The Edition
The Edition podcast: has the great Brexit divide mended?
First, as the news agenda is dominated by things like Huawei, HS2, and public spending, could politics be – whisper it – returning to normal? In his cover piece this week, Rod Liddle writes how, for the most part, the election result has put a lid on the civil war between Remainers and Brexiteers. One such Remainer who has reconciled herself with the result is Stefanie Bolzen, the UK Correspondent for Die Welt. She writes in the issue this week about just why Germans are so heartbroken about Brexit. Stefanie and Rod chat Brexit emotions on the podcast.
Next, is there anything to be gleaned from the Chinese response to the coronavirus? I write in this week’s issue that Beijing has responded in a distinctively authoritarian way – on the one hand locking down tens of millions of people in quarantine overnight; on the other shutting down bad news to avoid upsetting the bosses. On the podcast, I take a guest spot and speak to Lara Prendergast and Alex Colville, a Spectator contributor who is currently in Shanghai.
And last, is it time to break the taboo around death? Kate Chisholm meets the people designing and building their own coffins in order to ‘take back control of death’, and writes about them in this week’s issue. She joins the podcast together with Dr Sharon Young, a lecturer on end of life rights and a volunteer at Death Café Kingston.