Best of the Spectator

With Kabul now taken back by the Taliban and the Americans in full retreat after two decades of war, what will the USA learn from this catastrophe, if anything? Freddy Gray talks to author of After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed, Andrew Bacevich about the goals not met, allies abandoned and lives lost.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, Jonathan Miller, author of France, a Nation on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown talks about the French 'vaccine passport' protests; Financial columnist Matthew Lynn reflects on 50 years without the gold standard; and Melissa Kite tells us about her own ways of treating Covid.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the last episode of Holy Smoke, I discussed Pope Francis's brutal and petty new document which seeks to ban as many Latin Masses as possible. This week we look at the other recent developments, which are arguably just as disturbing: two criminal prosecutions in which close allies of the Pope are accused of a range of hair-raising offences – and the question of how much Francis knew about their activities still hasn't been answered, either by the Vatican or its tame press corps.. Also, I touch on a new explanation for Rome's dreadful pact with China. Did the Pope's Secretary of State sign away the freedom of Chinese Catholics because Beijing was threatening to release data relating to the use of the gay hook-up app Grindr inside the walls of the Vatican? We may never find out. But one day there will be a new pope. Is it too much to hope that the college of cardinals will learn from the disasters of the past eight years?  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on The Edition: How expensive will it be to get to net zero and what is the cost of not reaching this goal?(00:48) Also on the podcast: Are international PCR tests a new racket?(17:56) And finally…  is the American Dream dead?(27:39)With journalists Ross Clark & James Kirkup. Producer Matt Quinton & Virginia Messina the acting CEO of the World Travel and Tourism Council. Writer Sean Thomas & the host of our very popular sister podcast Americano, Freddy Gray.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andrew Cuomo has resigned as governor of New York after an inquiry found he sexually assaulted multiple women. Why was the Governor so loved by Democrats, should he really have resigned over the state's care homes scandal, and might we soon see him as a CNN contributor? Freddy Gray speaks to Spectator World contributor Grace Curley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Conversations about ‘modernising’ the NHS have been happening for almost as long as the NHS itself. The 2019 Long Term Plan put so-called ‘patient-centred care’ at the forefront, writing that: “The NHS also needs a more fundamental shift in how we work alongside patients and individuals to deliver more person-centred care, recognising – as National Voices has championed – the importance of ‘what matters to someone’ is not just ‘what’s the matter with someone’.”All well and good, but then, came the pandemic. The new health secretary Sajid Javid has said that that waiting list will rise to 13 million people in the coming months.Where does that leave efforts to modernise the NHS now, and in particular for that patient-led vision that the Long Term Plan had set out?Kate Andrews hosts this special episode of Spectator Sounds with a panel of expert guests:Sir Jim Mackey, head of Northumbria’s NHS Trust and former head of NHS ImprovementCharlotte Augst, head of National Voices, a coalition group of patient-centred health charitiesTodd Manning, the Vice-President and General Manager of Abbvie UK.This podcast is sponsored by Abbvie UK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It might be an understatement to say that China has a difficult relationship with drugs. Most infamously, the Opium Wars of the 1800s saw British soldiers fight against the Qing dynasty to protect the British right to sell opium to China. When the Qing lost, it wasn’t just the sobriety of their people that they lost – but a series of ports, concessions and reparations signed away in so-called ‘unequal treaties’. Hong Kong was lost to the British at this point, and it’s where the Chinese mark the start of the century of humiliation.The memory and trauma of opium addiction is still bound up with national decline in the Chinese conscience.So Cindy Yu was surprised to read about widespread drug use (especially ketamine) in the early 2000s in a recent article by the translator and writer Dylan Levi King. Dylan joins this episode, and they talk about what the popularity of ket says about China's reform and opening, how the Chinese see drug abuse as a disease than a crime, and President Xi's moralistic clampdown on the party scene in the years since. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cindy Yu is joined by Professor Ciaran Martin, former chair of the National Cyber Security Centre; Robert Bigman, former chief information security officer at the CIA; Andy Owen, author and former intelligence officer; Dr Mike Martin, author of An Intimate War; Rory Sutherland, The Spectator's Wiki Man columnist; Suzanne Moore, Telegraph columnist; and a team of Spectator journalists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, former intelligence officer Andy Owen gives his reflections on where we went wrong in Afghanistan - based on what he saw on the ground; Spectator columnist Mary Wakefield talks about the rise in neighbourhood crime; and Toby Young asks - why have my suits shrunk in lockdown? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddy's guest on this week's episode is the famed journalist Michael Wolff, author of three books on Donald Trump - the bestseller Fire and Fury, its very popular follow up Siege and the latest, Landslide. The final in the trilogy tells the story of the last days of the Trump presidency, including the 2020 election – one that the former president still claims he won.On the episode, Michael recounts election night and the moment Fox called Arizona, why he has little sympathy for the voters who still believe the election was 'stolen', and what it was like to catch up with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.