Best of the Spectator

France is burning. Over the weekend, students protesting about school conditions were joined by rural voters angry at fuel prices and a violent hard-left fringe. Michael and Maddie ask whether Britain should be worried. Do the same fault lines run through our own society, and is the Burnham government doing anything about them? They also discuss what Emmanuel Macron will be remembered for, and whether anyone can stop Marine Le Pen.
Also: Sally Rooney’s books are leaving British shelves over her support for Palestine Action. Is this censorship, or performance art?
Produced by Henry Lloyd.

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Freddy Gray speaks with Spectator columnist Christopher Caldwell about the ten-year legacy of Donald Trump since his 2016 election victory, assessing his second administration's high-water marks alongside the recent political and personal controversies that Caldwell argues have eroded voter trust, unraveled his populist appeal, and raised sharp questions about the future of the conservative movement.

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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Jacob Rees-Mogg talks all things Tory Conference and Tucker Carlson; Lara Brown explores the growing rebellion against screens in schools; Matthew Parris reflects on what will survive us when we’re gone; and William Atkinson wonders if Altai the tiger be spared.
Produced and presented by Abigail Brierley.

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Pope Leo XIV is recovering in hospital after undergoing surgery for lung cancer, with doctors removing the lower lobe of his right lung. The Vatican says his recovery is progressing normally, but questions remain over how his illness could affect a pontificate that is still in its early stages.

What does the Pope’s diagnosis mean for the Catholic Church? The Pillar’s Ed Condon joins Damian Thompson to consider how illness could reshape Leo’s papacy and whether his health could speed up the process of senior appointments – and ultimately revive the debate over papal succession.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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For this week’s Edition, William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s commissioning editor Lara Brown, Financial Times columnist and peer Camilla Cavendish and broadcaster and former Labour MP Gloria De Piero.

This week: are screens creating a new education divide? Lara examines the growing backlash against technology in schools. What began as an attempt to create a generation of ‘digital natives’ has left children as young as four doing reading and maths on gamified apps – despite little evidence that they improve learning. State schools are spending hundreds of millions of pounds on 'EdTech', while some of Britain’s leading private schools are moving back towards books, handwriting and screen-free classrooms. Are we creating a two-tier education system – books for the rich and screens for everyone else?

Also: why aren’t young people having children? Camilla discusses her new book Generation Maybe, which investigates falling birth rates around the world. She argues that the problem isn’t simply that women are choosing careers over motherhood: millions of people would like children but cannot find someone to have them with. Are we living through a ‘relationship recession’? Have men failed to keep up with women or have expectations changed? And can governments actually do anything about it?

Finally: why are we so nostalgic for the 1990s? The panel look back at Tony Blair, boozy lunches, and the millennium bug – a world before smartphones took over.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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