Before this became yet another podcast for the bourgeois Sensible Centrists, this was a refreshingly stimulating podcast & publication, but both have become thoroughly orthodox in outlook and decidedly generic, with a surfeit of bien pensant pearl-clutching worthy of every EU simp and BBC toady. When can we expect Emily Maitlis or Rory Stewart to be fêted on the show?
Editor Tom Slater never misses a chance to tut-tut like a schoolmistress over the “chronically online right.” Fraser Myers’ takes are equally insipid: He appears to be channeling the immense ennui of his stultified audience. The guests, never a strength, are now especially lamentable too – at best adding nothing; at worst, subtracting much.
After many years, I’ve since unfollowed from this show & stopped donating to the publication. O’Neill’s sister show is the one remaining bright spot, even if – regrettably – he is in danger of becoming a one-trick pony in the wake of his monomaniacal focus on Israel, a country I generally support but about which I have little wish to hear. At least O’Neill’s willing to put some mustard on his opinions. More than can be said for this lot.
