# The Edition: has Farage lost control?

An episode of [Best of the Spectator](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/793236670), 9 Jul 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68358fb5e1abc4be6b0308eb/e/6a4fc949f8a80edf854d4292/media.mp3?tk=eyJ0ayI6ImRlZmF1bHQiLCJhZHMiOnRydWUsInNwb25zIjp0cnVlLCJzdGF0dXMiOiJwdWJsaWMifQ==&sig=plGo28O9elncbZ6U08uBLFaqCUGTfhr0MZ6wcKqf2mI

For this week’s Edition, Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, deputy editor of the US edition Gus Carter and the Mail on Sunday’s restaurant critic Tom Parker Bowles. This week: Nigel Farage’s greatest gamble. After resigning as MP for Clacton to trigger a by-election, Farage has tried to turn questions over his finances into a referendum on the establishment. Tim explains why the move may already have backfired, with the main parties refusing to stand against him and leaving him to spend the summer ‘arguing with a bin’. But he also argues that Farage is returning to what he does best: insurgency, grievance and campaigning against the political class. Has he reclaimed the narrative – or retreated from the idea of becoming prime minister? Also: can Andy Burnham export the Manchester model to the rest of Britain? As the incoming prime minister prepares for Downing Street, Gus looks at the property developers behind Manchester’s rise. Plus: Tom Parker Bowles on the crisis in British hospitality, why pubs matter and what the government keeps getting wrong about restaurants. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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