The Edition: the real Brexit betrayal, bite-sized history & is being a bridesmaid brutal?
The real Brexit betrayal: Starmer vs the workers
‘This week Starmer fell… into the embrace of Ursula von der Leyen’ writes Michael Gove in our cover article this week. He writes that this week’s agreement with the EU perpetuates the failure to understand Brexit’s opportunities, and that Labour ‘doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t exist to make the lives of the fortunate more favourable’.
Michael makes the argument that ‘the real Brexit betrayal’ is Labour’s failure to understand how Brexit can protect British jobs and industries and save our manufacturing sector. Historian of the Labour Party Dr Richard Johnson, a politics lecturer at Queen Mary University writes an accompanying piece arguing that Labour ‘needs to learn to love Brexit’.
Richard joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside Conservative peer Dan Hannan. Both Brexiteers, they disagree over the approach the government should take and what tools it should be using. (1:02)
Next: the big appeal of bite-sized history
Why are so many readers turning to short histories? The historian Alice Loxton writes in the magazine this week about the popularity of books with titles like ‘the shortest history of…’, ‘a brief history of…’ or ‘a little history of’. Some may argue these are designed to satisfy generations of distracted readers, but Alice defends them, saying ‘there is something liberating about how noncommittal they are’.
Should we embrace the ‘short history’? Alice, author of Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives, joined the podcast to discuss further alongside Professor Simon Heffer – himself the author of A Short History of Power. (24:40)
And finally: is being a bridesmaid ‘brutal’?
A Northern Irish bride chose to have 95 bridesmaids when she married earlier this month. While it might be understandable to not want to choose between friends, Sophia Money-Coutts writes in the magazine this week that, once chosen, the reality of being a bridesmaid is brutal. Sophia joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside the journalist Francesca Peacock. (36:22)
Hosted by William Moore and Gus Carter.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
-------- Â
43:58
The Book Club: Geoff Dyer, the Proust of prog rock and Airfix
My guest in this week’s Book Club podcast is Geoff Dyer, who’s talking about his memoir Homework, in which he describes growing up as an only child in suburban Cheltenham, and how the eleven-plus and the postwar settlement irrevocably changed his life – propelling him away from the timid and unfulfilled world of his working-class parents. Geoff, in this new book, bids fair to be the Proust of Airfix models and prog rock.
-------- Â
38:35
Low Life: The Spectator columns of Jeremy Clarke
To mark the second anniversary of the death of Jeremy Clarke – one of the Spectator’s most loved writers – we’ve compiled some of his Low Life columns, as read by Jeremy in 2016, for this special episode of Spectator Out Loud.
Included in this compilation are: New Man (00:42); Virgin (5:16); Debauchery Competition (9:32); Buddhism (14:12); The Beach (18:58); and, Memory (23:40).
Read by Jeremy Clarke, with an introduction from William Moore.Â
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
-------- Â
28:14
Table Talk: Daria Lavelle, author of 'Aftertaste'
Daria Lavelle was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in New York. Her work explores themes of identity and belonging and her short stories have appeared in The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere. Daria is the author of the critically acclaimed new novel Aftertaste which explores food, grief and the uncanny.Â
On the podcast she tells Liv about her 'inexplicable' love of olives as a child in Ukraine, trying to make it as a writer in New York and how to write about food without it feeling contrived.
-------- Â
32:26
Americano: was Zbigniew Brzezinski a Cold War prophet?
Home to the Spectator's best podcasts on everything from politics to religion, literature to food and drink, and more. A new podcast every day from writers worth listening to.
UK