Reasons to be optimistic | with Michael Gove, Tim Stanley, Steve Baker & David Goodhart
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 January 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Post-holiday depression, failed New Year’s resolutions and battered bank balances: January’s Blue Monday has long been branded as the most miserable day of the year. Headlines warn of ongoing war, political turmoil and economic gloom – but could they be mistaken?
Join The Spectator and special guests as they defy the doomsters to deliver an optimist’s guide to 2026. Almost three-quarters of people worldwide believe that this year will be better than the last. Are they right?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and good evening and welcome to this spectator event on what is legendarily the most depressing day of the year. |
| 0:14.8 | Now, why this should be known as Blue Monday, when NATO is cracking apart, our established parties are riven by defections. |
| 0:21.4 | England has crashed to its worst defeat against Australia in cricket ever, and Arsenal |
| 0:26.2 | are top of the Premier League. Why? This should be a cause for melancholy is beyond us at the |
| 0:31.2 | spectator, because here at the spectator, we are in the business of civilized optimism. |
| 0:38.9 | And we have three civilized and optimistic speakers this evening to seek to persuade you of the virtues and the resilience of this country, broken or not. |
| 0:50.3 | And we have Steve Baker, Steve, who has been member of Parliament for Wickham, |
| 0:57.2 | is now the founder of Fighting for a Free Future, which is a wonderful podcast, substack, |
| 1:06.4 | and ideas foundry. So those of you who are interested in an economics which is based in personal |
| 1:12.8 | dignity and freedom and a politics that is about the enlargement of the scope of individual |
| 1:17.6 | endeavour, then sign up for fighting for a free future and engage with the work that Steve is |
| 1:24.2 | now taking on beyond the parliamentary and ministerial career that he had. |
| 1:29.5 | And then immediately, on my right, we have Tim Stanley. |
| 1:31.5 | Tim is a columnist with the Daily Telegraph, and Tim is also that rare thing. |
| 1:37.3 | Someone who has actually appeared and presented thought for the day on Radio 4 without having the nation's genuine churchgoers |
| 1:49.0 | immediately reaching for the off switch. |
| 1:52.1 | Someone in the godslot who actually believes in God. |
| 1:57.0 | But Tim is also a keen student of British and American history, and he is, I hesitate to say, a paleo-conservative, because he's a young man with a great future in front of him. |
| 2:07.9 | But Tim also represents a distinctive strain on the right, which seeks to look to tradition as a source of encouragement for the future. |
| 2:15.7 | And then on my left, we have David Goodhart. David is a |
| 2:19.2 | former editor of Prospect. Prospect, as you will be aware, is a monthly magazine. Now, sadly, |
| 2:25.7 | no longer the titan of publications that it was under David's stewardship. But as well as having |
... |
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