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What's the Big Idea? Finally, Sarah Vine (once memorably described as being ‘like and loathed in equal measure, divisive, but never indecisive’) and Peter Hitchens (a man whose writing a critic was called to compare to a Guardsman’s boot: ‘as highly polished and potentially lethal’) meet once a week to look at the world and mutter, alas… Acclaimed columnist and journalist Sarah Vine and best-selling author and broadcaster Peter Hitchens discuss and dissect social, economic, and pop cultural flotsam and jetsam that have risen out of the dark waters of that week’s news.
Taking one big idea each episode and pulling it apart with élan, imagine Vine and Hitchens respective columns brought to life and then skewered, scoffed at, debated, and given the full weight of Vine and Hitchens impenetrable gaze. Though an accord might not always be reached, it’s the journey that matters.
Whether it’s the tech bros gone rogue – Meta tearing up its own rule book on fact checking, Musk attempting to influence governmental policy, or the knotty subject on society’s ever-increasing reliance on anti-depressants to treat what might just be the modern malaise and not depression at all. Or, evil, nature or nurture? Does evil actually exist or is it an idea that hangs over us, or do we just sometime embody it and the actions themselves are evil, not the individual? All this and more are to be pored over, one towering topic each week discussed with humour, insight, and real understanding.
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| Episode | Date |
|---|---|
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Abolish the Police and Return of the Blair Creature
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Jun 03, 2026 |
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Crime And (No) Punishment and Phew! What a Scorcher!
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May 27, 2026 |
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Prawn Again, Bombs and Displaced People
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May 20, 2026 |
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Voting for Beginners and the End of the PM
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May 13, 2026 |
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2000 Days of Lucy Letby and the Badenoch Bounce
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May 06, 2026 |
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The Recurring Assassin and Falkland Sovereignty
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Apr 29, 2026 |
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Risible Renters’ Act and Disguised Privilege
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Apr 22, 2026 |
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The Madness of King Donald
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Apr 15, 2026 |
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Driverless Cars and Unused Trains
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Apr 08, 2026 |
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The King’s State Visit and Visibility Day
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Apr 01, 2026 |
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Burning Down of the BBC and Illegal Assassins
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Mar 25, 2026 |
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British Bombs and Student Bodies
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Mar 18, 2026 |
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Labour’s Thought Police and the Case for Capital Punishment
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Mar 11, 2026 |
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Terror in Tehran: The End of an Era
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Mar 04, 2026 |
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Gisele Pelicot and Performative Policing
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Feb 25, 2026 |
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End E-Bikes and Anti-Vaxxers
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Feb 18, 2026 |
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The UK’s Risible Reading Age and Bloody Books
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Feb 11, 2026 |
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Ducking KGB Bullets and Inside the Epstein Files
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Feb 04, 2026 |
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Pitiful Policing and Ballroom Beckham
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Jan 28, 2026 |
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Team America and Ten Years After
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Jan 21, 2026 |
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Kissing Cousins and an Iranian Uprising
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Jan 14, 2026 |
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Why Are We Firing Up the UK’s War Machine?
|
Jan 07, 2026 |
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An American Powerplay and the Freedom of the Press
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Dec 17, 2025 |
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Tony Blair Trotskyist and Stop Stupid Smartphones
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Dec 10, 2025 |
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Loss of Hair, Life and Liberty
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Dec 05, 2025 |
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An Audience with Vine & Hitchens at St Peter’s College, Oxford
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Dec 03, 2025 |
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Puberty Blockers, Save Our Juries and Tea with the DG
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Nov 26, 2025 |
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Piggy, Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the late Leon Trotsky
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Nov 19, 2025 |
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Cancel Culture and Something Rotten at the BBC
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Nov 12, 2025 |
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(Prince) Andrew, Useless Architects and Awful Airport Security
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Nov 05, 2025 |
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The Hopeless Home Office and A Cosmic Car Crash
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Oct 29, 2025 |
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The Covid Legacy and Now Is Not The Time
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Oct 22, 2025 |
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The End of Prince Andrew and What Did Thatcher Ever Do for Us?
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Oct 15, 2025 |
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Singing Bob Dylan on a Steep Hill and Health & Safety Gone Mad
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Oct 08, 2025 |
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Digital IDs, Dinosaurs and Class A Drugs
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Oct 01, 2025 |
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The Cost of Health Tourism and Why Do We Kill?
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Sep 24, 2025 |
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Our Submarine Fleet is Sunk and what to call Camilla
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Sep 17, 2025 |
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Fly the Flag, Sea Fences, and I Dream of Peter
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Sep 10, 2025 |
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Nadine Dorries says Boris and Nigel should work together, if their egos allow
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Sep 06, 2025 |
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Digital IDs, Daddy Issues and Dude, What’s My Car?
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Sep 03, 2025 |
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Headscarves, Hijabs and Underperforming Politicians
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Aug 27, 2025 |
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Porous Pension Pots and Please Appease Me
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Aug 20, 2025 |
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The Not So Great War and Does Counselling Really Work?
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Aug 13, 2025 |
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The Case For and Against Lucy Letby and Rise of the Robots
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Aug 06, 2025 |
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Nanny State and Made to Measure
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Jul 30, 2025 |
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Up In Smoke and I Predict A Riot
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Jul 23, 2025 |
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City to City and Walk A Mile In Our Shoes
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Jul 16, 2025 |
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Terrorism, Extremism and Rubbish Rock Stars
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Jul 09, 2025 |
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Going Off the Rails and Too Hot to Handle
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Jul 02, 2025 |
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Abortion Bills and Nuclear Bombs
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Jun 25, 2025 |
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Marshmallow Totalitarianism and the Beauty of the Real Iran
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Jun 18, 2025 |
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How Not To Be A Political Wife
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Jun 11, 2025 |
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With Friends Like These… and is Poland the new Ukraine?
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Jun 04, 2025 |
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The Mental Malaise of Marijuana
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May 28, 2025 |
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The Menopause Superpower and some Sibling Rivalry
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May 21, 2025 |
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The Death Penalty and What I Did (or didn't do) On My Holidays
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May 14, 2025 |
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The End of Education and Did We Really Win the War?
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May 07, 2025 |
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Applying Udder Cream and the End of Civilisation
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Apr 30, 2025 |
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Turn off your TV and Bloody Taxes
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Apr 23, 2025 |
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Birmingham’s Bulging Bins and the end of the Toby Carvery Tree
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Apr 16, 2025 |
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Drinking Swamp Broth and why our Police Forces are Failing Us
|
Apr 09, 2025 |
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Keep Your Enemies Close and Cross My Palm With Silver
|
Apr 02, 2025 |
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Power Corrupted PMs and Peter Hitchens almost meets Prince Charles
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Mar 26, 2025 |
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Does My Bomb Look Big in This?
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Mar 19, 2025 |
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Covid Tomatoes, Diplomatic Camels, and Our Kind of Despot
|
Mar 12, 2025 |
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Drugs, Depression, Diet, and a Dutch Utopia?
|
Mar 05, 2025 |
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Trump, the Rise of Europe’s Far Right and what now for NATO?
|
Feb 26, 2025 |
|
Introducing... Alas Vine & Hitchens
|
Feb 18, 2025 |