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Hello and welcome to the edition podcast. The spectators weekly look at some of the most intriguing and important issues within our pages with the writers behind them.

I'm Cindy Yu.

This week, Kate Andrews writes about the magic money tree.

We found it, so what could possibly go wrong?

I also find out about the future of Taiwan now that Hong Kong has been brought ever closer to Beijing.

And finally, you might not have noticed them much, but Hotel Carpet is the subject of a new book,

which is the lead review for our art section this week. It's a weird and wonderful world.

First up, we've been told for years that the magic money tree doesn't exist, but this

week has Rishi Sunak found it. Kate Andrews writes the cover piece for this week's

spectator, and she joins me now, together with Miata Famboula, who is the chief executive

at the New Economics Foundation.

So, Kate, can you give listeners an overview of the government's new spending pledges?

So this is a prime minister who came into Downing Street, having rejected the austerity years brought in by David Cameron.

And so far he's stuck to his word in the sense that he hasn't

really found a problem that he didn't think the solution was to throw a bit more money at. This was

true in the March budget when, yes, there were billions put towards tackling coronavirus at the time,

but actually the majority of new spending was on non-COVID related issues. It was on his domestic agenda, leveling up the

Green Initiative. Now, things that a lot of listeners might like, but the truth of the matter is that

he didn't really decide how he was going to pay for them. He decided he was going to rack up

the deficit some more. Then COVID hits, and we are just, you know, obviously spending vast amounts of money.

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