Michael Gove

Michael Gove

Michael Gove is editor of The Spectator.

Q&A: Should Britain abolish the monarchy?

27 min listen

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.

Labour crisis: ‘Starmer is more like Boris than people admit’

45 min listen

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

Q&A: Is Rishi Sunak English – or British?

25 min listen

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

Mandelson scandal: 'from tawdry friendship to something sinister'

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

Q&A: Why Rwanda failed – and were the Tories serious about migration?

28 min listen

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, visit spectator.com/quiteright. In this week’s Q&A: Michael and Maddie tackle Labour’s uneasy majority and ask why a government with a 174-seat majority already looks so skittish. Are backbench rebellions a sign of weakness – or a rational response from MPs who expect to be out in

The guilty men: the ideologues who undermine Britain

When Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, Tony Blair was in melancholic mood. The newly elected prime minister turned to his aides Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell and mused: ‘We shouldn’t lose any more territory. Britain needs to be big. Look at a map. Britain is so small.’ Nearly 30 years later,

Debate: is Britain really broken?

34 min listen

On this week’s Q&A: Michael and Maddie ask the question dividing the British right: is Britain really broken? As ‘Broken Britain’ rhetoric surges on the right, they debate whether it clarifies the country’s problems or corrodes national confidence. Should we trust those who stand to benefit from a declinist narrative? And is Nigel Farage too

What does loyalty mean in politics?

For David Cameron, there were two types of politician. Team players. Or tossers. Although he preferred a slightly saltier description for the latter type. For a year I was the member of his team whose principal job was tosser-hunter. As government chief whip between 2014 and 2015 I was responsible for maintaining parliamentary discipline, unity

Why Nadhim Zahawi (and Reform) are making a mistake

50 min listen

This week on Quite right!, Michael and Maddie examine Nadhim Zahawi’s dramatic defection to Reform UK and ask whether it strengthens the party’s insurgent credentials or exposes a deeper strategic mistake. Is Reform becoming a genuine outsider movement, or simply a refuge for disaffected Tories? And what does the pattern of Boris-era defections reveal about

Q&A: A Labour rebellion is coming – can Starmer survive?

30 min listen

This week: Michael and Maddie look ahead to a turbulent political year, asking who will rise, who will fall – and whether Keir Starmer can survive the mounting unrest within his own parliamentary party. With Labour backbenchers showing an increasing willingness to defy the leadership, is a full-blown rebellion inevitable? They also discuss the government’s

Year in Review 2025 – Live

32 min listen

From scandals and cabinet chaos to Trumpian antics and the ‘special’ relationship that some say is anything but, The Spectator presents The Year in Review – a look back at the funniest and most tragic political moments of 2025. Join The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove, deputy editor Freddy Gray, political editor Tim Shipman, deputy political editor James Heale

With Michael Gove

30 min listen

Surely needing no introduction to Spectator listeners, Michael Gove has been a staple of British politics for almost two decades. As a Christmas treat, he joins Lara Prendergast to talk about his memories of food including: the ‘brain food’ he grew up on in Aberdeen, his favourite Oxford pubs and the dining culture of 1980s