tawdry association escalated into a question of the
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It’s Groundhog Day, the theme of the film where Bill Murray is destined to repeat the same day over and over again. It was also a terrible day for Labour – of course that doesn’t narrow things down either – you could be reading this at any point over the next three years and it’ll
