The Spectator Podcast

With James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.Presented by Lara Prendergast.

Join Katy Balls as she talks to MP Jess Phillips about growing up in an activist home, her life path before becoming an MP and her newfound Twitter fame.Women With Balls is a podcast series where Katy Balls speak to women at the top of their respective games. To hear past episodes, visit spectator.co.uk/balls.

With Katy Balls and James Forsyth. Hosted by Lara Prendergast.

With Thomas Frank, author of What's the Matter with Kansas, and Rendezvous with Oblivion. Hosted by Freddy Gray.

This week, we talk to journalist Zoe Strimpel about whether apps have ruined dating (00:40). Plus, what does the case of disappeared horses and how the RSPCA is more powerful than you think (20:00).Finally, the debate over neurodiversity and why it's dividing the autistic community (30:10).With Zoe Strimpel, Dr. Cath Mercer, Laura James, Matt Tunstill, and Melissa Kite. Presented by Lara Prendergast. Produced by Siva Thangarajah and Lara Prendergast.

With Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Hosted by John Connolly.

In this week's books podcast I'm joined from Los Angeles by Andrew Morton -- the Royal writer who scooped the world with the inside story of Princess Diana's marriage. To coincide with the publication of a revised and expanded edition of Diana, Her True Story -- including new material recovered from the tapes they smuggled out of Kensington Palace -- he looks back on those days and that story, and discusses how Royal reportage has changed. Why didn't they call it "Diana: The True Story"? Does he worry that that sort of public exposure during a divorce battle was risking the happiness of the children caught up in it? And what was it like when -- before his source was known -- people were publicly calling for our man to be sent to the Tower of London?  Hosted by Sam Leith.

Hosted by Lara Prendergast.With Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.

With Freddy Gray and Jacob Heilbrunn.

With James Forsyth and special guest David Shiels, Policy Analyst at Open Europe.Hosted by Katy Balls.

With James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson. Presented by Katy Balls.

With Barbara Boland. Presented by Freddy Gray.

With Katy Balls and James Forsyth. Presented by Lara Prendergast.

This week, May prepares for her last shot with Brussels, but can she get what she wants (0:35)? We also talk to Stephen Gibbs, a journalist on the ground in Caracas, about the nightmare in Venezuela (14:30). And last, we take a look at another big issue of the day - are induction hobs simply reinventing the wheel (25:35)? With James Forsyth, Peter Foster, Stephen Gibbs, Joanna Rossiter,  Ysenda Maxtone Graham and James Ramsden. Presented by Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu and Siva Thangarajah.

In this week's books podcast Sam is joined by Josh Cohen, author of the Not Working: Why We Have To Stop. Josh is a literary critic and a working psychoanalyst, and his book is a thoughtful and subtle discussion of the way in which work dominates not only our lives and identities but our leisure time too -- and a speculation about some of the ways we might set about changing that. His references range from Max Weber and Freud to Orson Welles, Andy Warhol, Emily Dickinson and David Foster Wallace. Is it all the fault of "late capitalism"? Has the digital age made quiet contemplation impossible? And why, Sam queried, does his eccentric list of great idlers include some of the most insanely productive people in history?Presented by Sam Leith.

This is a picture of my sister Carmel and I having tea a few days after our mother’s funeral. She looks cheerful, doesn’t she? That’s because she was: although we both missed our mother intensely, and always will, we had done most of our grieving before she died, as we watched her tortured by Parkinson’s disease and severe dementia.Carmel looks well, too. And she thought she was. Ovarian cancer plays that trick on women. The first symptoms tend to be annoying rather than alarming. A few weeks after this photograph was taken, I was reassuring her that Irritable Bowel Syndrome is a common response to bereavement – which it is. But that’s not what was wrong with her. On November 1, I was sitting next to her in the consulting room at Guy’s Hospital when the specialist confirmed that she had advanced ovarian cancer.Carmel is my guest on today’s Holy Smoke podcast. Please listen to it. I guarantee that you’ll be surprised by what she has to say. And you will understand why I’m so proud of my sister.Presented by Dam

Sarah Baxter is Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times. Katy talks to Sarah about what it was like to be a woman in the lobby before 'Blair's Babes', the best way to tackle sexism (she says, ignore it and go 'full speed ahead'), and whether Jeremy Corbyn is quite the Labour leader she hopes for.Presented by Katy Balls.

Have vegans and vegetarians won the moral argument in the war on meat (1:00)? Plus, are Anglicans hoping to reconcile with Catholics (11:25)? And last, why is Michael Gove crusading against the wood-burning stove (25:40)?With Jenny McCartney, Dominika Piasecka, Peter Hitchens, Damian Thompson, James Delingpole and Fraser Nelson.Presented by Lara Prendergast.

In this week’s books podcast, Sam's guest is Robert Alter - who has just published the fruits of decades of labour in the form of his complete new translation of the Hebrew Bible into English. Acclaimed for his Bible translations by Seamus Heaney, John Updike and Peter Ackroyd, Prof Alter explains how Biblical Hebrew really works, what can and cannot be preserved in translation - and why, as he sees it, nearly every modern translation of the Bible gets it catastrophically wrong.