The Sceptic

Welcome to episode 23 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: David Shipley, a writer on prison reform for publications including the Spectator, on the two-tier justice in the Government’s heavy crackdown following the Southport killings. Nick Arlett, one of the Tooting Four, a group of anti-ULEZ campaigners who were arrested for peacefully protes...

Welcome to episode 22 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Sam Bidwell, writer and commentator and the Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute, on the social and economic disaster of the latest immigration numbers – and how best to reverse it. Fleur Meston, co-host of the Bombshells podcast and campaigner against assi...

Welcome to episode 21 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests:   David Frost, lead Brexit negotiator under Boris Johnson, Conservative peer and Telegraph columnist, on how to restore free speech in Britain, the grim reality of Starmerism and what Kemi Badenoch must do as Tory leader.   And for our premium subscribers, Laurie speaks to Nick Dixon, c...

Welcome to episode 20 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: I speak to Matt Ridley, the acclaimed science writer and peer in the House of Lords, on the farmers’ revolt over inheritance tax changes that rocked Westminster this week. Writer and former parliamentary researcher James McSweeney, for a deep dive into Britain’s political class and why...

Welcome to episode 19 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Douglas Carswell, former UKIP MP and now the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, on what Donald Trump’s U.S. election victory means for America – and Britain. Will Jones, Editor of the Daily Sceptic, on the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin W...

Welcome to episode 18 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: William Atkinson, Assistant Editor at Conservative Home, on Kemi Badenoch’s victory in the Tory leadership election and her prospects as leader. Jon Moynihan, Conservative peer, venture capitalist and author of Return to Growth, on Rachel Reeves’s tax-bonanza budget...

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic with C.J. Hopkins, playwright, novelist and political satirist. C.J. Hopkins has long written about authoritarianism lurking in Western societies. Now, as if to prove him right, he’s being persecuted by the German authorities for doing just that. In 2022, he criticised German government Covid measures by tweeting an image of a Swastika on a Covid mask...

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic with James Esses, writer, campaigner and co-founder of Thoughtful Therapists. Back in 2021, James was a hard-working part-time master’s student in psychotherapy at the Metanoia Institute in London. In his spare time, he was also raising concerns online about the impact that transgender ideology – and the so-called gender-affirming approach to care – w...

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic with Professor David Starkey, the renowned and pugnacious historian, author and broadcaster.  Host Laurie Wastell speaks to Professor Starkey about New Labour’s constitutional revolution; why Margaret was mistaken to view Tony Blair as her heir; the problem with “human rights” and the ECHR; the disaster of devolution; why the Southport rioters were ri...

Welcome to episode 17 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Brendan O’Neill, Chief Political Writer at Spiked, on the anniversary of the October 7th pogrom against Israel – and his powerful new book on how the West failed this moral test. Jess Gill, student and political commentator, on how mass immigration has made London less safe for women li...

Welcome to episode 16 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: Charlotte Gill, journalist, author of the Woke Waste substack and the Daily Sceptic’s newest columnist, on the Labour MPs involved in the Left-wing activist group, Hope Not Hate. Freddie Attenborough, Director of Digital Communications at the Free Speech Union, on th...

Welcome to episode 15 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors:   Andrew Doyle, comedian, broadcaster and author of Free Speech and Why It Matters and The New Puritans, on how Labour’s plans for an “Islamophobia” definition could bring a blasphemy law to Britain.   Eugyppius, the pseudonymous commentator and author of the Substac...

Welcome to episode 14 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Ava, a 19 year-old charity volunteer from Liverpool, who tells the shocking story of how she was visited at her home by counterterror police – despite them telling her she hadn’t committed a crime – then questioned over her political views and warned to “bite her tongue” before posting...

Welcome to episode 13 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors:   Sarah Phillimore, barrister and gender-critical campaigner, on how the barristers’ regulator is pushing to make lawyers embrace woke ideology;   Steven Tucker, regular Daily Sceptic contributor and author of Hitler and Stalin’s Misuse of Science, on lefty academics...

Welcome to episode 12 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests:   Ben Sixsmith, Online Editor at the Critic and author of the Zone substack, on Keir Starmer’s miserabilist plan to ban smoking outside pubs;   Len Shackleton, Professor of Economics at Buckingham University and a fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, on the bizarre equal-pay rul...

Welcome to episode 11 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors:   Dr. Freddie Attenborough, Communications Officer at the Free Speech Union, on the Labour Government’s chilling social-media crackdown in the wake of the Southport riots;   Andy Collingwood, writer and co-host of the Multipolarity Podcast, on the truth about Britain...

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic, with Professor Nigel Biggar. Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford and the author of Colonialism: a Moral Reckoning . Nigel recently delivered the second lecture of Modern Dissent, a London lecture series challenging established ideas run by the Sceptic’s host, Laurie Wastell. The title o...

Welcome to episode ten of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors:   Claire Fox, the cross-bench peer and founder of the Academy of Ideas, on the fallout of the Southport attack and the crisis of multicultural Britain;   Dr. James Alexander, Professor of Political Science at Bilkent University, Turkey, on Labour’s devolution agenda...

Welcome to episode nine of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: Toby Young, Daily Sceptic Editor-in-Chief and the founder of the Free Speech Union, on Labour’s outrageous attack on free speech in universities; Our special guest this week Andrew Montford, Director of Net Zero Watch, on the Government’s heat pump con and why it t...

Welcome to episode eight of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: Dr David Livermore, microbiologist and Daily Sceptic regular, on the growing concerns about the Lucy Letby verdict, and how the Daily Sceptic led the world in raising them; Dr Angus Dalgleish, emeritus professor of oncology at the University of London and co-signa...

Welcome to episode seven of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: Special guest Ross Clark, Spectator columnist and author of Not Zero, on why Ed Miliband’s crusade against oil and gas could put Britain’s economy 6 feet under; Tony Morrison, who writes on US politics for the Daily Sceptic, on the shocking assassination attempt a...

Welcome to this special episode of the Sceptic with Professor Eric Kaufmann, on his new book, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution.   Eric is Head of the Institute of Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham, a member of the advisory board of the Free Speech Union and a senior fellow at Policy Exchange.   Host Laurie Wastell speaks to Eric about the thesis o...

Welcome to episode six of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Frank Haviland, editor at the New Conservative and author of The Frank Report substack, on Labour’s shallow election victory and the grim rise of Muslim sectarianism; Special guest David Frost, the Conservative peer and former chief Brexit negotiator, for a deep-dive into what the Tori...

Welcome to episode five of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: CJ Strachan, Daily Sceptic regular and the founder of the Fair Job initiative, on how “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion” took over the workplace – and how he’s fighting back; Andy Collingwood, writer and co-host of the Multipolarity podcast, who gives us a deep di...

Welcome to episode four of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following Daily Sceptic contributors: The mysterious and ever-incisive Daily Sceptic columnist J Sorel, on Keir Starmer’s technocratic plan to end parliamentary democracy; David McGrogan, associate law professor at Northumbria University, on a recent Supreme Court ruling that puts the future of UK oil...