Quite right!

In this special two-part interview, Michael and Maddie are joined by Dominic Cummings. After starting his political career at the Department of Education, Dominic is best known as the campaign director of Vote Leave, the chief adviser in Downing Street during Boris Johnson’s premiership, and one of the most influential strategists of modern times.Whether you consider him a visionary reformer or (as David Cameron once said) a ‘career psychopath’, his ideas – on government, technology, the blob, education and the future of the right – continue to provoke debate.In part one, Dominic diagnoses Britain’s institutional decline and takes us inside Whitehall’s ‘heart of darkness’. He explains that ministers have been stripped of real power by lawyers and the Cabinet Office, and how the ‘madness’ of the Human Rights Act has produced chilling outcomes for defence and counter-terrorism. He reflects on the reforms launched after the Conservatives’ 2019 election victory and why they were ultimately abandoned, criticises Boris Johnson’s failure to pursue the mandate he was given, and revisits the government’s handling of Covid.Produced by Oscar Edmondson.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie at spectator.co.uk/quiteright.This week on Quite right! Q&A: is demography destiny? With Britain’s birth rate falling, Michael Maddie Grant discuss whether the country is quietly drifting towards decline – and whether immigration, pro-natal policy or something more radical is the answer. Is importing labour a short-term fix that stores up long-term problems? And can advanced economies really persuade families to have more children?Then: adoption, identity and love. Michael reflects candidly on being adopted, how it shaped his sense of responsibility and gratitude, and why he believes the system too often lets the perfect become the enemy of the good.And finally, a festive question: favourite Christmas carols and songs. From ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ to Wham!, via Bowie, Lennon and some truly unforgivable seasonal dirges, Michael and Maddie reveal their tastes – and their intolerance for musical heresy.Produced by Oscar Edmondson.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Gove and Madeline Grant confront the horror of the Bondi Beach massacre and ask why anti-Semitic violence now provokes despair rather than shock. As Jewish communities are once again targeted on holy days, they examine the roots of Islamist ideology and the failure of political leaders to name it. Why has anti-Semitism metastasised across the radical left, the Islamist world, and the far right – and why does the West seem so reluctant to grapple with its causes?Then, on the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, Michael and Maddie ask why Austen is endlessly repurposed, politicised and rewritten by modern adaptors? Was she an abolitionist, a moralist, or something far subtler – and why do her novels continue to resist ideological shoehorning two centuries on?And finally: what makes the perfect whodunit? From Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers to Midsomer Murders and modern television crime, the pair explore puzzles, red herrings, atmosphere – and why readers feel cheated when justice doesn’t quite add up.Produced by Oscar Edmondson.To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, visit spectator.co.uk/quiteright.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie at spectator.co.uk/quiteright.This week on Quite right! Q&A: should Britain reinvent the Commonwealth – and should Ukraine be invited to join? Is the Commonwealth an embarrassing relic… or an untapped strategic asset?Then: what if Jeremy Corbyn had actually won in 2019? Maddie and Michael sketch the counterfactual Britain – from a Jezza-led lockdown to vaccine chaos, union-driven school closures and a very different Brexit.Plus: the greatest artwork of the 21st century. Michael champions a modern choral masterpiece, Maddie defends The Lord of the Rings as the true Gesamtkunstwerk, and both confess their musical shortcomings (including Michael’s rogue childhood instrument).Produced by Oscar Edmondson.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a summer in which Nigel Farage seemed to bend the news cycle to his will, Michael and Maddie ask whether the party’s momentum is slipping. Do the allegations dredged up from Farage’s schooldays mark a decisive turning point – or, perversely, strengthen his outsider appeal? And with questions over Reform’s election spending, defections from the Conservatives, and the small matter of finding 500 people to staff a government, is the insurgent right entering its moment of vulnerability?Then: two stories that lay bare a crisis in women’s healthcare. Baroness Amos’s damning interim review of maternity services and the astonishing employment tribunal ruling in the Sandy Peggie case raise the same question – why does the system still fail women at their most vulnerable?And finally: Christmas television takes a surreal turn. Meghan Markle returns with a holiday special, while Liz Truss launches her own American-style politics show. Has Meghan now crossed fully into performance art – and is Liz pioneering the world’s first nostalgia-politics monologue?Produced by Oscar Edmondson.To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to spectator.co.uk/quiteright.Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: [email protected] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.