The Edition: Is Rishi ready?
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 826 Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2022
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
We have a new prime minister, but is Rishi Sunak ready to take on the numerous problems that James Forsyth outlines in his cover piece for The Spectator this week? James is joined by writer and pollster Matt Goodwin to debate whether the Conservatives can turn it around in time for 2024 (00:50).
Also this week:
Is the future of feminism conservative?
Louise Perry writes for the magazine this week that there has been a rightward shift in feminist thought, spearheaded by mothers coalescing online. She is joined by Victoria Smith, author of Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women (15:30).
And finally:
The Spectator's diary editor James Heale and the Sun's political editor Harry Cole, are the authors of the new book Out of the Blue: The Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss. Now immortalised as a Twitter meme, they discuss the agony of rewrites and trying to keep pace with Truss's doomed premiership (28:09).
Hosted by William Moore.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by Can Accord Genuity Wealth Management, experienced wealth planners and |
| 0:05.7 | investment managers who offer unwavering support in challenging times. Visit can-dowealth.com for more |
| 0:12.0 | information. Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator. |
| 0:24.2 | Each week we look at three pieces from the magazine with the writers behind them. |
| 0:28.0 | I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor. |
| 0:30.7 | On this week's episode, what are the problems facing the new Prime Minister? |
| 0:34.6 | Is the future of feminism conservative, and the horror of writing |
| 0:38.8 | Liz Truss's biography? First up, James Forsyth writes about what to expect from Rishi Sunak's |
| 0:44.2 | first few months in office. He joins me now, along with academic and pollster Matt Goodwin. |
| 0:50.0 | James, do you mind just summarizing briefly for our listeners what his immediate challenges are |
| 0:55.5 | as you see them? So I think the challenges he faces are formidable. So you've got obviously |
| 1:02.0 | an economic challenge and the need to kind of for a kind of consolidation in the public finances. |
| 1:07.4 | I think you can see though by the fact that they push back this Halloween fiscal event into November without any market reaction, that already the combination of Sunak and Hunt, and I should say that I've known Rishi for years, that that combination has already calmed the market. So some of the pressure that has eased. But you still have this formidable question of how to put the public finances on a |
| 1:29.3 | sustainable footing and how to get growth going. The second challenge, I think, is political. |
| 1:35.9 | Rishi Sunak has a approved rating kind of in the negative single digits. The Tory party has an |
| 1:40.4 | has a approved rating, which is negative to, I think you're saying the piece, negative |
| 1:44.5 | to 43 points or 47, 43 points I think it is. |
| 1:47.9 | That is obviously a problem. |
| 1:49.3 | It means you're not going to get a honeymoon period. |
| 1:51.5 | And then I think the other related question to that is, does the Tory party want to win again? |
| 1:56.6 | I think that, you know, will, is the Tory party going to look at these opinion poll ratings |
| 2:00.5 | and say, |
... |
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