Best of the Spectator

China’s population is ageing. It’s estimated that a quarter of Chinese people will be elderly within three decades. The relaxing of its one child policy – first to two children in 2016 and then to three last year – hasn’t stimulated fertility rate, which is still stagnant at 1.7 births per woman. In November last year, nappy producers supposedly pivoted their marketing towards elderly clients over parents of babies.Demographers and economists warn about the problems that an ageing – and eventually shrinking – population will cause, in China and elsewhere. On this episode, I speak to the demographer Wang Feng, Professor of Sociology at University of California, Irvine, about what awaits China. For Professor Wang, care of the elderly will soon become an issue, with more than 365 million over 65s expected by 2050. The Chinese welfare state is minimal (ironic given its socialist pretensions), something of a ‘postcode lottery’, I put to Professor Wang. He says that ‘China has already missed the time window for establishing an equitable national social security system’ – it has already become too expensive, too fast. We also discuss the one child policy at length – its logic at the time, whether Communist leaders foresaw the problems it would cause for their successors and, fascinatingly, whether there was any opposition within the Chinese Communist Party to the policy (the answer is yes ­– and if you caught my episode on the legacy of Deng Xiaoping, you will not be surprised to learn that the resistance was led by Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang). Professor Wang points out that one of the reasons why the policy took so long to go even as China liberalised relatively in the 1990s and 2000s, under the helm of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao:‘They were people who grew up, like myself, at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Their knowledge of population was all learned from the time when China implemented the one child policy, when there was so much propaganda about how population would be the root of all problems for China. I think that generation of leaders were deeply intoxicated by these teachings’In a way, there’s poetic justice for a government who thought that, in Professor Wang’s words, ‘you can just plan [births] and constrain them as you would grow trees or wheat’. Today’s China, regardless of the loosening of the one child policy (to two in 2016; and three last year, which I wrote about at the time), is just not having babies. For the Professor, there’s a fundamental truth: ‘The ageing society is not something that China, or any other country, can reverse’. The crux lies in how to adapt society to be better prepared – fixing the welfare state, the healthcare system, and maturing the financial system so the ageing population can invest for retirement. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Marshall Matters Winston is joined by British actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, star of Afterlife, Toast of London, Ridley Road and Eastenders, to name but a few. Tracy-Ann discussed the problem of anti-Semitism with relation to Equity - the trade union for actors - as well as in the entertainment industry more broadly and beyond.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddy Gray talks to Dr Julie Norman, lecturer and co-director of the Centre on US politics at University College London, about the case for the defence of the Biden presidency so far.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we’ll hear from Katy Balls on Labour’s strategy – would Starmer actually prefer Boris Johnson to stay in place? (00:51)Next, Julie Bindel on the rise of lesbian divorce (06:12)And finally, Douglas Murray on the hellish new trend of having to bring your ‘whole self’ to work. (14:00)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.

In this week’s episode: What is the next act in Putin’s theatre of war?For this week’s cover story, James Forsyth writes about Putin’s dangerous dramatics on the Russian-Ukrainian border and where they might lead. James joins the podcast along with Paul Wood, who writes in this week’s magazine that Putin’s bluff may be backfiring. (00:49)Also this week: How important is gallows humour?The BBC’s new comedy-drama, This Is Going To Hurt, based on the best-selling book of the same title by trainee doctor turned comedian Adam Kay depicts some truly gut-wrenching scenes with a touch of gallows humour. This week in The Spectator, Andrew Watts writes a defence of making dark jokes in serious situations as not only a stress relief exercise, but a genuine necessity for getting through the day. He joins the podcast along with Ed Patrick, a comedian and NHS anaesthetist whose new book Catch Your Breath about working in the NHS during the pandemic is out now. (16:05)And finally: why have we stopped whistling?Whistling can be seen as a bit annoying at best and rude at worst. But in this week’s Spectator, Steve Morris laments the loss of everyday whistling. He considers it a way of bringing music into one’s life for those who don’t own a piano. He joins the podcast along with whistling world champion David Morris, who has released six albums of his whistling. (25:50)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.

Sam's guest in this week's Book Club podcast is the historian Anna Keay. In her new book The Restless Republic: Britain Without A Crown she describes the short but traumatic period between the execution of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy. She tells Sam about the religious turmoil, the explosion of the newspaper industry, the sympathetic side of Oliver Cromwell... and parallels with our own age of constitutional upheaval and viral propaganda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Tory MP, Rory Stewart, has played many roles through out his life. An academic, a diplomat, and a soldier. Rory is currently a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.On the podcast, he talks about eating sandwiches on a homemade raft as a boy in Malaysia, his university days spent talking to girls in Pizza Express and his revelation that he doesn't really like pudding.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Winston is joined by American songwriting legend Don McLean. Don discusses his work, the atmosphere of America when he was starting in the 60s compared to now, and how he predicted the state of the world today in his all time classic “American Pie”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddy sits down with Lauren Southern a former YouTube personality and now a documentary filmmaker. Lauren has been described as one of the leaders of the Alt-Right movement. Which is a label Lauren herself thinks doesn't actually mean anything. On the podcast, Lauren and Freddy get into what direction the online right will go next, what feminism looks like in modern conservative circles, and how hypocrites can sometimes be right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we’ll hear from Kate Andrews on the NHS’s waiting list crisis. (00:52)Next, Kevin Hurley on the impact of demonising the police force. (07:04)And finally, Lawrence Bernstein on the secretive world of speech writing. (12:41)Produced and presented by Sam HolmesSubscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.