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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.

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Latest Episodes:

Heat pumps and hydrogen boilers: making a house a green home Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

What are the greener solutions for heating Britain's homes? The government estimates that heating residential homes accounts for around 15 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, many households are concerned about the future of their gas boilers and energy bills. The government laid out its heat and building strategy this October, but do their plans address these worries? And if heat pumps and hydrogen boilers are inevitable, can we find a fair way to achieve that green future, without unnecessarily burdening the poorest in society?
Kate Andrews, The Spectator's economics editor discusses all this with three experts in the field: Chris O'Shea, the chief executive officer at Centrica, Dr Tina Fawcett, the acting leader of the energy research team at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, and the co-director of the Centre for Research Into Energy Demand, and Jacob Young, who is the MP for Redcar and chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Hydrogen.
This podcast is kindly sponsored by Centrica.

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Improving the status quo: can severe asthma be better treated? Dec 22, 2021

Show notes

Everyone knows somebody who has asthma. 5.4 million people in the UK are currently receiving treatment and 200,000 of them have severe asthma. A form of the condition that doesn’t typically respond well to medication. For many, asthma is a severe and debilitating condition but there exists a disconnect between its severity and the organisation of resources to treat it. When it comes to treating an illness, remission is rarely black and white, but for asthma it's commonly steroids.
What if anything is the alternative? Steroids have become the frenemy of both patients and the healthcare system. On the one hand, they’re cheap to administer and largely effective. But on the other, the side effects they produce can be very difficult for patients and costly.
Joining Kate Andrews to discuss all this is Gabby Perry, who is a student and has severe asthma; Syed Ali, medical affairs manager at AstraZeneca; David Price, professor of primary respiratory medicine at the University of Aberdeen who's currently leading the first international severe asthma registry.

This podcast is kindly sponsored and co-created by AstraZeneca.
The patient's individual experience of severe asthma and discussion in this podcast are not medical advice. If you have questions about your own health please discuss with your health care professional.

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Table Talk: with Bee Wilson Dec 21, 2021

Show notes

Beatrice ‘Bee’ Wilson is an acclaimed food writer and journalist, who has authored several books on topics from how bees make honey to the history of the sandwich. On the podcast, Bee discusses the fad of clean eating, how the internet has changed food culture, working with her charity TasteEd, her time as a contestant on Masterchef, and the experience of working on her first cookbook, The Secret of Cooking. She has also written the foreword for the reissue of Kathleen le Riche’s 1950s book ‘Cooking Alone’, which is available now in all good bookshops.

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Inflation, rates and dividends: A financial review of 2021 Dec 20, 2021

Show notes

The world economy is bouncing back from the economic impacts of Covid 19. It has been bumpy year of recovery with labour shortages and consistent inflationary pressures. But it hasn't been all doom and gloom.
Kate Andrews, the Spectator's economic's editor reviews this financial year. She is joined by Martin Vander Weyer, the Spectator's business editor and Paul Abberley, chief executive of Charles Stanley group.
This podcast is kindly sponsored by Charles Stanley. The recording took place just before the Bank of England announced the rise of interest rates to 0.25%.

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Spectator Out Loud Christmas Special: Lara Prendergast, Christopher Howse, Lionel Shriver, Peter Hitchens, Joanna Lumley, Caroline Moore Dec 18, 2021

Show notes

On this week's very special Christmas episode, we'll hear from Lara Prendergast on why she’s planning to party hard this Christmas. (00:57)
Next, Christopher Howse on those helping to preserve the UK’s medieval churches. (06:31)
Then it's, Lionel Shriver on the Covid heretics she admires most. (16:41)
Followed by, Peter Hitchens on Christmas in Russia during the last days of the Soviet Union. (25:23)
Penultimately, we have Joanna Lumley on getting the key to the Sistine Chapel. (35:69)
And finally, Caroline Moore on how ghost stories became a British Christmas tradition.(41:51)
Produced and presented by Sam Holmes
Subscribe to The Spectator magazine this Christmas and get the next 12 issues – in print and online – for just £12. Not only that but you’ll also receive a bottle of Taittinger champagne, worth £42, to see you through to the new year. Join the party today at www.spectator.co.uk/celebrate

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Americano's Year in Review - 2021 Dec 17, 2021

Show notes

Douglas Murray joins Freddy Gray for a look back at yet another tumultuous year in American politics. They discuss the irreconcilable divide between left and right, the origins of Covid-19, the war in Afghanistan, the fallout from the 2020 election and much more, including the temptations of a bottle of Glenmorangie whiskey.

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Women With Balls: with Tzipi Hotovely Dec 17, 2021

Show notes

Tzipi Hotovely is the current Israeli Ambassador to the UK. She was formerly a politician in Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, having climbed the ranks to become deputy foreign minister. On the episode, she talks to Katy about her 2,500 strong wedding reception, campaigning for mother's rights in Israel and what modern-day anti-Semitism look like.
They also discuss the time when she had to be escorted out of the LSE for her own safety, in the face of an aggressive student protest. She reflects:

'Think about it. Does it make sense? I’m the only foreign ambassador that needs to have such heavy protection when I go on campus. Aren’t campuses all about freedom of speech?'

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The Edition: Christmas Special Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

Welcome to the special Christmas episode of The Edition!
In this episode, we look at five major topics that dominated the news this year and the pages of The Spectator.
First up a review of the year in politics with our resident Coffee House Shot's team James Forsyth, Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. We discuss how Boris seemed to make such a strong start to the year through the vaccine rollout, but squandered this goodwill with several own goals. We also touch on some of the big political moments of the year: Partygate, the Owen Paterson affair and of course Matt Hancock. (00:39)
Next, we go global and look at three of the major powerhouses that took headlines this year. The EU, who ends the year in a panic over Russia, extreme Covid measures, and upcoming elections. The US started with an insurrection and ended with President Biden's plummeting poll numbers. Finally, China, who if you ask them say they are doing just fine. Lara Prendergast is joined by Jonathan Miller, Douglas Murray, and Cindy Yu to discuss the state of the world. (22:34)
Then, a subject we all hoped to be leaving in the rearview mirror. Covid. With so much misinformation out there, the one important thing to have is good data, which is why we built The Spectator’s Covid data hub, and William Moore is joined on the podcast by three people who spend an ungodly amount of time going through those figures. The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, Michael Simmons (who puts the data hub together and is making his podcast debut), and our economics editor Kate Andrews. (40:52)
We chose our penultimate segment by looking back at all the most read articles of the year and chose the subject that appeared the most. The Royal Family won by a landslide, and it has been a big year for them. To break down the year’s big Royal moments and try and figure out why we are so obsessed with this family, Lara Prendergast and William Moore sat down with Freddy Gray and Patrick Jephson. (59:37)
And finally, The Edition's producer has given William Moore an early Christmas present. The Church of England is one of his favourite things to talk about, because of how important he thinks it is for our society, but also because of the many issues he has with how it is run. Will gets stuck into it with four amazing priests – Marcus Walker, Daniel French, Nicholas Cranfield, and Steve Morris – who see out the year by telling us their favourite Christmas carols. (01:13:04)
Hosted by Lara Prendergast & Will Moore
Produced by Sam Holmes
Subscribe to The Spectator magazine this Christmas and get the next 12 issues – in print and online – for just £12. Not only that but you’ll also receive a bottle of Taittinger champagne, worth £42, to see you through to the new year. Join the party today at www.spectator.co.uk/celebrate

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The Book Club: Siri Hustvedt Dec 15, 2021

Show notes

Sam's guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is the writer Siri Hustvedt, whose latest book is a collection of essays: Mothers, Fathers and Others. She tells Sam what literary critics get wrong, why she has a rubber brain on her desk, how Ancient Greek misogyny is still with us, why the 17th-century Duchess of Newcastle has yet to get her due – and how long it took her to stop smiling politely when people said her husband wrote her books…

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Podcast special: Health and the big social divide Dec 14, 2021

Show notes

We've long known that where you live, who you live with, how you grew up and your quality of life can have long-lasting consequences for your health. Socioeconomic backgrounds are directly linked to healthcare outcomes. Those that live in inner-city neighbourhoods with dense populations and traffic are likely to have different health outcomes than residents living in leafy suburban London. But what does this mean for healthcare workers and policymakers? Do doctors now have to think about air pollution and green spaces to encourage a healthier population? is this holistic view of health helpful? Or indeed possible?
Kate Andrews is joined by a panel of experts to tackle these questions. Charmaine Griffiths is head of the British Heart Foundation, Chinmay Bhatt who is the managing director of the pharmaceutical company, Novartis in the UK and Ireland. And Sir Michael Marmot whose been looking at this question in today's Britain.
This podcast episode is sponsored by Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK and editorially owned by The Spectator. Views and ideas expressed are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the sponsor.

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