Best of the Spectator

This week's Book Club podcast guest is Charles Spencer, whose book The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I's Dream is new out in paperback. On the pod tells Sam Leith why his story is like "Game of Thrones meets Titanic", about the piety and the startling cruelty of medieval kings, the tantalising suggestion that the wreck of the White Ship may have been found off Barfleur -- and how this 12th-century maritime disaster changed the course of English history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Exactly 20 years ago, China acceded to the World Trade Organisation. In the decades since, the globalised world became what we know today, with hundreds of millions of Chinese and people around the world lifted out of poverty through free trade. But the promised liberalisation - both economic and political - doesn't seem to have happened. China is now challenging western-led world order, and too difficult to disentangle from the world economy. So was it a mistake to allow China into the WTO, and has engagement failed?With Stewart Paterson, author of China, Trade and Power, and Yu Jie, senior research fellow at Chatham House. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, Dr Max Pemberton explains that while just as many people are seeing their GP as before the pandemic, something has changed. (00:55) After, Andrew Watts argues that you shouldn't buy a second home in Cornwall. (09:15) Ysenda Maxtone Graham finishes the episode, lamenting the loss of indoor singing. (14:00) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Polly Morgan is an artist whose trade is taxidermy. She recently won the First Plinth Award, and in her time has sold to celebrity clients including Kate Moss and Courtney Love. On the podcast, she tells Katy Balls about her unusual childhood growing up on a farm with ostriches, goats and llamas; why she got fired by Prue Leith; and the ins and outs of taxidermy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Experts are saying we are now officially in a third wave but how concerned should we be? (00:56) Also on the podcast: What will the mood be like when Boris meets Biden (14:33)? And are UFOs no longer a laughing matter?(23:00)With Scientist Simon Clarke, mathematician Philip Thomas, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas UK Sarah Elliot, Spectator World editor Freddy Gray, astrophysicist Tim O'Brian & author Lawrence OsbornePresented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery and Sam Russell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Book Club podcast, Sam Leith's guest is one of America's foremost magazine journalists, the New Yorker's Lawrence Wright. His new book is The Plague Year: America In The Time of Covid. He tells Sam what a book brings to recent history that week-to-week journalism can't, about the extraordinary happenstance that put him in contact with one of the unsung heroes of the vaccine race, and the three reasons Covid was such a catastrophe for the US. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Craig Brown is an awarding winning critic, satirist and former restaurant reviewer. His most recent book One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Olivia about the horrible food at Eton, his utter failure to bake a cake, and proposes that one of the least important things to him when he was reviewing a restaurant was the food. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode: Chris Daw QC on the blame game that surrounds the Hillsborough disaster and why it's time to move on (01:00); Lionel Shriver suggests we should just give Scottish nationalists what they want and watch the chaos unfold (07:40); and Sam Russell, the Spectator's new broadcast producer, talks about how book lovers are turning TikTok into a book club (16:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What was once dismissed by the mainstream media as a right wing conspiracy theory, seems to have made its transition, into credible possibility. It now seems very plausible that COVID came from a Chinese lab. But will we ever know for sure? And even if we did, what would we do about it? Freddy Gray talks to Thomas Frank, who recommends we all read this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is the National Trust in crisis, and can it be fixed? (00:55) Plus, is there going to be a ‘fake meat’ revolution? (14:15) And finally, should wedding readings stick to the classics or is it acceptable to go for something a bit more out there? (24:25)With Spectator columnist and former editor Charles Moore; Simon Jenkins, chair of National Trust between 2008 and 2014; Anthony Browne, a Conservative MP and chair of the Environment APPG; Olivia Potts, The Spectator’s vintage chef and co-host of our Table Talk podcast; writer Laura Freeman; and Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, rector of St Bride's church in London.Presented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Sam Holmes, Cindy Yu and Max Jeffery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.