The Sceptic

Chris Bayliss on the scandal of Commonwealth voting, Sarah Phillimore on the bar’s scrapped EDI plans and Eugyppius on Germany and South Africa.   In Episode 38 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Chris Bayliss, independent consultant and writer, on the police response to the Liverpool car incident this week – and the scandal of Commonwealth votes in UK elections. S...

Lord Frost on Starmer’s surrender to the EU, James Price on Britain’s dysfunctional state and David Shipley on Lucy Connolly’s failed appeal. In Episode 37 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: David Frost, Lord Frost of Allenton, former chief Brexit negotiator, Conservative Peer and Telegraph columnist, on Keir Starmer’s Brexit betrayal – and whether the Tory Party i...

Welcome to Episode 36 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Karl Williams, Research Director at the Centre for Policy Studies, and the author of the recent CPS report ‘Here to Stay? Estimating the Scale and Cost of Long-Term Migration’, on why Keir Starmer’s immigration announcement is not as radical as it seems. Dan Hitchens, Senior Editor at F...

Welcome to Episode 35 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Andrew Doyle, comedian, broadcaster, and author, on Labour minister Lucy Powell's outrageous dismissal of the grooming gangs scandal as a “dog whistle” – and what it says about her party. Plus a preview of his new book, The End of Woke. Andrew Orlowski, business columnist at the Telegra...

In this Special Episode of the Sceptic, Laurie speaks to Doug Stokes, Professor of International Security and Strategy at Exeter University, Senior Advisor at the Prosperity Institute and author of books including Against Decolonisation: Campus Culture Wars and the Decline of the West. Doug and Laurie discuss whether peace is on the cards in Ukraine, the effect of the war on Russia’s geopolitical...

In this Special Episode of the Sceptic, Laurie speaks to Dr Mario Trabucco della Toretta, classical archaeologist and writer. In this extended interview, Laurie and Mario discuss the British Museum and why it’s the best in the world, its magnificent collection and where it came from, why the ‘decolonise’ lobby is so wrong to claim it’s all ‘looted’, the truth about the Elgin Marbles, why the argum...

In this Special Episode of the Sceptic, Laurie speaks to Ben Cobley, commentator and author of The Tribe: The Liberal-Left and the System of Diversity and The Progress Trap: The Modern Left and the False Authority of History, out next month. They discuss Ben’s concept of the “system of diversity” we find ourselves living in our multicultural society, Laurie’s research on hate crime and why that’s...

Welcome to Episode 34 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Fred de Fossard, Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute, on Trump’s tariffs on how Britain should respond to them. Sam Bidwell, Director of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, on the UK MPs campaigning for an airport in Mirpur, Pakistan and what this says about the growing p...

Is Net Zero dead? In this Sceptic short, host Laurie Wastell is joined by Dr Tilak Doshi, economist, former contributor to Forbes and now the Daily Sceptic’s Energy Editor, to discuss how Donald Trump’s “Drill, baby, drill!” energy revolution is upending the global green agenda, why the climate censorship regime is collapsing and whether the writing is on the wall for Ed Miliband. NOTE: Premium su...

Welcome to Episode 33 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Guy Dampier, Senior Researcher on Nationhood at the Prosperity Institute, on what Britain can learn from Donald Trump on how to solve the problem of illegal immigration. William Yarwood, Media Campaign Manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, on the great Motability scandal. And for our prem...

Welcome to Episode 32 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Douglas Carswell, MP for Clacton from 2010-2017, first for the Conservative Party and then for UKIP, and President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. Chris Morrison, the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor, on how the global green agenda is falling apart – and why blowh...

Welcome to Episode 31 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: I speak to Thomas Fazi, columnist at UnHerd and Compact magazine, on how the EU's propaganda network of leftist NGOs is manufacturing consent for its globalist agenda.  David Shipley, writer on prisons and justice, on the outrageous two-tier sentencing guidelines being introduced by the...

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with South African businessman Rob Hersov. Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) Conference, host Laurie Wastell and Rob discuss the history and decline of post-apartheid South Africa, the corruption of the ruling ANC, its chilling “expropriation without compensation” laws, the impact of Trump and Musk’s attention to South Africa...

Welcome to Episode 30 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Tom Jones, Conservative councillor and writer for publications including the Critic and UnHerd, on Ukraine, the bust-up in the Oval Office and the parlous state of Europe's armed forces. Michael Wolff, author of several books on team Trump, on what really makes the Donald tick. And for...

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Ben Sixsmith, Online Editor at the Critic. Host Laurie Wastell catches up with Ben at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship Conference. They discuss the conference and the state of the Right internationally; Kemi Badenoch and “muscular liberalism”; free speech, the grooming gangs and Britain’s international reputation; JD Vance’s Munich speec...

Welcome to Episode 29 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Eugyppius, pseudonymous commentator and author of the substack Eugyppius: a plague chronicle, on the election in Germany and JD Vance’s bombshell Munich speech. Professor Eric Kaufmann, Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham and the author of...

Last month the grooming gangs scandal broke into the political conversation in Britain in a way it never had before – so much so that after days of headlines, the Labour Government was forced to launch five inquiries into affected areas like Oldham. While many think this still doesn’t go far enough, it’s clear the conversation has changed. Instrumental in that change has been the landmark GB News...

Welcome to Episode 28 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Peter Hitchens, columnist at the Mail on Sunday and author of books including The Abolition of Britain, on the bombshell expert findings about Lucy Letby and why her case must now be heard again. Barrister Adam King, on his client with the Free Speech Union, former Royal Marine Jamie Mi...

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Andrew Orlowski, business columnist at the Telegraph and writer for publications including the Critic, Spiked and UnHerd. Host Laurie Wastell and Andrew discuss Andrew’s work writing on business and technology, AI and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be, the strengths of British innovation and why we fail to commercialise it, why the Left sne...

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Professor David Starkey CBE, the eminent and acerbic historian, author and broadcaster. In a wide-ranging conversation, host Laurie Wastell and Professor Starkey discuss the grooming gangs scandal, why Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter represents the end of the long 20th Century, Trump’s second term, free speech, state censorship and the “noble li...

Welcome to Episode 27 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: David Shipley, writer on prison reform for publications including the Spectator, on the Government’s failings over the Southport attack and the serious questions for Keir Starmer and the Government about why we were kept in the dark about it.    Fred de Fossard, Director of Strategy at...

Welcome to Episode 26 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Dr. Freddie Attenborough, Digital Communications Director at the Free Speech Union, on how Labour’s “Islamophobia” definition has stifled discussion of the Pakistani-Muslim rape-gangs scandal – and what that means for local inquiries. David Turver, author of the Eigen Values Substack, o...

Welcome to episode 25 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Dr. Mike Jones, political scientist and migration expert, on the shameful history of Britain’s grooming gangs scandal. Poppy Coburn, Assistant Comment Editor at the Telegraph, on how activist so-called experts have waged a campaign to deny the racial element to the grooming gangs abuse....

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic. Two-tier policing. Two-tier justice. Two-tier Keir. Well, we’ve spoken about all of those things on the Sceptic, especially how they’ve been in evidence in the Government response to the disorder up and down the country after the Southport murders. Much of this was in towns in the Midlands and the North, but it was in London, outside Downing Street,...

Welcome to episode 24 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Toby Young, the Daily Sceptic’s Editor-in-Chief and boss of the Free Speech Union, on a year of free-speech travesties – and the battles to come in the year ahead. Sam Bidwell, Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute, on the judge who declined to jail the woma...