In this week’s episode:
Robert Hardman & Angela Levin, two of the UK’s royal specialists, explore the character of the Queen and the impact she has had on the institution of the monarchy. (00:36)




Also this week:
For now, it seems that Boris Johnson is hanging on after the publishing of the Sue Gray report, but how stable is his position? Could a vote of no confidence be closer than anyone expects? The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth joins the podcast to discuss. (13:47)




And finally:
Is Chinese cinema in decline? Cindy Yu writes on this in this week’s Spectator, and she joins the podcast along with Andrew Heskins, the founder of easternkicks.com, a review website specialising in Asian film, and co-founder of the film festival, Focus Hong Kong.
(23:33)




Hosted by Lara Prendergast
Produced by Sam Holmes




Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher: www.spectator.co.uk/voucher


The quiet radicalism of Elizabeth II

The Spectator's flagship podcast featuring discussions and debates on the best features from the week's edition. Presented by Lara Prendergast and William Moore.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

News

News Commentary

This week: Wannabes - are any of them ready? Our cover piece takes a look at the state of the parties a week into the UK general election campaign. The election announcement took everyone by surprise, including Tory MPs, so what’s been the fallout since? To provide the latest analysis, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls joins the podcast (2:00). 



Then: Angus Colwell reports on how the election is playing out on social media, and the increasing role of the political ‘spinfluencer’. These accounts have millions of likes, but how influential could they be during the election? Alongside Angus, Harry Boeken, aka @thechampagne_socialist on TikTok, joins us to share their thoughts on who is winning the social media war (15:08). 



And finally: are we in the midst of a new space race? Author of Space 2069, the Future of Space Exploration, Dr David Whitehouse writes in the magazine this week about China’s latest lunar mission. What are the geopolitical implications, and should the global west be paying more attention? David joins us to discuss, alongside journalist and author of The Future of Geography, Tim Marshall (25:12).  



Hosted by Lara Prendergast and Gus Carter. 



Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Wannabes: are any of them ready?

It’s a bumper edition of The Edition this week. After Rishi Suank called a surprise – and perhaps misguided – snap election just a couple of hours after our press deadline, we had to frantically come up with a new digital cover. To take us through a breathless day in Westminster and the fallout of Rishi’s botched announcement, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls joins the podcast. (01:35)



Next: Our print magazine leads on the electric car bust. Ross Clark runs through all the issues facing electric cars today – from China flooding the market with discounted EVs to Rishi Sunak dropping the unrealistic target of banning new petrol car sales by 2030. ‘Could the outlook suddenly improve for British EVs?’ asks Ross. ‘It’s hard to see how.’ Already, car-makers from Aston Martin to Fiat are delaying or scaling back their EV plans. Ross joins the podcast alongside Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver, to ask whether the great EV revolution is over. (07:35)



Then: Matthew Parris writes his column this week on the myths around ultra-processed foods. These are foods which are engineered to be hyper-palatable and typically include many preservatives, emulsifiers, sweeteners, artificial colours, flavours etc. Such additives are considered to be detrimental to our health, but Matthew says we shouldn’t be worried. He joined the podcast along with Dr Christoffer Van Tulleken, associate professor at UCL and author of the bestselling book Ultra-Processed People. (19:33)



And finally: why is the government making it harder to get an au pair? This is the question which Philip Womack asks in The Spectator. He says that the government’s new childcare plans are pricing regular dual income families out of the traditional agreement between family and au pair. He is joined by the journalist Lucy Denyer. (39:45)



Hosted by William Moore and Gus Carter. 



Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

The deluge: Rishi Sunak’s election gamble

This week:



Veep show: who will Trump pick for his running mate? Freddy Gray goes through the contenders – and what they say about America (and its most likely next president). ‘Another thought might be buzzing around Trump’s head: he can pick pretty much whoever he wants because really it’s all about him. He might even choose one of his children: Ivanka or Donald Junior. What could sound better than Trump-Trump 2024?’ Freddy joins the podcast. (02:10)



Next: Will and Lara take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including David Shipley’s piece on the issues in the criminal justice system and Patrick Kidd’s article on the C of E’s volunteering crisis. 



Then: Everest. This year marks 100 years since George Mallory’s doomed expedition. On the 8th June 1924 George Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine were seen through binoculars 800 ft from the summit of Mount Everest, but sadly were never seen again. Whether they did reach the top – almost 30 years prior to Edmund Hillary’s confirmed summit – has been the source of debate and myth for a century. Two new books will be released this year revisiting the attempt, and the man behind them. One by former political editor at the Sun, Tom Newton Dunn (great nephew of Mallory) and the other by mountaineer Mick Conefrey – which is reviewed this week in The Spectator. Tom and Mick joined the podcast to discuss. (17:51)



And finally: Next week marks the anniversary of the death of Spectator’s Low Life columnist Jeremy Clarke. And on Tuesday a new collection of his columns is being published: Low Life: The Final Years. The book begins with his cancer diagnosis in 2013 and goes up until his last column, published two weeks before his death last year. Regular readers will know that Jeremy’s genius was to capture the beauty and absurdity of the everyday – he chronicled it all with extraordinary frankness and brilliant wit. And so to remember Jeremy, and his peerless writing, we were joined by his widow, the artist Catriona Olding, who writes a guest Life column in this week’s magazine, and his friend Con Coughlin, defence editor at the Telegraph. (33:35)



Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.



Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 



If readers would like to buy Low Life: The Final Years, copies are available on the Spectator Shop - go to spectator.co.uk/shop.

Veep show: who will Trump pick for his running mate?

This week:



On Monday, tents sprung up at Oxford and Cambridge as part of a global, pro-Palestinian student protest which began at Columbia University. In his cover piece, Yascha Mounk, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, explains how universities in both the US and the UK have misguidedly harboured and actively encouraged absurdist activism on campuses. Yascha joined the podcast to discuss further. (01:57)



Next: Bugs, biscuits, trench foot: a dispatch from the front line of the protests. The Spectator’s Angus Colwell joined students at tent encampments this week at UCL, Oxford and Cambridge. He found academics joining in with the carnival atmosphere. At Cambridge one don even attended with their baby in tow. ‘Peaceful protest? Rubbish it does nothing,’ a UCL student tells him. ‘Zionist attitudes start young, and we need our institutions to correct that. None of us are free until all of us are free, until Zionism is gone.’ One Jewish UCL student claims they were spat at by protestors ‘who told us to go back to Poland’. As part of his research, Angus sat down with Anwar, a spokesperson for the protestors at University College London and he sent us that conversation, which you can hear on the podcast. (17:34)



Then: Lara and Will take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including Philip Hensher’s Life column and James Delingpole’s review of Shardlake on Disney +.



And finally: should we take Beryl Cook more seriously? In his arts lead for the magazine this week, Julian Spalding writes about Beryl Cook whose unique art is celebrated by many as an exuberant take on everyday life. However she is often looked down upon within the art establishment. To coincide with a new exhibition of her work at Studio Voltaire we thought we would reappraise her legacy with Julian and Rachel Campbell-Johnston, former chief art critic at the Times. (29:44)



Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast. 



Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Drama students: how universities raised a generation of activists

This week:



Survival plan: is Rishi ready for the rebels? Ever since his election, Rishi Sunak has been preparing for this weekend – where the most likely scenario is that dire local election results are slow-released, leaving him at a moment of maximum vulnerability. He has his defences ready against his regicidal party, says Katy Balls: the Rwanda plan, a welfare reform agenda and a 4p NI cut (with hints of 2p more to come). And while the rebels have a (published) agenda they do not – yet – have a candidate. Katy joins the podcast alongside Stephen Bush, associate editor of the Financial Times. (02:12)



Next: Lara and Gus take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including Damian Thompson's Life column, and Joel Golby’s notes on ⅓ pints. 



Then: Everyone has heard of the ‘Essex Man’ that helped the Conservatives win in 1992, but what about the Hillingdon man? Journalist William Cook identifies a new swing voter in the magazine, the disgruntled Hillingdon man from sleepy Ruislip and the surrounding villages. He says that the reliably Tory voters of Hillingdon could change the habit of a lifetime and vote for Starmer. William joined the podcast to discuss. (15:46)



And finally: Mary Wakefield writes in defence of Victorian parenting in this week's magazine. She says that kids these days could benefit from some 'stiff upper lip' parenting and the resilience she learnt from her time at boarding school. She also warns against encouraging children to focus on their feelings and sending them to therapy. To debate, we were joined by Jean Twenge, author of the Generation Tech substack and the book Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future and The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith. (23:29)



Hosted by Lara Prendergast and Gus Carter. 



Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons. 






The quiet radicalism of Elizabeth II

Download our free app to listen on your phone