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PODCAST

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.

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All Episodes

19:14

Americano: Alan Dershowitz on Epstein & the client list

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/16

Lawyer Alan Dershowitz joins Freddy Gray to react to the 20,000 newly released Epstein emails — and why he believes far more remains hidden. He discusses Trump’s appearance in the documents, the contradictions in Virginia Giuffre’s testimony, the FBI’s real “client list”, and why judges are still sealing major depositions.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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15:11

Coffee House Shots: H.M. Chief Inspector of Prisons...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/15

Britain’s prisons are a legislative problem that has beset successive governments. New revelations show 91 accidental early releases in just six months, the latest in a growing pattern of administrative chaos across the criminal justice system. Between drones delivering drugs, crumbling Victorian buildings, exhausted staff and an ever more convoluted sentencing regime, what is the cause of so many blunders? And what will Labour’s promised reforms actually fix – and are more crises inevitable?James

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36:38

The Edition: BBC in crisis, the Wes Streeting plot &...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/14

Can the BBC be fixed? After revelations of bias from a leaked dossier, subsequent resignations and threats of legal action from the US President, the future of the corporation is the subject of this week’s cover piece.Host William Moore is joined by The Spectator’s commissioning editor, Lara Brown, arts editor, Igor Toronyi-Lalic, and regular contributor, Melanie McDonagh.They also discuss the drama of this week’s Westminster coup plot, and Melanie’s new book about why Catholicism attracted unlikely

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33:54

The Book Club: Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/13

Sam Leith’s guest this week is Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and author of The Seven Rules of Trust. They discuss why trust is such an important value for public debate, and how it can address polarisation in society. Jimmy addresses the challenge Elon Musk has posed to Wikipedia after the entrepreneur branded the site as ‘woke’, despite the pair having a personal relationship. Sam also asks whether the internet is getting worse – and if it can be fixed. Hosted on Acast. See

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22:28

Quite right!: BBC bias & Bridget ‘Philistine’s’ war...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/12

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now.This week: a crisis at the BBC – and a crisis of standards in our schools.Following the shock resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, Michael and Maddie ask whether the corporation has finally been undone by its own bias, and discuss how it can correct the leftward lurch

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12:08

Reality Check: Britain's stats have become...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/11

Britain is facing a quiet crisis — its data is breaking down, and the government’s numbers are increasingly unreliable.In this episode of Reality Check, economics editor Michael Simmons asks what happens when the state can’t count properly. How can the Bank of England set interest rates or the Treasury balance the books when the data they rely on is wrong? And why are so many “official” statistics now being stripped of their trusted status?Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more

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35:32

Quite right!: Boris, Cameron or May? – Q&A

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/10

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiterightThis week on the first ever Quite right! Q&A: What’s your most left-wing belief? Michael & Maddie confess their guilty liberal secrets on the Elgin Marbles, prison reform and private equity – or ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’.Also this week: who would you trust to save your life on a desert island – Boris Johnson, Theresa May or David Cameron? And finally, a literary turn: from John Donne to Thomas Hardy,

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22:22

Holy Smoke: have the culture wars gone spiritual?

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/09

Why are Silicon Valley billionaires obsessing over Heaven & Hell, and what does it tell us about American society today? Spectator World's Arts Editor Luke Lyman joins Damian Thompson on this episode of Holy Smoke to talk about how a fascination with the Book of Revelation, the Antichrist and a techno-utopia – or techno-apocalypse – has gripped the 'tech bros'.Produced by Patrick Gibbons.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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18:10

Coffee House Shots: what Trump II can teach Britain

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/08

What lessons does America have for our politics? While progressives look to Zohran Mamdani for inspiration on how to get elected successfully, the really important question is how to govern effectively. And here it is the Trump administration which is setting the standard, writesTim Shipmanin thisweek’s cover story. On day one, Donald Trump stepped into the Oval Office ready to ‘move fast and break things’, signing a flurry of executive orders with the backing of unflinching loyalists. Brits who may

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31:50

The Edition: Trump’s gilded age, the ‘hell’ of...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/07

A year on from his presidential election victory, what lessons can Britain learn from Trump II? Tim Shipman writes this week’s cover piece from Washington D.C., considering where Keir Starmer can ‘go big’ like President Trump. Both leaders face crunch elections next year, but who has momentum behind them? There is also the question of who will replace Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. Can Starmer find a candidate who can get the Americans on side?Host Lara Prendergast is joined by

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39:43

Book Club: Graham Robb

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/06

Sam Leith's guest this week is Graham Robb. In his new book The Discovery of Britain: An Accidental History, Graham takes us on a time-travelling bicycle tour of the island's history. They discuss how Graham weaves together personal memories with geography and history, his 'major cartographic scoop' which unlocks Iron Age Britain and contemporary debates about national identity. Graham also has a discovery of interest for those who hold out hope that King Arthur really existed.Produced by Patrick

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22:30

Quite right!: Rachel Reeves’s Budget ‘bollocks’ &...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/05

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right!: Rachel Reeves goes on the offensive – and the defensive. After her surprise Downing Street address, Michael and Maddie pick over the many kites that have been flying in advance of the Budget at the end of the month. Was she softening the public up for

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34:16

Spectator Out Loud: Luke Coppen, Mary Wakefield,...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/04

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Luke Coppen looks at a new musical subgenre of Roman Catholic black metal; Mary Wakefield celebrates cartoonist Michael Heath as he turns 90 – meaning he has drawn for the Spectator for 75 years; looking to Venezuela, Daniel McCarthy warns Trump about the perils of regime change; Michael Simmons bemoans how Britain is beholden to bad data; and, Hugh Thomson looks at celebrity terrorists as he reviews Jason Burke’s The Revolutionists.Produced and presented by

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1:14:44

Americano: James Orr on J.D. Vance

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/03

Freddy Gray sits down with academic James Orr at the Battle of Ideas in London for a live Americano podcast to discuss Vice President J.D. Vance. Having been described as 'Vance's British sherper', James responds to how likely it is that J.D. Vance will be President one day, which weaknesses could hold him back and how Vance's unique closeness to Trump in office has given him vital experience to learn on the job. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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13:56

Reality Check: the rich are leaving Britain – and...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/02

Are the rich fleeing Britain? That's what the numbers suggest, but some activist groups have hit back that the data is dodgy. For the second episode of Reality Check The Spectator's economics editor Michael Simmons explains why the data shows that the wealthy are leaving Britain, and why this matters for everyone else. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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20:41

Coffee House Shots: the inside story of Kemi's first...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/11/01

‘On the day of the local elections, when the Tories suffered a historic setback, Kemi Badenoch went to the gym and got her hair done,’ Tim Shipman reveals in the magazine this week. Aides insist that Badenoch has since ‘upped her game’. Her PMQs performances are improving and the CCHQ machine seems to have whirred into gear, making sure that Labour’s embarrassments – from Angela Rayner’s flat to the collapsed China scandal – don’t go unpunished. Is she finally turning the ship around after a year in

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35:29

The Edition: embracing the occult, going underground...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/10/31

Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, according to Damian Thompson. Artificial intelligence is now so incredible that even educated westerners are falling back on the occult, and Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming obsessed with heaven and hell. An embrace of the occult is not just happening in California but across the world – with ‘WitchTok’, a new trend of middle-class women embracing witchcraft. Is this spooky or just sad? And to what extent are they just following in the tradition of

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37:45

Book Club: Comet in Moominland turns 80

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/10/30

Nat Jansz joins Sam Leith to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Moomin novels. The first of these, Comet in Moominland, was revised by author Tove Jansson a decade after the original publication date. To celebrate the anniversary Sort of Books, co-run by Jansz, is publishing this revised edition for the first time in English.Jansz discusses why she finds the books so compelling, the influence of the war on author Jansson and why she feels Jansson’s ‘quest for the truth’ was written in a way that

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26:06

Quite right!: 'I was reported for bullying!' – inside...

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/10/29

Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now.This week on Quite right!: the great Home Office meltdown. After a week of fiascos – from the accidental release of a convicted migrant to the collapse of the grooming gangs inquiry – Michael and Maddie ask: is the Home Office now beyond repair? Why is Britain’s most important

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49:21

Speaker series: Piers Morgan – Woke is Dead

Best of the Spectator ·

2025/10/28

Piers Morgan sits down with Andrew Doyle in Glasgow to discuss Piers’s provocative new book,Woke Is Dead, and share their unfiltered views on the state of the world today. Rather than celebrating the death of woke, Piers’s book advocates for the return of common sense and a less divided, more sensible society. Piers Morgan: Woke Is Dead with Andrew Doylewill explore why Piers believes woke culture is on its way out, what a return to common sense might look like, and how the cultural tide is shifting

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2,441 results

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