Best of the Spectator

First: an economic reckoning is looming

‘Britain’s numbers… don’t add up’, says economics editor Michael Simmons. We are ‘an ageing population with too few taxpayers’. ‘If the picture looks bad now,’ he warns, ‘the next few years will be disastrous.’ Governments have consistently spent more than they raised; Britain’s debt costs ‘are the worst in the developed world’, with markets fearful about Rachel Reeves’s Budget plans.

A market meltdown, a delayed crash, or prolonged stagnation looms. The third scenario, he warns, would be the bleakest, keeping politicians from confronting Britain’s spendthrift state. We need ‘austerity shock therapy’ – but voters don’t want it. To discuss further, we include an excerpt from a discussion Michael had with our deputy editor Freddy Gray and economist Paul Johnson for Spectator TV.

Next: can the foster system survive?

‘The foster system in this country is collapsing,’ Mary Wakefield warns. There around 80,000 children who need homes, but ‘a catastrophic lack of people prepared to care for them’. Every year the small pool of available foster households shrinks, with younger generations unwilling to become carers and more and more existing carers considering leaving.

Mary joined the podcast to explain how bad the problem is, alongside author and full-time foster carer Rosie Lewis.

And finally: the unsettling rise of DeathTok

Damian Thompson highlights the rise of ‘DeathTok’ – the name given to videos shared on the social media platform Tik Tok by users who are dealing with life-threatening illnesses. Ordinary young people ‘employ adult communications skills to express adolescent feelings’ and share every stage of the ruthlessness of their cancer journey. The videos may upset younger uses who stumble across them, but for many this digital sense of community will prove invaluable.

There is a wider question though – ‘the luxury of fading memories’ says Damian, is something we lose with every advance in media technology. Can this really be a good thing?

Plus: Tom Slater says that Britain is having its own gilet jaunes moment and Philip Womack reacts to the news that the Pope will be getting some flatmates.

Hosted by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.