The Edition: Degrees of failure
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2023
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The cover of The Spectator magazine looks at whether after years of Covid-based disruption, rising cost and lecturer strikes, university students are getting what they paid for. The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons writes a sidebar in which he rails against some of the changes that are happening to university freshers’ week and joins the podcast alongside Emma de Saram, Guild president at the Exeter University Student’s Guild. (01:26)
Also this week:
In the magazine we are running an interview by The Spectator's special projects editor Ben Lazarus with professor Jim Skea – the new head of the UN intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) and arguably the most important man in climate science. Ben and Jim kindly allowed us to share a section of their discussion, where they talk about the 1.5 degree target, activist groups and if the messaging on climate has failed. (14:55)
And finally: do dogs want ice cream?
That’s the question that Mary Wakefield wrestles with in her column this week in The Spectator. With supermarkets now stocking everything from dog ice cream to dog caviar, she argues that we have lost our collective minds. Sir Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at the University of Manchester, joins the podcast. (24:00)
Hosted by Lara Prendergast and William Moore.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine combines incisive political analysis with books and arts reviews of unrivaled authority. |
| 0:07.6 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription, in print and online, plus a £20 £20,000 Amazon gift voucher, absolutely free. |
| 0:17.4 | Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:30.1 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we look at three pieces from the magazine with the writers behind them. |
| 0:39.4 | I'm Laura Prendergars, the Spectator's Executive Editor. |
| 0:42.5 | And I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor. |
| 0:45.3 | On this week's episode, we'll be looking at whether university is still worth it. |
| 0:50.3 | We'll be hearing from one of the most important men in climate science, and we'll be discussing |
| 0:55.6 | whether our obsession with dogs has gone too far. |
| 0:58.6 | First up, the cover of The Spectator this week looks at whether, after years of COVID-based |
| 1:04.3 | disruption, rising costs and lecturer strikes, university students still get what they pay for. |
| 1:12.9 | The Spectator's data editor, Michael Simmons, writes a sidebar in which he rails against some of the changes that are happening |
| 1:17.5 | to university Freshers Week. He joins us now, along with Emma de Sarum, Guild President at the |
| 1:24.0 | Exeter University Student Guild. Michael, could you start by taking us through your Freshest Week, |
| 1:30.2 | or at least what you can remember from it, |
| 1:32.7 | and the ways in which Freshest Weeks are changing in universities across the country |
| 1:37.8 | and why you think they're changing for the worse? |
| 1:41.1 | So this all came about, because we were having a sort of discussion in the office last |
| 1:45.1 | week about there's a few universities that are, you know, changing their language around Freshers |
| 1:49.8 | Week to be more inclusive. They want to call it Welcome Week. Some Unis specifically have said |
| 1:54.3 | that they want to kind of have it less about the sort of drinking culture. And we started talking |
| 1:58.9 | about our own Freshersers weeks. And I realized |
... |
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