Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator
‘America is a nation that can be defined in a single word,’ said the proud Commander-in-Chief Joe Biden, standing outside the White House earlier this year. ‘Alsdfnalcaofjlksfa.’ We shouldn’t laugh. The poor man has a speech impediment. Still, that ‘Alsdfnalcaofjlksfa’ word will strike many Americans as an amusingly apt description of their country in 2022.
50 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Michael Shellenberger, the author and campaigner, fresh from his recent run in the primary elections for governor of California. Shellenberger’s most recent book, San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities, is available to buy now.
37 min listen
In this week’s episode:Why is there a lack of faith in western leaders? Spectator deputy editor Freddy Gray, Callum Williams from the Economist & Harvard professor Barbara Kellerman discuss why the world feel so leaderless. (00:44) Also this week:How do you escape the Church of Scientology? Spectator Columnist Mary Wakefield talks with former scientologist Claire Headley
Are we living in the age of the strongman – or the weak man? Politics in the 21st century has so far been defined by a global drift away from liberalism, whatever that was, and towards authoritarianism – Xi in China, Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in
30 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to journalists Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of The National Interest, and John Daniel Davidson, senior editor of The Federalist, about the beginning of public hearings at the House Select Committee into the events of January 6th 2021.
Let’s get the boringly obvious out of the way. What happened in Washington on 6 January, 2021 was bad. Very bad. America, the world’s most powerful democracy, looked a horrible mess. Rioting is always wrong. Rioting on Capitol Hill on the day when power is meant to be peaceably transferred is anti-democratic and anti-conservative. Even
Boris Johnson is often talked about as the luckiest politician on earth — and in a sense he has been. Outrageous fortune powered his ascent. A child of privilege, he always seemed to get away with it, no matter what it might be. In elections, his timing has been almost miraculously perfect, culminating in his
Before inflation began to eat the American economy alive, impeachflation had already undermined the office of the presidency. Donald Trump was only the third president to have been impeached. Yet he was impeached twice: in December 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; and in January 2021, for ‘incitement to insurrection’ following the
40 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to award-winning author and Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver about mass shootings and gun culture in the United States, in the wake of the tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
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Freddy Gray speaks to Sergey Radchenko a Cold War historian and Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and visiting professor at Cardiff University. They discuss a recent speech by Henry Kissinger who believes that Ukraine should made territorial concessions to
Joe Biden gave one of his more eloquent speeches yesterday in response to the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. He didn’t sound doddery, possibly because it’s pretty much the same speech that he and/or Barack Obama have given after almost every school shooting for over a decade. He’s passionate about this
It’s hard not to admire Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter foundation. Under fire over yet another set of revelations that suggest her world-famous anti-racism organisation is in fact little more than a racket, she has admitted she made ‘mistakes’. But what else could a poor girl do? An organisation of BLM’s
22 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to the Republican strategist Luke Thompson, discussing the nail-biting race between Pennsylvania’s candidates for the US Senate, featuring Trump-backed candidate Dr. Oz.
Did the Trump movement get a bloody nose in last night’s Republican primaries? It’s a story that most of the media and important parts of the Republican party – desperate to move on from the Orange Years of 2016 to 2020 – really want to be true. But the evidence so far is mixed. In North
14 min listen
Though inflation has recently gone down a little in the States, it is still at a 40-year high. Inflation is an issue affecting most of the world due to several external factors, but many critics of Biden say that his policies are worsening this crisis rather than fixing it. Is that the case? Freddy Gray
For decades, Christians have talked about feeling persecuted in advanced secular and liberal democracies. They’ve often sounded a bit hysterical. It’s true that governments and societies have moved towards a kind of post-Christianity. The world in which we live has adopted some of the gentler stuff about love and ignored the challenging stuff about sex.
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Freddy Gray talks to Inez Stepman, of the Independent Women’s Forum, about the leaked Supreme Court draft decision which could see to the historic Roe vs Wade judgement overturned.
JD Vance, the poor boy turned US Marine turned best-selling author turned venture capitalist turned politician, won the Senate Republican Primary in Ohio last night. In his victory speech, Vance, who Donald Trump endorsed, said: ‘They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda ….
Abortion is a nuclear bomb of an issue, planted at the core of American liberalism. And it just went off. That’s why police in Washington, DC have put up barriers around the Supreme Court, following the extraordinary leak of a draft opinion that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Everybody now expects protests outside the court and
34 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to the journalist James Pogue about his latest piece for Vanity Fair magazine, in which he details the key figures and thinking behind the ‘new right’. Pogue is the contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine and author of ‘Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West’.
