Andrew Neil On Global Politics And The US
The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
4.6 • 836 Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andrew Neil has long been one of the finest journalists in the UK. He has been chairman of The Spectator, chairman of Sky TV, editor of The Sunday Times, and a BBC anchor, where his grueling interviews of politicians became legendary. He’s currently a columnist for both the UK and US versions of The Daily Mail and an anchor for Times Radio. In the US he went viral after a car-crash interview with Ben Shapiro.
For two clips of our convo — on Europe’s steady decline, and Trump’s cluelessness on tariffs — pop over to our YouTube page.
Other topics: growing up near Glasgow as a working-class Tory; his mother working in the mills; his father fighting the Nazis; his merit-based grammar school (before Labour dissolved them); thriving on the debate team; studying US history at university; Adam Smith; reporting on The Troubles; covering the White House at The Economist in the early '80s; Reagan Dems and Trump Hispanics; covering labor and industry in the Thatcher era; her crackdown on unions; the print unions that spurred violence; Alastair Stewart; tough interviewing and how the US media falls short; Tim Russert; audio of Neil grilling Shapiro and Boris; the policy-lite race between Trump and Harris; populism in the US and UK; Greenland and the Panama Canal; the rise of autocracy in the 21st Century; recent elections in Europe; Starmer; US isolationism past and present; the Iraq War; the 2008 crash; Taiwan and semiconductors; China’s weakening economy; the overconfidence of the US after the Cold War; Brexit; Covid; mass migration; AI; and the challenge of Muslim assimilation in Europe.
Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: John Gray on the state of liberal democracy, Jon Rauch on “Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy,” Sebastian Junger on near-death experiences, Evan Wolfson on the history of marriage equality, Yoni Appelbaum on how America stopped building things, Nick Denton on the evolution of new media, and Ross Douthat on how everyone should be religious. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to [email protected].
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Hey there. Welcome to another dishast. It is a fucking freezing cold morning in D.C.C. But kind of invigorating nonetheless as we all sit and wait for the |
| 0:39.9 | grand inauguration next week with everything that portends. There's this weird interregnum feeling here, |
| 0:47.2 | some anticipation, huge amount of nerves, a lot of just bafflement at what's actually going to come. |
| 0:53.6 | And I was thinking about who to ask |
| 0:54.8 | to come on. And I had an idea. But let me, before I introduce, I guess today, let you know |
| 1:00.8 | the amazing bunch of people we have coming on to the dishcast in the next few weeks. We have |
| 1:05.9 | John Gray coming next week, the great philosopher, talking about whether liberalism really is done. We're coming |
| 1:12.5 | on with John Roush, who's going to talk about Christianity's broken bargain with democracy. |
| 1:17.7 | John's, obviously, you know who John is, but he's never touched religion before, and so I'm going to |
| 1:23.0 | go for him. Then Sebastian Young is coming on. He wrote this extraordinary little book, which I don't |
| 1:27.8 | know whether you've read yet, but you really should, on how he nearly died and what he learned |
| 1:33.7 | from that experience and a discussion of near-death experiences, which are increasingly documented. |
| 1:41.0 | Evan Wolfson, my old friend, who really is more responsible for marriage equality |
| 1:45.0 | in America than any other single person. He's coming on to talk about that struggle. Yoni |
| 1:49.9 | Applebaum is coming on to talk about the American dream and how we've stopped building things. |
| 1:54.5 | Nick Denton, formerly the Gawker, is coming on to talk about the evolution of new media. And |
| 1:59.7 | Ross Douth, my old buddy, will tell you to |
| 2:02.2 | believe in God. And you can tell him whatever you want in return, but we will have a lovely |
| 2:07.8 | conversation. But today, I have really someone who is quite a figure, central figure, in British |
| 2:14.5 | politics. His name is Andrew Neal. I think he's probably one of the |
| 2:19.0 | finest journalists in the UK, and he has an extraordinary career behind him and in front of him. |
| 2:24.6 | But he used to be chairman of the spectator, and as chairman of spectator, he oversaw a really |
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