Best of the Spectator
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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Filtered episodes(9)
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: Andy Haldane on Burnham, Badenoch & the Budget
Published Oct 22, 2026
Reality CheckAndy Burnham’s first Budget as Prime Minister is approaching – but higher borrowing costs have already made the sums more difficult. Former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane joins Michael Simmons to warn that Britain has little room left to borrow more.For this episode of Reality Check, Andy tells Michael what could be in next week’s Budget, why devolution alone is not a growth strategy and why he appears to have praised Kemi Badenoch’s economic policies this week. Plus: they discuss
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: Fraser Nelson exposes Britain's welfare pipeline
Published Oct 16, 2026
Reality CheckIs Britain’s welfare state still a safety net or has it become a pipeline for long-term dependency? Almost one in ten six-year-olds are now categorised as disabled through the benefits system and, on current trends, that figure would rise to one in four 16-year-olds.Reality Check’s Michael Simmons speaks to The Times's Fraser Nelson – former editor of this parish – about his investigation into Britain’s welfare system: why mental health and behavioural claims among children have surged, how disa
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: the AI apocalypse is just good marketing
Published Sep 22, 2026
Reality CheckSome whistleblowers from the AI industry claim there is a more than 10% chance that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity within a few years. A group of mostly Labour MPs has written to Andy Burnham calling for action on existential AI risk, while conceding there is little the British government can do about it alone.Michael Simmons speaks to John Power about the incentives behind the warnings, whether AI can realistically be regulated and why more mundane harms, from AI-written compla
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: Arthur Laffer vs Aaron Bastani | LIVE
Published Sep 11, 2026
Reality CheckArthur Laffer, the economist, former adviser to Ronald Reagan and architect of the Laffer Curve, goes head-to-head with journalist and left-wing author Aaron Bastani over one question: should Britain introduce a wealth tax?Chaired by The Spectator’s economics editor and host of the Reality Check podcast, Michael Simmons, they debate whether a wealth tax could raise significant revenue, or simply drive wealth and investment out of the UK.Spectator subscribers can watch the full debate at spectato
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: the ADHD debate we’re not allowed to have
Published Aug 26, 2026
Reality CheckThe backlash to Channel 4’s The Great ADHD Myth has reignited a fierce debate over how we diagnose ADHD – and whether that debate itself is becoming impossible to have.Michael Simmons looks at the extraordinary rise in diagnoses, the gap between recorded cases and underlying prevalence, and asks whether we are increasingly medicalising normal variations in behaviour.Is Britain finally recognising a vast amount of unmet need – or has diagnosis begun to serve a social as well as a medical function
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: Britain's AI problem isn't data centres – it's electricity
Published Aug 17, 2026
Reality CheckBritain wants to become an AI superpower – but does it have the electricity to power one? Data centres underpin everything from online banking and streaming to artificial intelligence, and demand for them is exploding. The government has designated them as critical national infrastructure and is promising billions of pounds of investment, but Britain’s ageing grid is already struggling to keep up.Michael Simmons asks whether the UK can build enough power stations, transmission lines and substati
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: why Labour doesn’t understand business
Published Aug 8, 2026
Reality CheckOliver Shah is a former journalist at The Sunday Times and now runs Newcome Advisory. On this week's Reality Check Oliver and Michael discuss why Labour can't build trust with the businesses, how the National Insurance tax hike was the poison pill for the private sector and whether it is still worth being an entrepreneur in Britain today.This episode is brought to you by Alliance Witan investment trust. To learn more about the trust and how we’re helping investors find their comfort zone, please
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: could women be the solution to Britain's prison problem?
Published Aug 4, 2026
Reality CheckAmid rising backlash over the early prisoner release scheme, Kemi Badenoch has called for emergency legislation to stop the plans going ahead. The new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has already halted the plans until a review has been conducted. The situation with prison overcrowding is a ticking timebomb – what options are available? To alleviate the risk, some suggest women should be prioritised as candidates for early release, and women's prisons repurposed. To discuss, Michael Simmons is joined
- StandardSummaries onlyReality Check: Britain's homelessness & why Burnham won't fix it
Published Jul 28, 2026
Reality CheckAndy Burnham has laid out some of his top policy agendas for his premiership. Top of the list is to tackle homelessness – something the former Manchester mayor pledged to solve in Greater Manchester too, but the numbers have suggested the outcome was otherwise. What really needs to be done to fix homelessness in Britain? And how does his other policy of rent controls work against ending rough sleeping? Michael Simmons takes a look at the data.This episode is brought to you by Alliance Witan inve