Best of the Spectator

In this week’s episode: How are the people of both Russia and Ukraine processing the war?Our Russia correspondent Owen Matthews writes in this week’s Spectator that he has been stunned at how easily some of his Russian friends have accepted the Kremlin’s propaganda. He joins the podcast to explain why he thinks this is, followed by journalist and author of This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, who has travelled to Kyiv to celebrate the festival of Passover. (00:48)Also this week: Is Rishi Sunak politically incompetent? Until recently Rishi Sunak was once a favourite to succeed Boris Johnson, but this week his popularity plummeted to new lows. Our Deputy Political Editor Katy Balls writes about the Chancellor’s challenges in this week’s Spectator and she joins the podcast along with Chris Curtis from Opinium Research to talk about Rishi’s nightmare week. (20:20)And finally: Why do so many of Africa’s leaders support Putin?Our wildlife correspondent, Aidan Hartley argues in this week’s Spectator that this is because many previously colonised nations still see the West as their old enemy and that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. Aidan joins us now. (31:40)Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William MooreProduced by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucherListen to Lara's food podcast Table Talk: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/table-talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Heath is a British strip cartoonist and illustrator and has been working nonstop since the 1950s. He has been cartoon editor of The Spectator since 1991. On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Liv about carrying German bombs into the local pub like milk bottles during the second world war, being given chewing gum by American soldiers, and how during the heydays of Soho, the focus was a lot more on the drinking than the eating. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we'll hear from Katy Balls on the changing face of No.10. (00:49)Next, Michael Bryant on the history of War Crimes. (06:16)And finally, Michael Simmons on Nicola Sturgeon’s secret state. (11:08)Produced and presented by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Arlene Foster is the former first minister of Northern Ireland and was the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party from 2015 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold either position. Arlene moved into politics after joining the Ulster Unionist Party as a Law student at Queen’s University Belfast. Having grown up in conflict during the Troubles, she remembers an attempted murder of her father by the IRA. During her long career in politics, Arlene has consistently fought for the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She resigned from her positions in politics to become a broadcaster and campaigner where she host a weekly show on GB News. During the podcast, Arelene reflects on her long career in politics, the Brexit negotiations as part of Theresa May's coalition government and Article 16 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode: Is Putin guilty of war crimes?For this week’s cover piece, The Spectator’s Editor Fraser Nelson looks at the risks and rewards of labelling Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers war criminals. He joins the podcast, followed by Michael Bryant, the author of A World History of War Crimes, who writes in the Spectator this week about what the limits put on acts of war in the past can teach us about atrocities committed today. (00:52)Also this week: Is Europe facing a political stand-off between progressives and populists? This week Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was elected for a fourth term in office with a large majority. While in France, Emmanuel Macron faces a much harder fight from Marine Le Pen than many expected. Paris-based author, Gavin Mortimer analyses the changing faultline in European politics in this week’s Spectator and joins the podcast along with journalist and author Tibor Fischer. (19:44)And finally: Why are overpriced English kitchens so hot right now?How much would you be willing to spend on your kitchen? The answer for some seems to be a lot. And the fashionable choice at the moment is faux traditional English. Writer and art critic, Laura Freeman explores this phenomenon in this week’s Spectator and she joins the podcast along with Stacey Sheppard, creator of the design blog The Design Sheppard. (32:25)Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William MooreProduced by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucherListen to Lara's food podcast Table Talk: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/table-talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s Book Club podcast, my guest is the historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto. 500 years after Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition circumnavigated the globe, Felipe’s gripping new book Straits: Beyond the Myth of Magellan goes back to the original sources to discover that almost everything we think we know about this hero of the great age of exploration is wrong. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After defeat in the Second Opium War, Chinese intellectuals wracked their minds for how the Chinese nation can survive in the new industrialised world. It’s a topic that has been discussed on this podcast before – listeners may remember the episode with Bill Hayton, author of The Invention of China, where we discussed the reformers and revolutionaries like Liang Qichao and Kang Youwei. But for some reformers, the problem with China wasn’t just feudal politics or Confucian staleness, but its ancient language.Spoken Chinese could be any of a vast number of regional dialects which were too often mutually unintelligible. Meanwhile, written Chinese was extremely complicated, not helping the rock bottom literacy rates of the common people (30 per cent for men and 2 per cent for women). Literary and official writing were also uniformly written in 'classical Chinese', a concise poetic form of the language which was not the way that people spoke (the vernacular). The difference can be thought of as the difference between Latin and English pre-Reformation. Of even more concern was the fact that Chinese wasn’t easily adaptable to the new communication technologies that were revolutionising the world at the time, like telegraphy and typewriters (above, a picture of a 1986 model of the Chinese typewriter). These western-invented methods were based on alphabetic languages – which Chinese simply isn't.Earlier this year, I reviewed Kingdom of Characters, the new book from Jing Tsu, who is Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. Jing’s book is an excellent account of the efforts to simplify, modernise and adapt this ancient language from Chinese and westerners alike. She joins me on this episode to talk through all of the problems outlined briefly here, and how a series of reformers, politicians and linguists throughout the 20th century tried to resolve these problems – sometimes with solutions nothing short of extraordinary. Of her mission, Jing says: 'I wanted to put a western reader in the shoes of these adorable, curmudgeonly, hard to take but utterly human Chinese characters'.We discuss the different upbringings we had – me in the People's Republic of China and Jing in the Republic of China (Taiwan) – and how that impacts our relationship to the traditional and simplified versions of the Chinese script and how important that script is to the Chinese national identity. We talk about the incredible and often positive influence westerners had on this language revolution (a narrative to do with that century of humiliation I didn't hear much about in a traditional Chinese upbringing). And explore whether Chinese could ever be the lingua franca that English is.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we'll hear from Christopher Howse on the destruction of Ukrainian churches. (00:50)Next, Richard Florida on how Covid has changed London for the better. (13:52)And finally, Olivia Potts on her love of the crisp sandwich. (23:56)Produced and presented by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Spectator's contributing editor Paul Wood interviews Dr Fiona Hill of the Brookings Institution, who also served as a director within President Trump's national security council, where her brief focused on Europe and Russia. This conversation was a joint production with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.Founded in 1991, IWPR is a non-profit organization that works with independent media and civil society to promote positive change in 30 countries around the world. IWPR has been working with media and civil society in Ukraine since 2016 and has local staff in Kyiv, Lviv, and Bila Tserkva, as well as contacts at more than 50 local media and civil society organizations. IWPR’s Executive Director, Anthony Borden, has himself been leading coordination efforts in Ukraine and we are currently supporting local journalists through the Ukraine Voices initiative. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode: Is Biden’s approach to the war in Ukraine more calculating than it seems?For this week’s cover piece, in this week’s cover piece, Matt Purple examines Biden’s response to the situation in Ukraine. The good, the bad and the gaffs. He joins the podcast along with the founder of Political Human Emma Burnell. (00:52)Also this week: How many of Ukraine’s churches have been destroyed?In this week’s issue, Christopher Howse writes poignantly on the destruction of Ukrainian churches and how Vladimir Putin, a man claiming to be a defender of Christianity is desperate to keep the images of destroyed holy sites out of the news. He joins the podcast along with the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Great Britain, His Eminence Archbishop Nikitas Loulias. (11:26)And, finally: 40 years on from the Falklands War, why are there still tensions over the islands?It has been 40 years since the war between the UK and Argentina over the Falklands and in this week’s Spectator Robert Taylor writes about the impact that conflict still has on the territory. He joins the podcast along with native Argentinian and Professor of International Law of The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Marcelo G. Kohen. (22:43)Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William MooreProduced by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucherListen to Lara's food podcast Table Talk: https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcasts/table-talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.