At BP, we're not just talking strategy. We're making it happen, growing our upstream business

with six major new projects in 2025. Four already live. Two more scheduled this year,

expecting to add 135,000 barrels a day to peak production, helping drive long-term shareholder value.

For more on our growth plans, visit BP.com forward slash strategy at work.

Hello. Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud, where each week we choose a few pieces from the magazine and ask their writers to read them aloud.

I'm Oscar Edmondson, head of podcasts here at The Spectator, and on this week's episode,

Sophia Faulkner profiles some of the eccentric personalities that we stand to lose when Kier Starmer purges the House of Lords of the hereditary

peers. Roger Lewis's piece on the slow delights of an OAP coach tour is read to us by the actor

Robert Bathurst. Olivia Potts reviews two books in the book section of the magazine this week,

which both use food as a prism through which to view Ukraine's heritage and resistance to the

conflict with Russia. Aidan Hartley reads his wildlife column, and Toby Young tells us about the novel

experience of being sober at the Spectator Summer Party. But first, Sophia Faulkner. Kirstama has not been the

luckiest general, but in one respect, he has bested Napoleon. The Duke of Wellington will

shortly be purged from Parliament two centuries after Waterloo. Like his ancestor, Charles Wellesley

has led life of public service.

For that, he will shortly receive the sack as part of the greatest purge of active lawmakers since Oliver Cromwell.

All this so Starma can make way for the likes of Tom Watson, Sue Gray and Richard Homer.

Among the hereditary peers are Olympians and entrepreneurs, artists and academics.

Some are genuine blue bloods, others political animals. Senior Tories across both houses lament the loss of Earl Howe and Lord Strathclyde, both of whom are described by colleagues as

first-rate ministers. Between them,

the pair have clocked up 80 years in Parliament. Strathclyde is the son of the last Tory MP to sit

for a seat in Glasgow and is known across the House to be shrewd and gregarious. He led the Lords

...