Every fortnight, ConservativeHome will compile a handful of podcast recommendations – content that has been published in the weeks preceding – for its readers. Although these will mainly focus on podcasts for conservative listeners, we will try to include other options – should they be particularly interesting. Sometimes this feature will contain other types of media.
Title: Red Box Politics Podcast
Host: Matt Chorley
Episode: Gimson’s PMs: Thatcher to Johnson
Duration: 1 hour, 1 minute
Published: December 12
Link: Here
In this fun exchange with Matt Chorley, Andrew Gimson, Contributing Editor to ConservativeHome, author and historian, takes listeners on a passage through time of Britain’s Prime Ministers, starting with Margaret Thatcher and ending with Boris Johnson. The episode, recorded towards the end of last year, marks 300 years since Britain got its first Prime Minister, in the shape of Robert Walpole, in 1721. It’s packed with insights, as well as comparisons between leaders; find out who Gimson thinks Johnson most closely resembles towards the end.
Very informative, and the hour goes by fast.
Title: Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
Host: Nick Robinson
Episode: The Ed Balls Christmas Special One
Duration: 37 minutes
Published: December 27
Link: Here
Recorded before Christmas, in this interview Nick Robinson sits down with Ed Balls, former Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, to discuss a huge amount, from his life outside of politics, from his love of cooking, to teaching at King’s College London, to the 10 years he has spent learning the piano. Perhaps the most interesting part of the discussion is when Balls discusses his interest in understanding people with whom he disagrees; it makes a nice change from some of the name-calling that Conservatives and/ or Brexiteers have got used to, from the Opposition benches, in recent years.
An interesting exchange – indicating a man who has yet to tire of the limelight.
Title: The Brendan O’Neill Show
Host: Brendan O’Neill
Episode: David Starkey: Lockdown is the revenge of the elites
Duration: 58:29 minutes
Published: December 24
In this jam-packed episode, David Starkey leaves you under no illusions around what he thinks of Boris Johnson – clue: it ain’t pretty – his government and lockdowns. What’s especially interesting, is that, despite vehemently opposing the Government’s pandemic measures, Starkey has a fairly no-nonsense approach to the vaccine hesitant – taking listeners through the reasons why he thinks libertarian arguments have failed here.
As with Gimson’s interview, you get your money’s worth – in terms of a large amount of insight packed into one episode. Starkey challenges stereotypical notions of what a conservative should support in terms of Covid measures.