Best of the Spectator

For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator's John Power, feminist campaigner Julie Bindel and former adviser to Boris Johnson – and co-host of the In The Room podcast, Cleo Watson.

They explore the idea that the Strait of Hormuz, not Makerfield, will determine the fate of the current Labour government. Starmer may be facing a challenge to his authority from mayoral shapeshifter Andy Burnham, but neither the PM or the wannabe MP will be rewarded if grocery and energy prices continue to soar. How much can be done to insulate Britain from future pain? And do they trust Labour to do so?

Also this week: is Wes Streeting a better option than Burnham? Julie reveals her own run-ins with the now-backbench MP but concedes that Wes may be 'the least bad option’.

Plus: what can we learn from female political trailblazers of the past? Are there any merits to lists of the greatest books? And, following the release of series two of Rivals, Cleo reveals she was once asked to put together a list of the best orgasm scenes from Jilly Cooper’s novels...

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Edmund Richardson, author of a new biography of Alexander the Great called Alexander: God, King, Man. Edmund tells me why there is still a fresh story to tell about this most storied of historical figures, why his empire collapsed as soon as it came into being yet nevertheless changed history – and how Alexander conquered the world by mistake.

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Maurice Glasman, Labour peer and founder of Blue Labour, has spent years warning that Labour has lost touch with the people it was created to represent. In the first of a two-part conversation on Quite right!, he joins Michael and Maddie to explain why he thinks Keir Starmer’s project was never really Labour at all – and why the party’s working-class traditions have been replaced by progressive liberalism.
They discuss Labour’s roots in community, sovereignty and the dignity of work; how Brexit exposed the divide between Labour and liberalism; and whether Starmer’s response to Southport marked a turning point. Maurice also sets out what a genuinely Labour government might have done differently on immigration, welfare, industrial strategy, defence and AI – and why Reform’s rise should not come as a surprise.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

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British favourability dropped sharply sometime around 2016 and then further declined in 2024. Trump is clearly the main driver of negative feelings, although not the only one. There was much antipathy in 2020, which may have been related to the election but seems more likely due to the chaotic scenes that followed George Floyd’s death. To discuss this, Freddy Gray is joined by Ed West, who has written about this for his Substack The Wrong Side of History.

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My guest on this week’s Book Club podcast is Jeffrey Winters, whose new book The Blind Spot: How Oligarchs Dominate Our Democracies makes the case that democracy as it functions now isn’t, as many of us imagine, the only thing keeping the robber barons in check – it is, in fact, the very system that has enabled them to thrive. He tells me how the wealth gap in the US is now many multiples of that in ancient Rome, how extreme wealth translates into political power, and how reforming campaign finance laws is only a tiny part of the solution we need.

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