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After the row over tax returns, are political scandals not what they used to be? Richard Littlejohn asks in his Spectator cover piece this week whether we’ve come a long way from the days of Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair. Have we forgotten what a scandal is really about? Isabel Hardman is joined by Matthew Parris, author of Great Parliamentary Scandals, to discuss. As he puts it:-
For quite a long time, sex was very delicious. I think we’re beginning to find tax and financial matters delicious too.’
Also on the Spectator podcast, Political Editor James Forsyth says David Cameron’s exit strategy as Prime Minister hinges on the outcome of the EU referendum. But following a miserable few weeks for the Government, many Tories are starting to ask whether the PM can or will even want to make it to his preferred departure date in 2019. With the EU referendum on the horizon, could Cameron be leaving Downing Street sooner than expected? On the podcast, James tells Isabel:
‘There’s a sense amongst some of Cameron’s praetorians that the number of angry MPs means it is almost inevitable that people try to get a letter-writing campaign going to force a no confidence vote in him. It won’t succeed. It would look like you’ve lost on the pitch, so you beat the guy up in the tunnel afterwards.’
And what didn’t the Pope have to say about divorce? Catholics were eagerly awaiting the publication of the church’s Amoris Laetitia last week, to see what was said about divorced people being entitled to receive communion. But Damian Thompson says in the Spectator that the chief effect of the ‘Joy of Love’ is to ‘ensure that waters Pope Francis deliberately and foolishly muddied will stay muddy’. So will the Catholic church get over its difficulty with divorce? Theo Hobson joins Isabel to discuss.
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