The best political reporter in Britain returns to the Dishcast to discuss the election on July 4. Tim has been a chief political commentator at The Sunday Times since 2014, after serving eight years as political editor. His first two books, All Out War and Fall Out, are indispensable to understanding the politics of Brexit, and his new book is No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris.

For two clips of our convo — on the fall of Rishi Sunak, and Nigel Farage entering the “clusterfuck,” as Tim puts it — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: 14 years of Tory power; George Osborne’s austerity; Boris the cosmopolitan liberal Tory; how he screwed up Brexit; his common touch overshadowed by breaking his own Covid rules; deep spending during the pandemic; his bromance with Zelensky; vowing to cut migration but legislating mass, unskilled migration; Theresa May unable to right the ship; the Liz Truss disaster; her naive libertarianism and supply-side shock therapy; Rishi Sunak sweeping in from a smoke-filled room; coming in as a technocratic problem-solver but lacking the political skill; surrounded by Yes Men and “surprisingly brittle”; his rolling series of campaign blunders this month — starting with his election announcement in the pouring rain; the D-Day disaster; Nigel Farage entering the “clusterfuck” and splitting the Tory base; losing all his previous seven races for Parliament; how Reform will get one, maybe two seats; how Farage is close with Trump and “more jovial”; how Farage had to backtrack on Putin ; why Keir Starmer is not proposing radical change (like Thatcher did); how he’s touting “stability” and “competence”; his policy is thin; my reflections on befriending and debating Keir during our school days; how he was a class-war leftist in his youth, with swagger; the depth of his ambition (even more than Rishi); how he outmaneuvered Jeremy Corbyn and distanced the party from anti-Semitism; the Cass Review; China policy; Blairism; how old party allegiances are mostly gone; and how July 4 could see the worst election loss since 1906.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, Anne Applebaum on autocrats, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Elizabeth Corey is an academic and writer. She’s an associate professor of political science in the Honors Program at Baylor University and the author of the 2006 book, Michael Oakeshott on Religion, Aesthetics, and Politics. She also writes for First Things and serves on the board of the Institute on Religion and Public Life. After many of you asked me to do a podcast on my intellectual mentor, we delve into the thinking and life of Michael Oakeshott — the philosopher I wrote my dissertation on.

For two clips of our convo — on the genius who shirked fame, and my sole meeting with Oakeshott — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Elizabeth born and raised in Baton Rouge; growing up to be a musician with Bill Evans as her idol; her father was an econ professor at LSU and part of the conservative intellectual movement; Baylor is a Christian school with thought diversity; Eric Voegelin; Hannah Arendt; Friedrich Hayek; how Elizabeth first stumbled upon Oakeshott; his critical view of careerism; living in the now; a championof liberal education; opposing the Straussians and their view of virtue; individualism above all; how he would be horrified by the identity politics of today; calling Augustine “the most remarkable man who ever lived”; Montaigne not far behind; the virtue of changing one’s mind; how Oakeshott was very socially adept; conversation as a tennis match that no one wins; traveling without a destination; his bohemian nature; his sluttiness; Helen of Troy; early Christians; the Tower of Babel; civil association vs enterprise association; why Oakeshott was a Jesus Christian, not a Paul Christian; hating the Reformation and its iconoclasm; the difference between theology and religion; the joy of gambling being in the wager not the winning; the eternal undergraduate as a lost soul; politics as an uncertain sea that needs constant tacking; the mystery of craftsmanship; present laughter over utopian bliss; how following the news is a “nervous disorder”; why salvation is boring; how Oakeshott affected the lives of Elizabeth and myself; and the texts she recommends as an intro to his thought.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Nellie is a writer and reporter. She has worked for many mainstream publications, most notably the NYT covering Silicon Valley. Now she is teamed up with her wife, Bari Weiss, to run The Free Press — a media company they launched on Substack in 2021. Nellie’s weekly news roundup, TGIF, is smart and hilarious, and so is her new book, Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches From the Wrong Side of History.

For two clips of our convo — on the scourge of Slack, and questioning whether trans is immutable — pop over to our YouTube page. Other topics: Nellie growing up in SF with divorced parents; her mother the writer and stockbroker; her dad the entrepreneur; Nellie the tomboy who ran the gay-straight alliance to find a girlfriend; reading conservatives (Paglia, Rand, Coulter) as a liberal teen; working at the SF Chronicle; the NYT full of “intense, ambitious people on a political mission”; James Bennet; Dean Baquet and the “racial reckoning”; the 1619 Project; Donald McNeil; the MSM ignoring antifa; Joe Kahn taking a stand; NPR refusing to cover Hunter’s laptop; lab-leak theory; disinfo as a “useful cudgel”; CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle; Prager U; the Shitty Media Men list; Jordan Peterson and “enforced monogamy”; James Damore; a NYT editor calling Bari “a f*****g Nazi”; Nellie falling in love with her; losing friends over their relationship; Nellie being very pregnant right now; male role models for the kids of lesbians; marriage equality; the queer left’s opposition to marriage; when the straights culturally appropriate “queer”; Ptown and Dina Martina; the importance of Pride for small towns; taking my mum to a parade; the US being way behind Europe on trans kids; the profound effects of hormones; the “the science is settled” campaign by GLAAD; detransitioners; Jan 6 and Stop the Steal; right-wing pressure on courts and Congress due to Trump; RFK Jr’s candidacy; the woke blackout on humor; Elon Musk; the mainstreaming of masks and violent rhetoric after Oct 7; Nellie converting to Judaism; and how her book is “not about heroism.”

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Tim Shipman on the UK elections, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, Erick Erickson on the left’s spiritual crisis, Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy on animal cruelty, Van Jones, and Stephen Fry! Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.