The Edition: Christmas Special

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the special Christmas episode of The Edition!

In this episode, we look at five major topics that dominated the news this year and the pages of The Spectator.

First up a review of the year in politics with our resident Coffee House Shot's team James Forsyth, Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. We discuss how Boris seemed to make such a strong start to the year through the vaccine rollout, but squandered this goodwill with several own goals. We also touch on some of the big political moments of the year: Partygate, the Owen Paterson affair and of course Matt Hancock. (00:39)

Next, we go global and look at three of the major powerhouses that took headlines this year. The EU, who ends the year in a panic over Russia, extreme Covid measures, and upcoming elections. The US started with an insurrection and ended with President Biden's plummeting poll numbers. Finally, China, who if you ask them say they are doing just fine. Lara Prendergast is joined by Jonathan Miller, Douglas Murray, and Cindy Yu to discuss the state of the world. (22:34)

Then, a subject we all hoped to be leaving in the rearview mirror. Covid. With so much misinformation out there, the one important thing to have is good data, which is why we built The Spectator’s Covid data hub, and William Moore is joined on the podcast by three people who spend an ungodly amount of time going through those figures. The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, Michael Simmons (who puts the data hub together and is making his podcast debut), and our economics editor Kate Andrews. (40:52)

We chose our penultimate segment by looking back at all the most read articles of the year and chose the subject that appeared the most. The Royal Family won by a landslide, and it has been a big year for them. To break down the year’s big Royal moments and try and figure out why we are so obsessed with this family, Lara Prendergast and William Moore sat down with Freddy Gray and Patrick Jephson. (59:37)

And finally, The Edition's producer has given William Moore an early Christmas present. The Church of England is one of his favourite things to talk about, because of how important he thinks it is for our society, but also because of the many issues he has with how it is run. Will gets stuck into it with four amazing priests – Marcus Walker, Daniel French, Nicholas Cranfield, and Steve Morris – who see out the year by telling us their favourite Christmas carols. (01:13:04)

Hosted by Lara Prendergast & Will Moore

Produced by Sam Holmes

Subscribe to The Spectator magazine this Christmas and get the next 12 issues – in print and online – for just £12. Not only that but you’ll also receive a bottle of Taittinger champagne, worth £42, to see you through to the new year. Join the party today at www.spectator.co.uk/celebrate

Transcript

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0:00.0	Subscribe to The Spectator this Christmas and get the next 12 weeks of print and online access
0:04.3	as well as a bottle of Polroger champagne all for just £12.
0:08.3	This offer is available in the UK only.
0:10.1	Go to www.spictator.com.com.combe to subscribe. Hello and welcome to this special Christmas episode of the edition podcast.
0:29.2	I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor.
0:32.5	On the podcast, I'll be looking back on the year in politics, discussing Christmas traditions in Ukraine,
0:38.2	hearing an extract from Tom Holland's interview with Robert Harris for the magazine,
0:42.3	investigating the beauty of Antarctica, and finally, asking what makes a great pantomime dame.
0:49.2	Throughout the podcast, we will also hear some of the answers from our Christmas poll question,
0:54.0	What Gives You Hope?
0:56.1	Firstly, what a year in politics it has been.
0:59.4	2022 has seen five education secretaries, four chancellors, three prime ministers, two monarchs,
1:05.1	but only one political team to make sense of it all.
1:08.8	I'm joined now by the spectators Fraser Nelson, Katie Balls and
1:12.3	Isabelle Hardman. Fraser, in his column for the magazine, James Forsyth suggests that the turmoil of this
1:18.7	year is a sign that British politics is becoming fundamentally less stable. Do you agree?
1:24.7	It was truth that if you spend like drunken Keynesians, as the Conservatives have done,
1:30.5	you then find it difficult to reconcile this with your loyal tax pledge,
1:33.8	which you give voters at election time.
1:36.5	And then this is the dilemma upon which the conservatives find themselves impaled upon.
1:43.9	Now, you know, you'll hear some Tories who
1:46.2	will basically be saying, well, you know, no man born of women could govern this country. It's
	...

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