The Spectator Podcast

This week: Starmerism’s moral vacuum‘Governments need a mission, or they descend into reactive incoherence’ writes Michael Gove in this week’s cover piece. A Labour government, he argues, ‘cannot survive’ without a sense of purpose. The ‘failure of this government to make social justice its mission’ has led to a Spring Statement ‘that was at once hurried, incoherent and cruel – a fiscal drive-by shooting’. Michael writes that Starmer wishes to emulate his hero – the post-war Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who founded the NHS and supported a fledgling NATO alliance. Yet, with policy driven by Treasury mandarins, the Labour project is in danger of drifting, as John Major’s premiership did. Starmerism’s policy vacuum is being filled so rapidly by HMT that we are embarking on an era of ‘cruel Labour’. Michael joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside John McTernan, former private secretary to Tony Blair. (1:37)Next: have the Church’s sacred spaces become community clubs? From yoga classes to drag shows, and