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Hello and welcome to the edition from The Spectator. I'm Lara Prendergast, the Spectator's

executive editor and the latest issue of the magazine, our Christmas issue,

has just gone to press. It looks magnificent with a line-up including everyone from Peter Thiel

to Nigel Farage, Joan Collins to Matthew McConaughey, Her Majesty the Queen, to Bonnie Blue,

amongst many others. To discuss everything in this bumper issue of the magazine, I'm joined

now by our Deputy Political Editor, James Hill, our associate editor, Damien Thompson,

and the editor of our Morning Press newsletter, Angus Colwell. Thank you all for joining.

James, I thought I'd start with you.

You've written a brilliant poll call in this Christmas issue, and in it you look at the people

who've had a good year and a bad year.

What would you say the highlights from this year politically?

Well, politically, I think that it's not very Christmassy, but the song of the year has

to be, I will survive. And really, it is this kind of dance between Kirstama, the Prime Minister, and Kermannberg, the Leader of the Opposition, and their two respective brands, which you've had these two long-time established parties that have dominated British politics for a century or more. And now it seems that increasingly they're getting challenged in this fragmentation. And the big question really is which of them is going to have

a worse year? And I think personally it's going to be Kirstama, hence talking about the potential

for the Prime Minister to lose his job less than 24 months after winning a landslide victory.

You say he's had a better year on the foreign side of things. Could you find some solace in that this Christmas?

Well, yes, normally that it takes a second term for a prime minister to suddenly realise how much they love foreign affairs and how much they love this country and want to spend more time away from it. And so I think that we've really done this speed run, that experiment.

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