All human life is here.

Dogma, closed minds, modern slavery, net zero and why Peter will never enter the House of Lords - though he will take tea there – and why you’ll never find letters after his name. 

Sarah asks why Labour are pushing for a new deal with China at the risk of human rights violation and why did Margaret Thatcher think you could drive the 5 plus miles from Downing Street to Dulwich – turns out, outriders on motorbikes help. 

And both wonder when did the honours system become such an ‘inverted pyramid of piffle’? Word for word.

On our reading list this week: 

·      HMS Ulysses – Alistair MacLean

·      The Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher: From Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady – John Campbell

·      The People’s Trilogy - Frank Dikötter

To get in touch, email: [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.

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Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

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To paraphrase Edwin Starr; work, what is it good for, absolutely nothing… At least according to Gen Z. 

Reports suggest that a whole generation might be ready to give up work, which, coincidentally, is how Peter felt every day as a younger man when he was mucking out pigs on the farm, while Sarah’s eighteen-hour days in Hobbs only finally relented when she found herself talking to a drunken sub editor in a pub who was baffled by his new mac at work, just as Sarah had learnt how to use one…

Elsewhere, we take to the seas as Peter asks why our submariners are spending over 200 days underwater at a time and why do we cling to the notion that we need a cold war superweapon like the atomic bomb and what really happens when you try to launch a Trident missile at sea? Nothing good, apparently.

And what tests do you have to pass if, God forbid, you have to stand in for the PM one day? 

On our reading list this week: 

·      Simple Subs Book – Leslie Sellers

·      The Silent Deep: The Royal Navy Submarine Service Since 1945 – James Jinks & Peter Hennessy

·      The Hunt For Red October - Tom Clancy

To get in touch, email: [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lockdown saw Peter Hitchens riding through Hyde Park in a Polish gas mask hissing the word ‘virus’ at strangers.

Sarah Vine spent hers in Waitrose checking produce until an outraged fellow shopper saw her return over ripe veg to the shelves and accuse her of spreading ‘covid tomatoes!’. Whatever they are.

Both struggled with lockdown – especially as Sarah was sharing a home with Michael Gove, who was very much behind his Party’s policy to close things down – but, five years later, what did they make of the seismic period when Britain turned out the lights?

Also, Peter asks why the hell can’t the west stay out of other country’s business, unless those despots or dictators can make life easier for us? It’s enough to make cynics of us all.

On our reading list this week: 

·      Lockdown Secrets – Eleanor Tattersfield

·      Catch Your Breath – Ed Patrick

·      The Great War For Civilisation – Robert Fisk

To get in touch, email: [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Peter Hitchens is so anti-drugs, and so engaged with his moral compass he won't even consider taking the fictional recreationals, while Sarah Vine has been on antidepressants for over a decade and swears by her 'fat jab’.

This, while Peter dreams of a Dutch like utopia where cars are rarely seen and children are safe to walk to school.

Shall the twain ever meet? Occasionally.

Join them for a conversation that begins by asking is society, sleepwalking into a delirium of self-medication and can end just about anywhere...

On our reading list this week:

The Road To Wigan Pier – George Orwell

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good - James Davies

To get in touch, email: [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When viewed from above the North Pole, the Earth rotates from left to right and now some of its inhabitants appear to be headed the same way. From Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy through Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party in the Netherlands to Germany’s AfD party and the ever-encroaching Chega (Enough) party in Portugal, the boots on the ground appear to be facing one way, so are we looking at a new world order that’s suddenly leaning towards the right? 

Plus, is war finally over for Ukraine? What is NATO really for? What is the true meaning of power and how do we grab it? And did we finally answer all the questions Sarah Vine’s mum asked of us?

On our reading list this week: 

·      Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands – Richard Sakwa

·      How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How U.S. and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe – Benjamin Abelow

·      A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle – Julian Jackson

To get in touch, email: [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's the Big Idea?

Finally, Sarah Vine (once memorably described as being ‘like and loathed in equal measure, divisive, but never indecisive’) and Peter Hitchens (a man whose writing a critic was called to compare to a Guardsman’s boot: ‘as highly polished and potentially lethal’) meet once a week to look at the world and mutter, alas…

Acclaimed columnist and journalist Sarah Vine and best-selling author and broadcaster Peter Hitchens discuss and dissect social, economic, and pop cultural flotsam and jetsam that have risen out of the dark waters of that week’s news.

Taking one big idea each episode and pulling it apart with élan, imagine Vine and Hitchens respective columns brought to life and then skewered, scoffed at, debated, and given the full weight of Vine and Hitchens impenetrable gaze. Though an accord might not always be reached, it’s the journey that matters.

Whether it’s the tech bros gone rogue – Meta tearing up its own rule book on fact checking, Musk attempting to influence governmental policy, or the knotty subject on society’s ever-increasing reliance on anti-depressants to treat what might just be the modern malaise and not depression at all. Or, evil, nature or nurture? Does evil actually exist or is it an idea that hangs over us, or do we just sometime embody it and the actions themselves are evil, not the individual?

All this and more are to be pored over, one towering topic each week discussed with humour, insight, and real understanding.

To get in touch email [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'alas'

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As the year draws to a close, we look back at some of the seismic stories shaping the year including how Labour’s landslide victory has turned into a landslide in their polling numbers with dissatisfaction with the government at a lofty 70%, and unhappiness with the PM at a remarkable 61%.  

Plus, a hard year for the Royal Family, as King Charles fights his way back to full health. Oasis reforms, Taylor Swift returns, and the country riots. 

And, as Sarah’s ex-husband is caught in a clinch with his latest squeeze, we ask what do you think when it comes to PDA, and what makes for a good divorce? 

To get in touch email [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'reaction'

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Andrew Pierce 

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

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As farmers descend on London for the second time to protest against Rachel Reeves’s changes to inheritance tax, we speak to a dairy farmer about what the changes might mean for the future of her family and farm.

Plus, as Angela Rayner presses ahead with plans to prioritise housebuilding on an area of the green belt bigger than Surrey, we ask what this means for those who already call the countryside home and the future of housebuilding in the UK. 

And, as sales of Christmas pudding are on the rise for the first time in more than ten years, we ask what takes pride of place next to the turkey on your table on Christmas Day. And does it include condensed milk?

To get in touch email [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'reaction'

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Andrew Pierce

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Chelsey Moore

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the former MP and Cabinet Minister’s reality TV show – Meet The Rees-Moggs - comes to our screens, the man once memorably described as looking like ‘a haunted Victorian pencil’ sits down for an extended conversation with Sarah Vine and Peter Hitchens to talk about why the Tories lost the election, his desire to return as an MP with Boris Johnson back leading the Party and his thoughts on everything from assisted dying, to horoscopes and why even he resists sock suspenders.

To get in touch email [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'reaction'

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Alex Graham

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Ireland prepares to go to the polls, we speak to John Lee, Executive Editor of the Irish Daily Mail on the future of government for the country and why the political of arm of the IRA might be am ailing political force in light of his revelatory new podcast: Bomb To Ballot: The History of Sinn Fein.

And as Vauxhall and Ford announce job losses and factory closures in the UK, we ask why electric vehicles aren’t driving the demand for new cars, and how that’s impacting the future of the motor industry. 

Plus, we ask why are perfume manufacturers looking for animal magnetism to add allure to their best-selling scents? We’ve got a nose for that story…

To get in touch email [email protected], you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'reaction'

Presenters: Sarah Vine & Andrew Pierce 

Producer: Philip Wilding

Editor: Alex Graham

Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini

Executive Producer: Jamie East

A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices