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.
To get in touch email alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'alas'
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Phillip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.
To get in touch email alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'alas'
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Phillip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week’s episode, Peter and Sarah discuss vexillology, or flags for the layman. Not least how Peter was once saved by flying a rather tattered Union Jack while attempting to flee Somalia.
While Sarah pores over our copious emails to mull over the suggestion from a listener that we take illegal migrants and put them in the army or at least to work.
Elsewhere, someone’s been dreaming lucid dreams about Peter and our hosts bemoan the state of our ever-failing education system.
On our reading, watch and listening list this week:
· Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags – Tim Marshall
· Jabberwocky – Lewis Carroll
· Education in Britain: 1944 to the Present, 2nd Edition – Ken Jones
Please do get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.