Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
Under Joe Biden, the longstanding American policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ vis-à-vis Taiwan has taken on a curious post-modern quality. The official US position on arguably the biggest international question of the moment is now so ambiguous that even the president of the United States doesn’t appear to know what it is. In a long interview
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Freddy Gray speaks to Lee Cohen, senior fellow of The Bow Group and The Bruges Group, about how the death of Queen Elizabeth has been received in America.
What is going on in America? A celebrity eccentric known as ‘the Pillow guy’, his real name is Mike Lindell, claimed yesterday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized his mobile telephone. Lindell, a former crack addict turned successful entrepreneur who is now a major supporter of the Trump movement, says he was returning from
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Freddy Gray speaks to Nicholas Eberstadt, author of Men Without Work, about why, despite good employment figures, American men aren’t working in the same way they used to.
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Freddy Gray, The Spectator‘s deputy editor, is joined by our former editor Charles Moore, and our political editor James Forsyth, to discuss the Queen’s death. What was her coronation like? Should unionists be concerned? How important was the Queen’s faith to her? What do we miss about the Queen?
There’s a funny thing about humans: when we want to help people, we often end up hurting them — and vice-versa. Take the ‘ThickLizzie’ hashtag that has been trending on social media. The new Prime Minister is, according to large numbers of Tory-loathers, a moron. There is an undercurrent of sexism here, yes. There’s also an
Here she is, then. Liz Truss is Britain’s third woman Prime Minister and she’s already suffering from the not-so-soft bigotry of low expectations. Almost everyone is looking at this woman the Tory membership has chosen to lead us all and feeling glum. She is someone widely seen in political and media circles as a lightweight
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Freddy Gray speaks to Julia Yost about her recent New York Times column, ‘New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church’.
36 min listen
In this week’s episode: We look ahead to Harry and Meghan’s UK tour next week, how will they be received? Freddy Gray and Tanya Gold join the Edition podcast to discuss (01:01). Also this week: In the Spectator magazine, our Economics Editor Kate Andrews sat down with the three economists, or ‘Trussketeers’, that are informing
We’ve all spent months bracing ourselves for what our leaders assure us will be a dreadful winter. As the weather turns, we can look forward to ruinous energy bills, runaway inflation, collapsing health services, strikes, blackouts, more strikes, violent crime, and perhaps even – why not? – a nuclear war with Russia. As if that
When the FBI searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida earlier this month, various pundits suggested the raid could be an ‘Al Capone moment’. The Feds might not have got him for attempted insurrection, collusion with Putin, or corruption, it was said, but he could go down for a technicality: ie, withholding sensitive official documents
Well, well, well – Joe Biden seems to be making something of a comeback. His approval rating, which dropped to 37 per cent in July, has gone back up to 42 per cent, which is a reasonably healthy figure for a Commander-in-Chief at this stage in his first term. The last two Democratic occupants of
84 min listen
Curtis Yarvin is, according to the New York Times, a ‘neo-reactionary blogger’. What would Henry VII make of Elizabeth II? What good has American foreign policy done? Why did he support the war in Iraq? And who are the best Victorian writers? Yarvin joins Freddy Gray.
So farewell, Anthony Fauci, the unfortunate face of America’s pandemic response. Well, not so unfortunate – the doctor is stepping down as head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases this December, riding off into the sunset with a reported $350,000 per year golden parachute, the largest pension in US federal history. Fauci
20 min listen
Yesterday Liz Cheney lost the Republican nomination for Wyoming’s House seat to the Trump-backed candidate Harriet Hageman. Freddy Gray is joined by the author and journalist James Pogue to discuss the impact of the result.
In perhaps the least surprising electoral result we’ll see in America this year, the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney lost to her Trump-backed opponent in Wyoming last night. Harriet Hageman absolutely monstered Cheney in the end – beating her by some 30 percentage points, ten more than most experts predicted. Cheney knew long ago she was going
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Freddy Gray speaks to Spectator contributor, Ian Williams, author of Every Breath You Take: China’s New Tyranny and Nicholas Eftimiades, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and professor of Homeland Security. On the podcast, they discuss the scale of Chinese espionage infiltrating Western society. Has the problem been ignored for decades? What kind of
21 min listen
Freddy Gray questions Biden’s supposed ‘hot streak’ (00:55), Mary Killen warns that a neighbourly feud is worse than a hosepipe ban (07:19) and Jonathan Miller talks about France’s sexual civil war (11:43).
It’s hardly surprising that China feels emboldened. Xi Jinping must look at America and see not just a superpower in decline but a gerontocracy that has lost its marbles. Last week, Nancy Pelosi, the 82-year-old Speaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan as a gesture of solidarity, in spite of China’s fierce warnings that
15 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to Amber Athey about yesterday’s FBI raid at Mar a Lago, and Donald Trump’s subsequent release of a video that looks suspiciously like a prelude to a campaign in 2024.
