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Best of the Spectator

The Edition: new world disorder, cholesterol pseudoscience vs scepticism & the magic of Dickens

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4785 Ratings

🗓️ 20 February 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week: the world needs a realist reset

Donald Trump’s presidency is the harbinger of many things, writes The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove, one of which is a return to a more pitiless world landscape. The ideal of a rules-based international order has proved to be a false hope. Britain must accept that if we are to earn the respect of others and the right to determine the future, we need a realist reset. What are the consequences of this new world order? And is the Trump administration reversing the tide of decline, or simply refusing to accept the inevitable?

Michael Gove joined the podcast alongside the geopolitical theorist Robert Kaplan, author of the new book Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis. Robert argues that the true understanding of realism has been corrupted, and that democracy ‘can easily become the tyranny of the majority’. (1:06)

Next: when does healthy scepticism over cholesterol become pseudoscience

With ‘sky-high’ cholesterol, the journalist Paul Wood has gone down an internet rabbit-hole to improve his heart health. He declares ‘I was convinced by the cholesterol sceptics’. There was once a time when it felt like the front pages of newspapers had a story raising doubts about statins – a type of medication to control cholesterol – every week. Now, the internet is full of medical misinformation around high cholesterol, an issue that will affect over half of Britons. So, what is the truth behind cholesterol? And when does healthy scepticism tip over into pseudoscience? Paul joined the podcast alongside the cardiologist Dr Christopher Labos, author of Does coffee cause cancer? (25:24)

And finally: with a love of magic, is it any wonder Dickens could conjure up worlds full of surprises?

When people hear ‘the magic of Charles Dickens’ they undoubtedly think about the words - and the worlds - he created. Yet, many won’t realise that the great writer had a love of showmanship and stage magic himself. Peter Conrad says that Dickens could have even been an actor. What makes Dickens’s worlds so compelling? And how did his love of stagecraft influence his writing? Peter has authored a new book on the subject, Dickens the Enchanter: Inside the Explosive Imagination of the Great Storyteller, and joins the podcast. (37:10)

Presented by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.

Produced by 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.

0:33.3

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.

0:38.1

I'm Laura Prendergast, the Spectator's executive editor.

0:41.2

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

0:44.7

In this week's episode, we ask, what harsh lessons can Europe learn from America?

0:50.2

We unpack the pseudoscience behind cholesterol skepticism, and we explore the magical thinking

0:57.0

of Charles Dickens.

1:02.0

The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor.

1:14.6

And what I worry about is the threat from within.

1:18.6

The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.

1:26.6

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear

1:29.9

friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic

1:34.9

liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. That was the American Vice President

1:41.0

J.D. Vance, signaling an end to the consensus that has underpinned

1:45.8

American and European relations since the end of the Second World War. Get Real is the headline

1:52.8

of the cover piece this week. The Spectator's editor Michael Gove has written the cover piece

1:57.6

in which he argues that Donald Trump's presidency marks a return to a bleaker,

2:02.8

starker, more pitiless world landscape. What he has shown is that the ideal of a rules-based

2:08.7

international order was a false hope. So, what should Europe do now? Earlier, I spoke to Michael

2:16.9

about his article alongside the foreign affairs

...

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