Best of the Spectator

In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by Ferdinand Mount who in his long career has been literary and political editor of this very magazine, as well as editor of the TLS and head of Margaret Thatcher's Number Ten policy unit. We discuss his new book Big Caesars and Little Caesars: How They Rise and How they Fall, from Julius Caesar to Boris Johnson. He tells me why he thinks it's fair to compare our recent former prime minister with a cast of despots and autocrats from Indira Gandhi and Oliver Cromwell to Louis Napoleon and even Adolf Hitler, and why he sees the impulse to autocracy as an ineradicable thread in human history.    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yeonmi Park is a North Korean defector who from fled home country through China where she was saved by Christian missionaries. She is the author of two books, In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom and While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America. Yeonmi now lives in the US, where she writes and campaigns for freedom of speech. She tells Winston about her astonishing journey to freedom, how China props up the Korea dictatorship and the impact of Jordan Peterson on her life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddy is joined this week by Roger Kimball, editor of the New Criterion to talk about the diminishing power of Ron DeSantis. It wasn't so long ago he looked like a serious challenger that could beat Donald Trump to the Republican nomination. Where did it all go wrong? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The way we use energy is changing. As electric heat pumps and electric vehicles become more popular, and as the government tries to phase out fossil fuels to reach its net zero target, some estimate that our electricity demand will increase by 50 per cent by 2035. But can our energy system take that strain?Cindy Yu is joined by Andrew Bowie, minister for networks at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford; Fflur Lawton, head of policy and public affairs at Smart Energy GB; and Anna Moss, senior consultant at Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy.This podcast is sponsored by Smart Energy GB. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James Heale is joined by Tom Hunt MP and Tim Farron MP to debate the illegal migration bill. Also on the show, will AI kill us all? Eliezer Yudkowsky and James Phillips discuss; Katy Balls and Stephen Bush look at Labour’s future relationship with the trade unions; Louise Perry on Britain’s addiction to plastic surgery and Alice Hoxton on Britain’s love for gossip. 00:00 Welcome from James Heale 01:47 How to stop the boats? With Tom Hunt MP and Tim Farron MP 19:03 Will AI kill us? With Eliezer Yudkowsky & James Phillip 33:46 Will Starmer win over the unions? With Katy Balls & Stephen Bush 45:41 Britain's plastic surgery addiction. With Louise Perry 57:55 Why do Britons love to gossip? With Alice Loxton Produced by Natasha Feroze. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week: (01:08) Katy Balls on the tricky relationship between Labour and the Unions, (07:11) Olenka Hamilton on why Poland is having a row with Brussels over migrants and asylum seekers and (15:29) Damian Thompson asks whether the Vatican is turning its back on tradition and beautiful art. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cleo Watson is a former No.10 advisor to Boris Johnson and now author or the recently published book Whips, a novel set in SW1 filled with sex, politics and scandals. On the podcast, Cleo talks about her life growing up in a big family; her career into politics which began in America on Obama's campaign and led to her advising the likes of Theresa May and Boris Johnson; and her recent departure from politics which gave her the chance to finish the book.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week:Ahead of the release of the Barbie movie, Louise Perry writes in her cover piece about how social media is fuelling the cosmetic surgery industry. She argues that life in plastic is not, in fact, fantastic. She joins the podcast alongside the Times’s Sarah Ditum, author of the upcoming book: Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties, to discuss the normalisation of plastic surgery. (01:11)Also this week:In anticipation of the BBC Proms Philip Hensher writes in The Spectator that classical music has gone from being a supreme cultural statement, to just another curious musical genre. He is joined by Sir Nicholas Kenyon, former controller of BBC Radio 3 and director of the Proms and now opera critic for the Telegraph, to discuss the changing face of the BBC Proms. (16:54)And finally: The Spectator’s Damian Thompson writes about some of the misguided – as he says – initiatives by both the Church of England and the Vatican to engage with popular culture, prompting him to ask: has the Vatican abandoned beauty? He is joined by Fr Lawrence Lew, Prior and Parish Priest at Our Lady of the Rosary and St Dominic. (27:13)Presented by William Moore. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yoram Hazony is an Israeli-American philosopher, Bible scholar, political theorist and leader of the national conservatism movement. He discusses with Winston the differences between conservatism and liberalism, the future of America and the need for religion in politics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest in this week's Book Club podcast is Caitlin Moran. Having written one of the bestselling works of popular feminism of the last 20 years – How To Be A Woman – she has turned her attention to the other half of the population with her new book What About Men? I asked Caitlin why she felt she needed to write such a book, and what qualifies her to do so. She tells me why she thinks young men are turning against feminism, what she says to the people who accuse her of trading in stereotypes, and why she thinks Jordan Peterson is a poor excuse for a 'public intellectual'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.