Best of the Spectator

Who was the real Sherlock Holmes? In this episode Sam Leith is joined by medical historian and author Lindsey Fitzharris to discuss her new book, Sleuth Hound: The Case of the Real Sherlock Holmes.

Fitzharris tells the extraordinary story of Joseph Bell, the Edinburgh surgeon whose powers of observation inspired Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective. How did Bell learn to read the human body like a crime scene, and what role did he play in the emergence of modern forensic science? From Victorian murder cases to the Ripper investigations, Bell’s work helped bring medical evidence into the courtroom – while his real-life achievements were often overshadowed by his fictional counterpart.

Plus: why did Conan Doyle want to kill off Sherlock Holmes, and how did Bell react to becoming the inspiration for one of literature’s most famous characters?

Produced by Abigail Brierley.

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

Andy Burnham’s first Budget as Prime Minister is approaching – but higher borrowing costs have already made the sums more difficult. Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane joins Michael Simmons to warn that Britain has little room left to borrow more.

For this episode of Reality Check, Andy tells Michael what could be in next week’s Budget, why devolution alone is not a growth strategy and why he appears to have praised Kemi Badenoch’s economic policies this week. Plus: they discuss the Bank of England’s record on inflation – with Haldane arguing the Bank has not 'learnt its lesson’. What would he have done differently?

Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Henry Lloyd.

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

France is burning. Over the weekend, students protesting about school conditions were joined by rural voters angry at fuel prices and a violent hard-left fringe. Michael and Maddie ask whether Britain should be worried. Do the same fault lines run through our own society, and is the Burnham government doing anything about them? They also discuss what Emmanuel Macron will be remembered for, and whether anyone can stop Marine Le Pen.

Also: Sally Rooney’s books are leaving British shelves over her support for Palestine Action. Is this censorship, or performance art?

Produced by Henry Lloyd.

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

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

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Jacob Rees-Mogg talks all things Tory Conference and Tucker Carlson; Lara Brown explores the growing rebellion against screens in schools; Matthew Parris reflects on what will survive us when we’re gone; and William Atkinson wonders if Altai the tiger be spared.

Produced and presented by Abigail Brierley.

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

Pope Leo XIV is recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, with doctors removing the lower lobe of his right lung. The Vatican says his recovery is progressing normally, but questions remain over how his illness could affect a pontificate that is still in its early stages.

What does the Pope’s diagnosis mean for the Catholic Church? The Pillar’s Ed Condon joins Damian Thompson to consider how illness could reshape Leo’s papacy and whether his health could speed up the process of senior appointments – and ultimately revive the debate over papal succession.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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

For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s commissioning editor Lara Brown, Financial Times columnist and peer Camilla Cavendish and broadcaster and former Labour MP Gloria De Piero.

This week: are screens creating a new education divide? Lara examines the growing backlash against technology in schools. What began as an attempt to create a generation of ‘digital natives’ has left children as young as four doing reading and maths on gamified apps – despite little evidence that they improve learning. State schools are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on 'EdTech', while some of Britain’s leading private schools are moving back towards books, handwriting and screen-free classrooms. Are we creating a two-tier education system – books for the rich and screens for everyone else?

Also: why aren’t young people having children? Camilla discusses her new book Generation Maybe, which investigates falling birth rates around the world. She argues that the problem isn’t simply that women are choosing careers over motherhood: millions of people would like children but cannot find someone to have them with. Are we living through a ‘relationship recession’? Have men failed to keep up with women or have expectations changed? And can governments actually do anything about it?

Finally: why are we so nostalgic for the 1990s? The panel look back at Tony Blair, boozy lunches, and the millennium bug – a world before smartphones took over.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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

Is Britain’s welfare state still a safety net or has it become a pipeline for long-term dependency? Almost one in ten six-year-olds are now categorised as disabled through the benefits system and, on current trends, that figure would rise to one in four 16-year-olds.

Reality Check’s Michael Simmons speaks to The Times's Fraser Nelson – former editor of this parish – about his investigation into Britain’s welfare system: why mental health and behavioural claims among children have surged, how disability benefits can follow young people into adulthood and why the system can leave people financially worse off for working.

Can Britain break the welfare ‘pipeline’ and what would real reform look like?

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Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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

Michael Gove is joined by historian Simon Schama to discuss the resurgence of antisemitism in Britain, why many British Jews increasingly feel unsafe, and what history can teach us about the war in Gaza.

Simon argues that the language of genocide is being misapplied to Gaza and warns that historical ignorance, social media and political polarisation are fuelling a new strain of antisemitism on both left and right.

They also discuss Holocaust education, Donald Trump and the politics of truth, the treatment of Jewish students in Britain, and what the rise of antisemitism tells us about the health of liberal democracy.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Henry Lloyd

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

For this week’s Book Club, Sam Leith, the Spectator’s literary editor, is joined by Shaun Bythell, proprietor of The Book Shop in Wigtown, Scotland, and author of The Diary of a Bookseller series, to discuss the fourth instalment, The Return of the Bookseller’s Diary.

They discuss the strange characters who wander into second-hand bookshops, the customers who haggle over £2 books, and how Bythell’s shop helped turn Wigtown into Scotland’s unlikely book town.

They also explore the changing world of bookselling, from the rise of online marketplaces to the 18th-century bookseller James Lackington, whose ‘buy cheap, sell cheap’ philosophy has more than a little in common with Amazon.

Plus, Bythell reveals how keeping a diary has changed the way he sees his customers, the unexpected consequences of becoming a published author, and why the Covid-19 pandemic proved surprisingly good for business.

Produced by Abigail Brierley.

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