The Sceptic

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...

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...