The Edition: Benefits Britain, mental health & what’s the greatest artwork of the 21st Century?

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The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

‘Labour is now the party of welfare, not work’ argues Michael Simmons in the Spectator’s cover article this week. The question ‘why should I bother with work?’ is becoming harder to answer, following last week’s Budget which could come to define this Labour government. A smaller and smaller cohort of people are being asked to shoulder the burden – what do our Spectator contributors think of this?

For this week’s Edition, host Lara Prendergast is joined by opinion editor Rupert Hawksley, arts editor Igor Toronyi-Lalic and columnist Matthew Parris. Rupert points out the perceived lack of fairness across the Budget, Matthew thinks we shouldn’t be surprised that a Labour government delivered a Labour Budget and Igor makes the case that artists thrive as a consequence of an inefficient state.

As well as the cover, they discuss: the compassionate balance needed on mental health; how society seems to be approaching a ‘climbdown’ over climate change; the best party tricks they’ve seen; and finally, their reflections on Tom Stoppard, following his death at the weekend.

Plus: what is the greatest artwork of the 21st century so far – and how should we define it? The columnists discuss our various submissions from Christian Marclay’s The Clock, television show Succession, album Original Pirate Material by The Streets – and even the Just Stop Oil movement.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Give something clever this Christmas.
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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.
0:26.6	Hello and welcome to the edition from The Spectator. I'm Laura Prendergars, the
0:33.1	Spectator's executive editor and the latest issue of the magazine has just gone off stone. The headline is
0:39.6	Slob Story and in it Michael Simmons, our economics editor, looks at how Labour became the party of welfare.
0:47.0	To discuss what's in his piece and many of the other pieces in this week's issue, I'm joined by
0:51.6	our opinion editor, Rupert Hawkesley, our arts editor,
0:55.7	Eagle Tronnie Lalich, and our columnist, Matthew Parris.
1:04.2	Rupert, could you start by setting out how this week's cover came about?
1:08.0	Yeah, of course. So we discussed at a great length and in a lot of detail,
1:12.8	actually, this cover in Friday's editorial conference. There were other ideas that were mooted,
1:18.7	specifically whether or not it was the time to do a piece on Reeves's future and whether or not
1:23.4	she could survive after delivering what was an almost universally hated budget.
1:29.4	But we came back to welfare as it seems to be the issue that both define the budget,
1:34.5	and I think we'll likely define this government if they can't get it under control.
1:39.0	I think what came out in editorial conference was a real feeling of anger,
1:43.9	and I think that anger is reflected
1:45.5	across the country that a smaller and smaller cohort of working people are basically being
1:49.9	asked to pay more and more tax in order to prop up those on welfare as well as pensioners.
	...

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