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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.

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

Latest Episodes:

Coffee House Shots: how much are the two main parties really promising to spend? Nov 09, 2019

Show notes

With Robert Colvile, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, and James Forsyth.
Presented by Katy Balls.
Coffee House Shots is a series of podcasts on British politics from the Spectator's political team and special guests. Brought to you daily, click here to find more episodes that are not released on Spectator Radio.

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

Women With Balls: Nicky Morgan Nov 08, 2019

Show notes

Nicky Morgan is the Secretary of State for Culture, and former Conservative MP for Loughborough. Despite her success in Boris Johnson's cabinet, she announced that she'd be standing down at this election. On the podcast, she talks about student politics in Oxford with Dan Hannan, filling in Michael Gove's shoes as Education Secretary under David Cameron, firing herself for Theresa May when the latter became Prime Minister.
Women With Balls is a podcast series where Katy Balls speak to women at the top of their respective games. To hear past episodes, visit spectator.co.uk/balls.

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The Edition: who can take Trump on? Nov 07, 2019

Show notes

America goes to the polls next year, but can any of the Democratic candidates take Trump out (00:45)? And with our own election coming up, what happens if you can no longer vote for the party you’ve always supported (13:15)? And last, happy 200th birthday to George Eliot – we find out about her unconventional life (28:05).
With Freddy Gray, Karine Jean-Pierre, Matthew Parris, Tanya Gold, and Kathy O'Shaughnessy.
Presented by Lara Prendergast.
Produced by Cindy Yu and Gus Carter.
The Edition is the new name for the Spectator Podcast, the Spectator's flagship podcast where we discuss some of our favourite features from the week's issue. To find previous episodes or just tune in to The Edition, click here.

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The Book Club: is meritocracy a trap? Nov 06, 2019

Show notes

Daniel Markovits is the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School. In his new book The Meritocracy Trap Daniel advances an argument that will seem startling to partisans of Left and Right alike: that meritocracy isn’t the solution to our social and political discontents, but the central part of the problem. Our notion that hard work and proven ability should be the route to wealth and success has, he says, created a miserable underclass and a comparably miserable overclass — and is responsible for a damaging and eventually unsustainable reorganisation of Western economies. Among other sophisticated questions, Sam asks him: how so? And: aren’t you sounding a bit like a Marxist, there, Mr Yale Professor?
The Book Club, what used to be known as Spectator Books, is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes of The Book Club here.

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

Table Talk: with Fuchsia Dunlop Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

Fuchsia Dunlop is a writer and chef specialising in Chinese cuisine, especially that of Sichuan. She tells Lara and Livvy about the international lodgers who trained her adventurous palate growing up, why some Chinese foods can be so challenging for westerners (hint: it's the texture!), and the 23 different types of Sichuan spicy.
Table Talk is a series of podcasts where Lara Prendergast and Olivia Potts talk to celebrity guests about their life story, through the food and drink that has come to define it. Listen to past episodes here.

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Spectator Books: the Greek myths, reimagined Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, Spectator Books leaves its dank burrow and hits the road. Sam travelled to the southern Peloponnese to catch up with the Orange-prize winning novelist Madeline Miller, where she was hosting a reading weekend at the Costa Navarino resort. Madeline’s first novel, The Song of Achilles, retold the Iliad from Patroclus’s point of view. Her second, Circe, takes on the great sorceress of the Odyssey. She talked about how — as a classicist as well as a novelist — she approached reworking these canonical stories; about taking liberties with Circe; and about how the 'rape culture' of Ancient Greece speaks to us in the age of #metoo.
Spectator Books is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes of Spectator Books here.

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

Coffee House Shots: how will history remember John Bercow? Nov 02, 2019

Show notes

With Mark D'Arcy, the BBC's Today in Parliament correspondent, and Bobby Friedman, John Bercow's biographer.
Presented by Katy Balls.
Coffee House Shots is a series of podcasts on British politics from the Spectator's political team and special guests. Brought to you daily, click here to find more episodes that are not released on Spectator Radio.

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

Americano: what did we learn from Trump's interview with Farage? Nov 01, 2019

Show notes

With Dominic Green, Life and Arts editor of Spectator USA.
Americano is a series of in-depth discussions on American politics with the best pundits stateside. Presented by Freddy Gray, editor of Spectator USA. Click here to listen to previous episodes.

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

The Spectator Podcast: how unpredictable is this election? Oct 31, 2019

Show notes

This week, an election has officially been called – so what do the major parties need to do to win (00:55)? Plus, Trump goes back into Syria – we look at how pressures back home are shaping up his foreign policy (16:15). And last: does this video give you the shivers (28:00)?
With Stephen Bush, Will Tanner, Sir Christopher Meyer, Sarah Elliott, Mary Wakefield and Dr Giulia Poerio.
Presented by Lara Prendergast and Katy Balls.
Produced by Cindy Yu.
With special thanks to ASMRtists WhisperRed and SAS-ASMR.

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Spectator Books: the tragic self-destruction of the House of York Oct 30, 2019

Show notes

In this week’s Spectator Books, Sam talks to the award-winning historian Thomas Penn about his new book The Brothers York: An English Tragedy — in which he argues that the 'Wars of the Roses' weren’t determined by a struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster so much as by the catastrophic white-on-white conflict that cause the House of York to implode. He tells the story of three brothers — Edward IV; George, Duke of Clarence; and Richard III — and their extraordinary and ultimately disastrous relationship. How did Tudor history — including, of course, Shakespeare — distort the real story of those years? Who really drowned the Duke of Clarence in that butt of wine? And did anyone, like Sam, have their sense of this vital period in history shaped by, er, playing the board game Kingmaker?
Spectator Books is a series of literary interviews and discussions on the latest releases in the world of publishing, from poetry through to physics. Presented by Sam Leith, The Spectator's Literary Editor. Hear past episodes of Spectator Books here.

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

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