Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray is deputy editor of The Spectator

Chagos – the riviera of the Indian Ocean?

Keir Starmer seemed on unusually good form as he arrived in Washington last night. He cracked quite a good joke about the United Kingdom’s new ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a charismatic statesman lurking behind the Prime Minister’s dreary exterior. We shall see. At any rate, assuming no bizarre media blow

Is Trump right about Ukraine?

24 min listen

Donald Trump attacked the Ukrainian President overnight, describing him as a ‘dictator’ and saying he’s done a ‘terrible job.’ In return, Zelensky has accused Trump of ‘living in a disinformation space.’ The West has invested a huge amount of capital in the fight against Russia – and failed to secure peace. Is Trump using these

Freddy Gray

The cruellest thing about Trump vs Zelensky? Trump’s right

And just like that, we are back in 2017. Donald Trump, the President of the United States, is posting ridiculous hyperbole on his socials and mouthing off from Mar-a-Lago, as he always has. In the last 24 hours, however, the global political and media classes have gone back to gnashing their teeth and wailing in

Was ‘free trade’ really working?

29 min listen

Oren Cass, founder and chief economist of think-tank American Compass, sits down with Freddy Gray at the ARC conference in London. They react to the announcement by President Trump over the weekend of reciprocal tariffs: the decision by the US to match import duties levied by other countries.  What’s the strategy behind Trump’s decision? And

Vance criticises Britain: is this a new era for free speech?

15 min listen

The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022

Rob Henderson on Musk, monogamy & meritocracy

36 min listen

Political commentator, and author of Troubled, Rob Henderson joins Freddy Gray from the ARC conference in London. They discuss the political reaction to the news that Elon Musk has allegedly had his 13th child – are there signs of a new, more permissive conservatism? They also discuss Trump’s administration so far – particularly his flurry of

Could Trump target Britain with tariffs?

25 min listen

Angus Hanton, author of Vassal State: How America Runs Britain, joins Freddy Gray to talk about the economic relationship between Britain and America. As the world adjusts to the new US administration, every day seems to bring news of new potential tariffs. Is the UK a prime target for Trump? What could the impact of tariffs

Will Trump make Gaza great again?

20 min listen

When Netanyahu visited the White House, Donald Trump said in a press conference that the US could take over the Gaza Strip and suggested the permanent resettlement of its 1.8 million residents to neighbouring Arab countries. It has sparked global condemnation raising questions about where the Gaza citizens could be resettled to, and how this

Freddy Gray

Is Jared Kushner behind Trump’s ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ plan?

Who knew that America First had such global ambitions? Who knew that, when Donald Trump promised ‘mass deportations’, he also might have been thinking about using America’s might to extract Palestinian people out of Gaza to give them a ‘lasting home’ in Jordan or Egypt? Donald Trump promised ‘peace through strength’ on the campaign trail.

Are Trump’s tariffs really that bad?

34 min listen

The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews and Social Democratic Party leader William Clouston join Freddy Gray to try and make sense of Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. He has since threatened the European Union, and has warned the UK. Is this a negotiation tactic or something more? What political

Are the Democrats paralysed?

35 min listen

The first phase of Trump’s presidency has been a whirlwind of news. The President signed a succession of executive orders, which overwhelmed and confused the Democratic Party with the amount of ‘energy in the executive’. But there are signs of life, particularly in opposition to Trump’s attempts to freeze federal grants and loans. What’s going

The many questions of the Washington plane crash

‘What a terrible night this has been,’ writes President Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform. ‘God bless you all!’ Trump also expressed his bafflement as to how a Black Hawk military helicopter, operating out of Fort Belvoir in Virginia, managed to collide with American Eagle Flight 5342, a commercial passenger plane carrying 64 passengers, directly over

Is AI the new arms race?

22 min listen

This week, a Chinese-made AI model called DeepSeek shot to the top of the Apple Store downloads – it stunned investors and sunk some tech stock. DeepSeek claims it was built at a fraction of the cost of American leading models. Chip-making giant Nvidia shed almost £482bn of its market value as a result.  What

How is round one of Trump’s deportations plan going?

33 min listen

Colombia has agreed to accept military aircraft carrying deported migrants from the US – avoiding a trade war between the two countries. Donald Trump had threatened sanctions on Colombia to punish it for initially refusing military flights following a rapid immigration crackdown. What are the challenges of deportation flights, and what’s Trump’s vision for Latin

Could Trump 2.0. herald a new era of religious liberty in America?

36 min listen

Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, director of the US-based Conscience Project and a friend of Holy Smoke, joins Damian to talk about what the incoming second Trump administration could mean for religious freedoms in America. Andrea argues that the Biden administration waged an unprecedented assault on such freedoms during his term. What could happen over the next four years

Freddy Gray

Freddy Gray, Tanya Gold, Rose George, Toby Young and Rory Sutherland

28 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Freddy Gray reads his letter from Washington D.C., and reveals what Liz Truss, Eric Zemmour and Steve Bannon made of Trump’s inauguration (1:22); Tanya Gold writes about the sad truth behind the gypsies facing eviction in Cornwall (7:15); Rose George reviews The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell, by

Freddy Gray

What will Trump’s crypto world look like?

19 min listen

Cryptocurrency became a key feature of the American election and the Trump universe. Not only did Trump and Melania launch their own coins, but the President has also appointed venture capitalist David Sacks to be the AI and Crypto ‘czar’. Freddy Gray is joined by podcaster and owner of Bedford FC Peter McCormack to discuss

Industry tragedy, Trump vs the Pope & the depressing reality of sex parties

42 min listen

This week: the death of British industry In the cover piece for the magazine, Matthew Lynn argues that Britain is in danger of entering a ‘zero-industrial society’. The country that gave the world the Industrial Revolution has presided over a steep decline in British manufacturing. He argues there are serious consequences: foreign ownership, poorer societies,

Freddy Gray

The Trump resistance is dead

The special relationship is dead, long live the special relationship. On Friday, at a ‘Stars and Stripes & Union Jack Celebration’, British and American right-wingers mingled gladly atop the Hay-Adams hotel, which overlooks the White House. Nigel Farage and co smoked cigarettes with their Republican brethren and shared Trump war stories. Dolled-up American girls took