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Best of the Spectator

The Edition: inside Nigel’s gang, my day as a ‘missing person’ and how to save James Bond

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4785 Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week: Nigel’s gang – Reform’s plan for power.

Look at any opinion survey or poll, and it’s clear that Reform is hard to dismiss, write Katy Balls and James Heale. Yet surprisingly little is known about the main players behind the scenes who make up Nigel Farage’s new gang. There are ‘the lifers’ – Dan Jukes and ‘Posh George’ Cottrell. Then there are the Tory defectors, trained by Richard Murphy, a valued CCHQ veteran, who is described as a ‘secret weapon’. The most curious new additions are the Gen Zers, who include Tucker Carlson’s nephew, Charles Carlson, and Jack Anderton, known as ‘the Matrix’. Katy and James joined the podcast to lift the lid on Nigel Farage’s inner circle. (02:14)

Next: is technology a help or hindrance when it comes to missing people?

While smartphones are no doubt useful in emergency situations, they create the expectation that you will always be in touch – when sometimes, of course, you can’t be. But what happens when technology fails? Ross Clark tells the hilarious story of how he mistakenly became a ‘missing person’ after his phone died while hiking in Scotland. Ross joins the podcast to unpack the lessons from his day getting the full Lord Lucan treatment, alongside journalist and political correspondent for GB News Katherine Forster. Katherine’s sons, who used smartphones to track a hiking route, went missing last year in Bali when their phones died and they were unable to contact anyone. (17:33)

And finally: how do you make Bond great again?

James Bond seems to have lost his way. Gone is the charm, wit and romp of the original Connery and Moore Bonds, replaced by a grittier, more vengeful Bond with bloated plotlines that are far too referential. Amazon – which took full ‘creative control’ of the franchise this week – faces quite the task in rebooting the world’s most famous spy once again. Journalist Madeline Grant gives her prescription in the magazine on how to save Bond, but we are joined on the podcast by William Boyd, who is part of an elite class of authors to have written their own James Bond novels. (28:29)

Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.

Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Before we begin this podcast, I'd like to tell you about a special deal.

0:04.0

Subscribe today to The Spectator for just £12 and receive a 12 week subscription in print and online, along with, here's the magic bit, a free £120, John Lewis or Waitrose Voucher.

0:16.3

Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash voucher.

0:33.0

Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we shed a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed.

0:37.7

I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor.

0:40.1

And I'm Laura Pendergast, the Spectator's Executive Editor.

0:43.5

On this week's podcast, we look into reforms plan for power.

0:47.7

We explore what happens when a person goes missing,

0:50.4

and we discuss whether 007 can be saved.

1:01.2

Thank you. and we discuss whether 007 can be saved. I am now leading,

1:03.7

and in historical terms, this is incredible.

1:06.2

I am now leading reforming UK

1:08.2

and we are now topping every opinion poll in Britain.

1:15.9

And we are going to win the next general election and save our country.

1:23.0

We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

1:26.5

That was Reform UK's leader Nigel Farage, addressing America's CPAC conference last week.

1:34.3

In the general election last year, reform won just 14% of the vote.

1:39.5

But now they consistently lead in the opinion polls as we get ever closer to May's local elections.

1:44.8

As the newest force in British politics, little is known about the team behind Farage.

1:50.0

Well, Katie Bulls and James Heel write the cover piece for this week's magazine,

1:54.1

in which they ask who's who in Nigel's gang.

1:57.8

They look at the various groups that make up the inner circle of the party and they also

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