Best of the Spectator - TopPodcast.com

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Best of the Spectator — News & Politics
Best of the Spectator

Home to the Spectator’s best podcasts on everything from politics to religion, literature to food and drink, and more. A new podcast every day from writers worth listening to.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Latest Episodes:

Marshall Matters: Don McLean Feb 14, 2022

Show notes

This week Winston is joined by American songwriting legend Don McLean. Don discusses his work, the atmosphere of America when he was starting in the 60s compared to now, and how he predicted the state of the world today in his all time classic “American Pie”.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Americano: Is it possible to be a conservative on social media? Feb 13, 2022

Show notes

Freddy sits down with Lauren Southern a former YouTube personality and now a documentary filmmaker. Lauren has been described as one of the leaders of the Alt-Right movement. Which is a label Lauren herself thinks doesn't actually mean anything. On the podcast, Lauren and Freddy get into what direction the online right will go next, what feminism looks like in modern conservative circles, and how hypocrites can sometimes be right.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spectator Out Loud: Kate Andrews, Kevin Hurley, Lawrence Bernstein Feb 12, 2022

Show notes

On this week's episode, we’ll hear from Kate Andrews on the NHS’s waiting list crisis. (00:52)
Next, Kevin Hurley on the impact of demonising the police force. (07:04)
And finally, Lawrence Bernstein on the secretive world of speech writing. (12:41)
Produced and presented by Sam Holmes
Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Women With Balls: with Carolyn Harris Feb 11, 2022

Show notes

Carolyn Harris is a Welsh Labour Party politician serving as the Deputy Leader of Welsh Labour since 2018, and has been the Member of Parliament for Swansea East since 2015. On the podcast she talks to Katy about her three successful campaigns, menopause, and the time she accidentally turned on the No.10 Christmas lights.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Edition: Boris’s bunker Feb 10, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s episode: What’s the mood like in Boris’s bunker?
For this week’s cover story, James Forsyth writes about the defensive bunker mentality inside No. 10 and the PM’s strategy of keeping MPs sweet to hold back a no confidence vote. James joins the podcast along with Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson to discuss. (00:50)
Also this week: Have we forgotten how to take a joke?
Jimmy Carr has caused an online outcry after an off-colour joke from his new show, His Dark Material was clipped and posted without context on social media. Ministers, such as Nadine Dorries and Sajid Javid, have now criticised a comedian for telling a joke. In the Spectator this week both in print and online, two of our writers came to Carr’s defence. The Spectator’s associate editor Douglas Murray joins the podcast, along with Sam Holmes, who is The Spectator’s Podcast Producer by day, and a stand up comedian by night. (11:38)
And finally: Has Covid permanently changed how people take Communion?
During the Covid pandemic, churches had to rethink the way they gave communion to their congregations. But will we ever go back to the old normal? Ysenda Maxtone Graham mourns the loss of the tradition of the communal cup in this week's Spectator. She joins the podcast along with Revd Dr Andrew Atherstone, a Tutor in Church History at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, who has written a study entitled, Drink This, All of You’: Individual Cups at Holy Communion.(21:42)
Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William Moore
Produced by Sam Holmes
Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher
Listen to Lara's food podcast Table Talk: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/table-talk

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Book Club: The Centenary of Kerouac Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

This year marks the centenary of the birth of Jack Kerouac. As Penguin publishes a lavish new edition of On The Road to mark the occasion, I'm joined by two Kerouac scholars. Holly George-Warren is working on the definitive biography of Kerouac (her previous work includes Lives of Gene Autry and Janis Joplin), and Simon Warner co-edited Kerouac on Record: A Literary Soundtrack and runs Rock and the Beat Generation. They tell me how On The Road came to be written, how it stands up now, and what made 'the Beats' beat.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chinese Whispers: the Xi-Putin alliance Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

In 2008, President George Bush was the star guest at Beijing’s opening ceremony. Fourteen years later, under a cloud of diplomatic boycotts led by the US, the guest of honour spot was filled instead by President Putin. Under a confluence of factors over the last decade, China and Russia are closer now than they have been since the Cold War.
On this episode of Chinese Whispers, Cindy Yu talks to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, about how this situation came about. If the beginning of the end of the Cold War can be traced back to the Sino-Soviet split – allowing a bipolar world to be split into three when China began rapprochement with Nixon’s America – then what does today’s alliance mean at this moment in geopolitics?
For Alex, there were three reasons why China and Russia have got closer. China’s hunger for oil and gas makes Russia a much-needed new trading partner (and vice versa). The two were able to fudge territorial disputes along the 3000 mile border they share (Alex points out that Russia has only been able to amass troops on the Ukrainian border because their military presence on the Sino-Russian border is the lightest it has been for a century). They share similar political cultures - strongman-ship supported by powerful and corrupt oligarchs and a nationalistic society - and similar national leaders (‘for the first time after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we have two leaders that are age mates and soul mates’).
‘The secret sauce’ that binds the collaboration together, according to Alex, is the US’s increasing confrontation with both. What we see from Washington today is a reverse Kissinger - where the two authoritarian countries are being pushed closer together by an increasingly hawkish America. Take Nord Stream 2 - any weaning off of the German market from Russian gas will simply make the Chinese market even more important for Moscow. But it’s not clear that the West has many alternatives.
Getting closer to China is not necessarily a good thing for Russia, either. For one, the relationship is unbalanced. In a reversal of Cold War dynamics, the size of China’s high value economy today means that Chinese business matters more to Moscow than Russian to Beijing. ‘Ten, fifteen years down the road,’ Alex says, ‘China will have more leverage’. Could a more powerful China try to bully its weaker ally in commercial and security spheres? Possibly, but the die may already have been cast: ‘unfortunately, the sources of grievances and conflict between Russia and the US run so deep [that] the Russian leadership is so emotionally invested that there is no easy way out.’
On this episode Cindy and Alex also discuss the malleability of national memory (Russian aggression during the 19th century often flies under the radar of Chinese nationalists), in what ways China’s relations with the US are still better than with Russia and exactly how China could react to any transgression on the Ukrainian border. Tune in.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marshall Matters: David Baddiel Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

In Episode 2 of Marshall Matters, Winston speaks with David Baddiel on his powerful book 'Jews Don’t Count', the experience of writing the alternative National anthem 'Three Lions' and his recent stand up show 'Trolls - Not The Dolls'.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spectator Out Loud: James Heale, Leah McLaren, Nicholas Farrell Feb 05, 2022

Show notes

On this week's episode, we’ll hear from James Heale on the Zac Goldsmiths’ secret shadow cabinet. (00:49)
Next, Leah McLaren on Covid in Canada. (07:20)
And finally, Nicholas Farrell on the march of the Italian Wolves. (13:58)
Produced and presented by Sam Holmes
Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Americano: Is Facebook in a 'death spiral'? Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

Freddy Gray talks to Guy Clapperton, the tech journalist and host of the Near-Futurist podcast about the recent collapse in Facebook’s share price, and the social media giant's prospects long-term.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Related Podcasts