From Porn Britannia to Political Chaos: The Spectator’s Year in Review
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 27 December 2025
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Spectator’s senior editorial team – Michael Gove, Freddy Gray, Lara Prendergast and William Moore – sit down to reflect on 2025. From Trump’s inauguration to the calamitous year for Labour, a new Pope and a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the year has not been short of things to write about.
The team take us through their favourite political and cultural topics highlighted in the magazine this year, from the Assisted Dying debate, the ongoing feud over Your Party and Reform’s plan for power, to Scuzz Nation, Broke Britain – and Porn Britannia.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Give something clever this Christmas. |
| 0:02.2 | Treat a loved one to a year of The Spectator, in print and online, for just £99. |
| 0:07.9 | And we'll send you a bottle of our very own English sparkling wine worth £48 £48, absolutely free. |
| 0:15.3 | Have a bright and sparkling Christmas with the Spectator. |
| 0:17.7 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Christmas. |
| 0:28.0 | Hello and welcome to the edition from The Spectator. I'm Laura Prendergars, the |
| 0:32.7 | Spectator's executive editor. And on this special episode, we're going to be looking back at 2025. |
| 0:38.5 | From Trump's inauguration to the calamitous year for labor, the rise of reform, a new |
| 0:44.1 | pope, a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, |
| 0:49.1 | 2025 has not been short of things to write about. To discuss the year, I'm joined by our editor, Michael Gove, |
| 0:56.0 | our deputy editor and editor of our US edition, Freddie Gray, and our features editor, William Moore. |
| 1:05.5 | Michael, I thought I'd start by going to you first and asking for your reflections on your first year as editor of the spectator. |
| 1:13.7 | Well, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's been a target-rich environment. |
| 1:18.0 | I mean, most of those targets have been caricatured on the front page. |
| 1:21.2 | But Trump's first year in power has been inescapably dominant. |
| 1:26.8 | But it's also the case that in terms of domestic politics, |
| 1:30.9 | the dismantling or the unraveling of Labor's political authority has also been fascinating. |
| 1:38.1 | We lost the amazing Katie Balls as political editor, but in Tim Shipman, we've had someone who's been a perfect guide |
| 1:45.9 | to all of the domestic political drama. But also, as you hinted against that backdrop, |
| 1:51.9 | you've had a change in the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. And we've also had |
| 1:58.2 | the sort of social changes which spectator writers are brilliant in picking up, |
| 2:04.0 | everything from a sort of growing discontent at the scusiness around us to also the pornification |
... |
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