Best of the Spectator

The polls are tightening, meanwhile Joe Biden is on the back foot over another gaffe about African American voters. Is the Democratic challenger blowing the election? Editor of the National Interest Jacob Heilbrunn joins Freddy Gray, editor of Spectator USA. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's edition, Joanna Lumley recalls her meeting with Mongolia’s former champion wrestler – now the country’s president – and reflects on the joys of eating birdseed (01:14). Lionel Shriver argues that the true novelty of coronavirus is just how scared it's made us all (07:14). Andrew Doyle suggests that the SNP's hate crime bill could lead to the criminalisation of the bible (15:34). And Low Life's Jeremy Clarke shares his sadness at seeing an old neighbour and friend moving on (20:14). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next month, the Vatican will talk to Beijing about renewing its 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party that effectively allowed President Xi to choose the country's Catholic bishops. He has used this power to force Catholics loyal to Rome to join the puppet Catholic church set up by Chairman Mao in the 1950s. They can no longer refuse on the grounds that they recognise only the Pope's Church because Francis himself has validated the orders of Xi's party stooges. But the Holy Father has done more than that: he has ostentatiously failed to condemn China's savage assaults on human rights, the worst of which is its attempt to eradicate the country's Muslim Uyghurs ethnic minority by herding them into concentration camps and forcing Uighur women to have abortions. As I say in this episode of Holy Smoke, the Pope's behaviour is not just a disgrace but also a mystery. The Catholic Church has gained nothing from the 2018 pact. On the contrary, it has given Beijing a handy excuse to intensify its harassment of Catholics. So why is the Vatican apparently keen to renew a deal that so badly reflects on it? One plausible explanation is money. Rome hasn't got any. China enjoys nothing more than buying influence. This year, claims surfaced that the Communist Party is quietly slipping the Vatican £1.6 billion a year in order to buy the Pope's silence about the Uyghurs, the subjugation of Hong Kong and the demolition of churches. But no evidence has been produced to support this conspiracy theory. My guests are the journalist Catherine Lafferty and Fr Benedict Kiely, a campaigner on behalf of persecuted religious minorities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

London is the motor to Britain’s economy, so how can it rebuild after the pandemic? (00:55) How can the new Tory leader in Scotland, Douglas Ross, keep the United Kingdom together? (17:50) And why the looming conflict between India and China isn’t in Kashmir, but rather in the Bay of Bengal. (29:33) With economist Gerard Lyons; historian Simon Jenkins; The Spectator’s Scotland editor Alex Massie; The Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth; historian Francis Pike; and author Jonathan Ward.  Presented by Katy Balls.  Produced by Gus Carter and Max Jeffery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s podcast, we're replaying an episode that first aired earlier this year, but seems more relevant now than ever. Sam is joined by two writers to talk about the perennially fraught issue of race. There’s a wide consensus that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong; but what actually *is* race? Does it map onto a meaningful genetic or scientific taxonomy? Does it map onto a lived reality - is it possible to generalise, say, about 'black' experience? And can we or should we opt out of or ignore it? Adam Rutherford and Thomas Chatterton Williams approach these issues from very different angles: the former, in How To Argue With A Racist, brings genetic science to bear on the myths and realities of population differences; while the latter describes in Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race how after half a lifetime strongly attached to the idea of his own blackness, the arrival of his blonde haired and blue eyed daughter made him rethink his worldview.Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Statistics released this week showed that England had the worst excess death rate in Europe during the first half of 2020. Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Carl Heneghan, professor of Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University about what's behind the numbers. Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this year, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson gave credence to the conspiracy theory that the US military took coronavirus to China. It's just one example of a new school of diplomacy that has dominated Chinese foreign policy - the 'wolf warriors'. But does this approach work, or does it merely antagonise the world? Professor Todd Hall is a Chinese foreign policy expert at Oxford University, and tells Cindy Yu about what the wolf warriors say about China's view of the world.A fortnightly podcast on the latest in Chinese politics, society, and more. Presented by Cindy Yu. Listen to past episodes here.Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the episode this week, Freddy Gray, editor of the Spectator's US edition, reads his cover piece on the real Joe Biden. We also hear from Douglas Murray on the trial of Amber Heard and Johnny Depp - and about allegations that can't be proved or disproved. At the end, Katy Balls relays the government's anxiety over a second wave.Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump in the polls, so what is at the root of his appeal? (00:50) The government is anxious about a second wave - can it avoid repeating its mistakes? (11:15) And Rachel Johnson on her generation of high flyers and early retirees (23:30).With editor of the Spectator's US edition, Freddy Gray; our economics correspondent Kate Andrews; deputy political editor Katy Balls; former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt; journalist Rachel Johnson; and comedian Dominic Frisby.Presented by Cindy Yu.Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery, and Sam Russell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's books podcast, Sam's guest is Kate Teltscher, who tells the fascinating story of one of the greatest showpieces of Victorian Britain: the Palm House in Kew Gardens. Though the gardens and their glassy centrepiece are now a fixture of London's tourist map, as her new book Palace of Palms reveals, they very nearly weren't. She tells Sam how a team of brilliant mavericks used cutting-edge science and engineering to build one of the greatest constructions of its era... in just the wrong place. With walk-on parts for Darwin, Humboldt and Alfred Russel Wallace, she reveals the way in which Victorian botany extended its tendrils through the whole Empire, shows how the palm was seen as the "prince of plants", and describes the quest for the palm of all palms, the elusive coco-de-mer.Subscribe to the Spectator's first podcast newsletter here and get each week's podcast highlights in your inbox every Tuesday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.