The Edition

• Nigel wants YOU, secularism vs spirituality & how novel is experimental fiction?

  How Reform plans to win Just a year ago, Nigel Farage ended his self-imposed exile from politics and returned to lead Reform. Since then, Reform have won more MPs than the Green Party, two new mayoralties, a parliamentary by-election, and numerous councils. Now the party leads in every poll and, as our deputy political editor James Heale reveals in our cover article, is already planning for government.The party’s chair, tech entrepreneur Zia Yusuf, describes the movement as a ‘start-up’; and like a start-up, Reform is scaling up at speed. Among the 676 councillors elected last month, a number are considered more than ready to stand as MPs. James also interviewed Reform’s deputy leader, the MP Richard Tice, who said that the Reform movement cannot be thought of within the traditional left-right political spectrum.James joined the podcast to discuss further; you can also hear an extract from his interview with Richard. (1:01) Next: are young people turning to religion? A recent survey by the UK’s Bible Society has found that over the past six years, Church attendance has risen by 50 per cent. There are signs that this is being driven by younger people – why are Gen Z turning to religion? A new book by Lamorna Ash, Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search For Religion, seeks to answer this question and is reviewed in the magazine this week by Rupert Shortt.To unpack this potential Church revival, Rupert – the author of The Eclipse of Christianity and Why It Matters – joined the podcast, alongside Georgia Clarke, director of youth ministry at St Elizabeth of Portugal Roman Catholic Church in London. (21:25) And finally: is experimental fiction truly novel?Philip Hensher writes in the magazine this week about the modern trend of ‘experimental literature’. For Philip, not only do these novels have incredibly rigid rules, but they are far from ‘experimental’ as he feels many of their components aren’t truly new.To discuss further, Philip – who has been writing his own history of the novel – joined the podcast, alongside Simon Okotie. Simon, author of The Future of the Novel, is also a judge for the Goldsmiths Prize, which awards a novel which ‘breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form’. (33:11)Plus: extracts from Tanya Gold’s article on selling bathwater (17:54) and Madeline Grant’s on the decline of period dramas (19:35).Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• End of the rainbow, rising illiteracy & swimming pool etiquette

  End of the rainbow: Pride’s fallWhat ‘started half a century ago as an afternoon’s little march for lesbians and gay men’, argues Gareth Roberts, became ‘a jamboree not only of boring homosexuality’ but ‘anything else that its purveyors consider unconventional’. Yet now Reform-led councils are taking down Pride flags, Pride events are being cancelled due to lack of funds, and corporate sponsors are ‘withdrawing their cold tootsies from the rainbow sock’. Has Pride suffered from conflation with ‘genderism’? Gareth joined the podcast to discuss, alongside diversity consultant Simon Fanshawe, one of the six original co-founders of Stonewall. (0:59)Next: people are forgetting how to readPhilip Womack ‘can hear the rumblings of disaster, as if the foundations of western culture, eroded for decades, are teetering into collapse’. The reason? We are forgetting how to read. Today’s children ‘hardly read; their tech-blinded parents don’t care; their teachers don’t have the resources’. American students participating in a study requiring them to parse the first paragraph of Bleak House ‘were unable to elicit a scintilla of sense’ from Charles Dickens’s prose. What or who is to blame? Philip joined the podcast to discuss. (23:29)And finally: the social minefield of swimming pool seasonArabella Byrne writes in the magazine this week that while she has ‘always loved English swimming pools’, the arrival of the summer season always presents her ‘with an annual etiquette conundrum’. If you’re lucky enough to know one of the 200,000 Brits who have a private swimming pool, she asks: how acceptable is it - really - to ask to use a friend’s pool? Arabella joined the podcast, alongside the Spectator’s very own Dear Mary, Mary Killen. (32:46)Hosted by William Moore and Gus Carter.Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 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 historyWhy 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Britain's billionaire exodus, Michael Gove interviews Shabana Mahmood & Hampstead's 'terf war'

  The great escape: why the rich are fleeing BritainKeir Starmer worries about who is coming into Britain but, our economics editor Michael Simmons writes in the magazine this week, he should have ‘sleepless nights’ thinking about those leaving. Since 2016, nearly 30,000 millionaires have left – ‘an outflow unmatched in the developed world’. Tax changes have made Britain a ‘hostile environment’ for the wealthy, yet we are ‘dangerously dependent’ on our highest earners: the top 0.01 per cent pay 6 per cent of all income tax. If the exodus is ‘half as bad’ as those he has spoken to think, Simmons warns, a 2p hike to income tax looms. Michael joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside private wealth specialist James Quarmby from advisory firm Stephenson Harwood. (1:04)Next: Michael Gove interviews justice secretary Shabana Mahmood‘There’s a moment of reckoning to come’ Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood tells The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove in a wide-ranging interview in the magazine this week. Gove writes that he has a degree of sympathy for her, given he occupied her post for 15 months several years ago; ‘it’s the most glamorous and least attractive job in the cabinet’ he writes.The interview touched on grooming gangs, AI and the oath she swore on the Quran. You can hear an extract from the interview on the podcast but, for the full interview, go to Spectator TV (16:08)And finally: ‘pond terfs’ versus the ‘right on’ Zoe Strimpel highlights a schism that has emerged over Hampstead ladies pond in the magazine this week: whether trans women should be allowed to swim in the ladies pond. The division, between older ‘pond terfs’, who are against their inclusion, and younger ‘right on’ women, has only widened following the Supreme Court ruling. Far from solving the issue, the fight has only intensified.  Zoe joined the podcast alongside Julie Bindel to discuss further. (27:48)Hosted by Lara Prendergast and Gus Carter.Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Scuzz Nation, the death of English literature & are you a bad house guest?

  Scuzz Nation: Britain’s slow and grubby declineIf you want to understand why voters flocked to Reform last week, Gus Carter says, look no further than Goat Man. In one ward in Runcorn, ‘residents found that no one would listen when a neighbour filled his derelict house with goats and burned the animals’ manure in his garden’. This embodies Scuzz Nation – a ‘grubbier and more unpleasant’ Britain, ‘where decay happens faster than repair, where crime largely goes unpunished, and where the social fabric has been slashed, graffitied and left by the side of the road’.On the podcast, Gus speaks to Dr Lawrence Newport, founder of Crush Crime, to diagnose the issues facing Britain – and offer some solutions to stop the rot. (01:28)Next: is it demeaning to study Dickens?In the magazine this week, Philip Hensher reviews ‘Literature and Learning: A History of English Studies in Britain’ by Stefan Collini. Philip’s main gripe is that the history stops short of charting the threats posed to the study of English literature in the past fifty years. Accessible, ‘relevant’ short stories are increasingly replacing the classics, as the monuments of Victorian literature defeat today’s undergraduates.So can English literature still teach us how to read deeply in an age of diminishing attention spans? Philip joins the podcast alongside Orlando Reade, author and assistant professor at Northeastern University London, where he teaches English and creative writing. (17:47)And finally: are you a bad house guest?In the magazine, Christa D’Souza bemoans terrible house guests. Set against the idyllic backdrop of her home in the Greek Cyclades, she gives an account of the trials and absurdities of hosting – from towel-hoarding Americans to the toddler-like breakfast habits of many grown adults.She joins the podcast alongside our very own agony aunt, Mary Killen, to discuss further – and hopefully offer some advice on how better to deal with rude house guests. (29:04)Hosted by Lara Prendergast and Gus Carter.Produced by Oscar Edmondson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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