Best of the Spectator
Home to the Spectator's best podcasts on everything from politics to religion, literature to food and drink, and more. A new podcast every day from writers worth listening to.
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- Update frequency
- every day
- Average duration
- 33 minutes
- Episodes
- 2366
- Years Active
- 2016 - 2025
Coffee House Shots: Reeves's worst week so far?
It's been a tricky week for Rachel Reeves: an onslaught of criticism for the levels of borrowing costs, GDP at 0.1 per cent, and stagflation still gripping the UK economy. Remarkably she has come out…
00:16:33 |
Sat 18 Jan 2025
Holy Smoke: did Muslim leaders help conceal the grooming gangs scandal? A fierce exchange of views
Welcome to one of the most heated exchanges of views in the history of the Holy Smoke podcast. In this episode, Damian Thompson talks to the distinguished Islamic scholar Dr Musharraf Hussain about t…
00:28:07 |
Fri 17 Jan 2025
The Edition: Empire of Trump, the creep of child-free influencers & is fact-checking a fiction?
This week: President Trump’s plan to Make America Greater
In the cover piece for the magazine, our deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, Freddy Gray, delves into Trump’s plans. He speaks to…
In the cover piece for the magazine, our deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, Freddy Gray, delves into Trump’s plans. He speaks to…
00:42:19 |
Thu 16 Jan 2025
Americano: have the wildfires exposed America's class divide?
** Americano is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here **
The LA wildfires have been mostly extinguished, but there is growing concern tha…
The LA wildfires have been mostly extinguished, but there is growing concern tha…
00:27:34 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
The Book Club: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost
My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Orlando Reade, whose book What in Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost describes the life and afterlife of one of the greatest poems in the…
00:36:17 |
Wed 15 Jan 2025
Table Talk: Julian Baggini, on the 'philosophy of food'
Julian is a philosopher, journalist and author. He has served as the academic director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and is a member of the Food Ethics Council. His new book, How the World Eat…
00:31:27 |
Tue 14 Jan 2025
Chinese Whispers: Eva Dou on 'The House of Huawei'
** Chinese Whispers is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here **
Among the casualties of Donald Trump’s trade war with China in his first …
Among the casualties of Donald Trump’s trade war with China in his first …
00:49:05 |
Mon 13 Jan 2025
Americano: is Ron De Santis right about 'classical education'?
** Americano is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here **
Freddy Gray is joined by Amy Wax who is a professor at Penn University to discus…
Freddy Gray is joined by Amy Wax who is a professor at Penn University to discus…
00:36:45 |
Mon 13 Jan 2025
Spectator Out Loud: Catherine Lafferty, Michael Simmons, Paul Wood, Philip Hensher, Isabel Hardman and Damian Thompson
On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Catherine Lafferty argues that the drive to reduce teenage pregnancies enabled grooming gangs (1:27); following Luke Littler’s world championship victory, Michael S…
00:38:57 |
Sun 12 Jan 2025
Coffee House Shots: what's the point of public inquiries?
This week, MPs voted against a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The vote followed weeks of pressure on Labour after Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight, after safeguardi…
00:20:05 |
Sat 11 Jan 2025
Americano: how will Trump change the world? With the FT's Gideon Rachman
** Americano is nominated in the Political Podcast Awards 2025. Vote for it to win the People's Choice category here **
Freddy Gray is joined by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times to discuss what D…
Freddy Gray is joined by Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times to discuss what D…
00:42:35 |
Fri 10 Jan 2025
The Edition: the truth about grooming gangs, 'why I'm voting for the AfD' & exploring YouTube rabbit holes
This week: what does justice look like for the victims of the grooming gangs?
In the cover piece for the magazine, Douglas Murray writes about the conspiracy of silence on the grooming gangs and offer…
In the cover piece for the magazine, Douglas Murray writes about the conspiracy of silence on the grooming gangs and offer…
00:47:00 |
Thu 09 Jan 2025
The Book Club: Rachel Cooke
In this week’s Books podcast, I am joined by Rachel Cooke, who edits the new book The Virago Book of Friendship. Rachel unpacks the intense, often enigmatic dynamics of female friendships in a spry a…
00:43:46 |
Wed 08 Jan 2025
Coffee House Shots: Farage vs Musk
How do you solve a problem like Elon? We have spent much of the past week talking on the podcast about Labour vs Musk, and the tech billionaire’s vocal criticism of how the government is dealing with…
00:17:47 |
Tue 07 Jan 2025
Women With Balls: Sarah Storey
Dame Sarah Storey is Britain’s most successful Paralympian of all time. She is a 45-time World champion, a 23-time European champion, and a 77-time world recorder breaker – including times she broke …
00:27:47 |
Sun 05 Jan 2025
Spectator Out Loud: James MacMillan, Sebastian Morello, Amy Wilentz, Sam Leith and Lloyd Evans
This week: composer James MacMillan reads his diary on the beautiful music of football (01:11); Sebastian Morello tells us about the deep connection between hunting and Christianity (07:17); Amy Wile…
00:31:41 |
Sat 04 Jan 2025
Table Talk: 'Caviar Queen', Laura King
Laura King is affectionately known as the 'Caviar Queen' and is widely regarded as the UK's foremost caviar expert. In this special episode of the podcast Laura takes Liv and Lara through a caviar ta…
00:31:46 |
Fri 03 Jan 2025
The Edition: the West's right turn, Michael Gove interviews Jordan Peterson & the ADHD trap
This week: the fight for the future of the right
From Milei in Argentina to Trump in the US, Meloni in Italy to the rise of the AfD in Germany, the world appears to be turning to the right, say James …
From Milei in Argentina to Trump in the US, Meloni in Italy to the rise of the AfD in Germany, the world appears to be turning to the right, say James …
00:46:11 |
Thu 02 Jan 2025
Coffee House Shots: is 2025 Farage’s year?
Happy New Year! And it could prove to be a very happy new year for Nigel Farage and the Reform Party. They provided some of the stand-out political drama of 2024, with Lee Anderson’s defection and Fa…
00:18:45 |
Thu 02 Jan 2025
The Book Club: Orhan Pamuk
In this week's Book Club podcast I'm joined by the Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk to talk about the publication of Memories of Distant Mountains: Illustrated Notebooks. Right up to early ad…
00:37:11 |
Wed 01 Jan 2025
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