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Hello and welcome to the edition, the Spectator's weekly podcast discussing some of the most

important and intriguing issues within our pages with the writers behind them.

I'm Cindy Yu. This week we take a look at the geopolitics of coronavirus with Professor Neil Ferguson.

Also on a podcast, how will conservatives see the NHS after this is all over? And at the very end, we talk about the new class divide,

the have gardens and the have not gardens. First up, Professor Neil Ferguson

writes about the Corona Wars in this week's cover piece, suggesting that neither America nor China

will win. He joins me on a podcast now, together with Gerard Baker, editor at large of the Wall Street

Journal. So, Neil, can you tell us about the geopolitics of coronavirus?

Yes, I think the way I see this is that Cold War II had already begun before anybody had even heard of a novel coronavirus from Wuhan. In fact, I was writing about Cold

War II at the beginning of 2019, predicting that the days of what I used to call Chimerica

were well and truly over in the United States and the People's Republic of China

were in the early stages of a Cold War that was no longer just about trade.

Now, you might have thought that the invasion of humanity by an alien species, or at least by a

virus, would bring about some kind of unity of humanity, brotherhood of man style. But in fact,

the pandemic has intensified Cold War II, because on the one hand, the United States has not unreasonably pointed out that it

originated in China for reasons that don't reflect well on China's governance. And the Chinese have

tried to spread fake news that, in fact, the virus originated with an American military team

...