Next month, the Vatican will talk to Beijing about renewing its 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party that effectively allowed President Xi to choose the country's Catholic bishops. He has used this power to force Catholics loyal to Rome to join the puppet Catholic church set up by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. They can no longer refuse on the grounds that they recognise only the Pope's Church because Francis himself has validated the orders of Xi's party stooges. 

But the Holy Father has done more than that: he has ostentatiously failed to condemn China's savage assaults on human rights, the worst of which is its attempt to eradicate the country's Muslim Uyghurs ethnic minority by herding them into concentration camps and forcing Uighur women to have abortions. 

As I say in this episode of Holy Smoke, the Pope's behaviour is not just a disgrace but also a mystery. The Catholic Church has gained nothing from the 2018 pact. On the contrary, it has given Beijing a handy excuse to intensify its harassment of Catholics. So why is the Vatican apparently keen to renew a deal that so badly reflects on it? 

One plausible explanation is money. Rome hasn't got any. China enjoys nothing more than buying influence. This year, claims surfaced that the Communist Party is quietly slipping the Vatican £1.6 billion a year in order to buy the Pope's silence about the Uyghurs, the subjugation of Hong Kong and the demolition of churches. But no evidence has been produced to support this conspiracy theory. 

My guests are the journalist Catherine Lafferty and Fr Benedict Kiely, a campaigner on behalf of persecuted religious minorities.

London is the motor to Britain’s economy, so how can it rebuild after the pandemic? (00:55) How can the new Tory leader in Scotland, Douglas Ross, keep the United Kingdom together? (17:50) And why the looming conflict between India and China isn’t in Kashmir, but rather in the Bay of Bengal. (29:33) 

With economist Gerard Lyons; historian Simon Jenkins; The Spectator’s Scotland editor Alex Massie; The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth; historian Francis Pike; and author Jonathan Ward.  

Presented by Katy Balls.  

Produced by Gus Carter and Max Jeffery.

In this week’s podcast, we're replaying an episode that first aired earlier this year, but seems more relevant now than ever. Sam is joined by two writers to talk about the perennially fraught issue of race. There’s a wide consensus that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong; but what actually *is* race? Does it map onto a meaningful genetic or scientific taxonomy? Does it map onto a lived reality - is it possible to generalise, say, about 'black' experience? And can we or should we opt out of or ignore it? Adam Rutherford and Thomas Chatterton Williams approach these issues from very different angles: the former, in How To Argue With A Racist, brings genetic science to bear on the myths and realities of population differences; while the latter describes in Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race how after half a lifetime strongly attached to the idea of his own blackness, the arrival of his blonde haired and blue eyed daughter made him rethink his worldview.

Statistics released this week showed that England had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the first half of 2020. Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Carl Heneghan, professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University about what's behind the numbers.

Earlier this year, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson gave credence to the conspiracy theory that the US military took coronavirus to China. It's just one example of a new school of diplomacy that has dominated Chinese foreign policy - the 'wolf warriors'. But does this approach work, or does it merely antagonise the world? Professor Todd Hall is a Chinese foreign policy expert at Oxford University, and tells Cindy Yu about what the wolf warriors say about China's view of the world.

A fortnightly podcast on the latest in Chinese politics, society, and more. Presented by Cindy Yu. Listen to past episodes here.

On the episode this week, Freddy Gray, editor of the Spectator's US edition, reads his cover piece on the real Joe Biden. We also hear from Douglas Murray on the trial of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp - and about allegations that can't be proved or disproved. At the end, Katy Balls relays the government's anxiety over a second wave.

Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in the polls, so what is at the root of his appeal? (00:50) The government is anxious about a second wave - can it avoid repeating its mistakes? (11:15) And Rachel Johnson on her generation of high flyers and early retirees (23:30).

With editor of the Spectator's US edition, Freddy Gray; our economics correspondent Kate Andrews; deputy political editor Katy Balls; former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt; journalist Rachel Johnson; and comedian Dominic Frisby.

Presented by Cindy Yu.

Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery, and Sam Russell.

In this week's books podcast, Sam's guest is Kate Teltscher, who tells the fascinating story of one of the greatest showpieces of Victorian Britain: the Palm House in Kew Gardens. Though the gardens and their glassy centrepiece are now a fixture of London's tourist map, as her new book Palace of Palms reveals, they very nearly weren't. She tells Sam how a team of brilliant mavericks used cutting-edge science and engineering to build one of the greatest constructions of its era... in just the wrong place. With walk-on parts for Darwin, Humboldt and Alfred Russel Wallace, she reveals the way in which Victorian botany extended its tendrils through the whole Empire, shows how the palm was seen as the "prince of plants", and describes the quest for the palm of all palms, the elusive coco-de-mer.

The new Holy Smoke episode is a significant departure from our usual formula. It’s a discussion about the profound and neglected meaning of Christian art. Professor Ben Quash of King’s College London is interviewed not by me but by Carmel Thompson – my sister, who has appeared twice on Holy Smoke to talk about her battle with ovarian cancer but is determined not to be defined by her illness.

This is a truly engrossing episode inspired by Carmel’s conviction that art depicting Christian subjects – and that includes most of the great art produced in the West up to and including the Renaissance – is too often examined from a purely aesthetic point of view.

Obviously you’ll get far more out of this discussion if you can see what Carmel and Ben are talking about with such infectious enthusiasm, so here are the artworks chosen by Ben.

Holy Smoke is hosted by Damian Thompson, who dissects the most important and controversial topics in world religion, with a range of high profile guests. Click here to find previous episodes.

Freddy Gray talks to the journalist and author Nancy Rommelmann about the ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon as Trump begins to send in federal forces.

Americano is a series of in-depth discussions on American politics with the best pundits stateside. Presented by Freddy Gray, editor of the Spectator's US edition. Click here to listen to previous episodes.