Thinking Class

Renaud Camus, writer, painter, photographer, was born in 1946. He is now the author of more than one hundred and sixty works. His works are marked by the question of meaning and the fight against the industrialisation of man and the massacre of landscapes.  In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam and essayist Renaud Camus engage in a wide-ranging conversation about what Camus has long descr...

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom and a member of the advisory board for Restore Britain .  In this conversation, William Clouston and I think out loud about the current state of British politics, focusing on the disconnect between government promises and actual governance. We explore: The need for a cultural and civilisational vision beyond...

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He directs Buckingham’s new MA in the Politics of Cultural Conflict and PhD in Cultural Politics as well as its open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology. He is the author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural R...

Stephen Balogh is the Chairperson for the Social Democratic Party . Stephen is also active in non-profit and public policy organisations that promote the flourishing of society through the thoughtful application of socially responsible, small-c conservative politics. Following a 30-year business career, he now devotes his time to initiatives aimed at community building from local neighbourhood to...

Driss Ghali is a political author and speaker. Driss was born in Morocco and educated in Europe. He graduated from prestigious French universities and spent a lot of time in a corporate career focused on high-tech companies. Driss is an intellectual and observer of human nature as it is: ugly and splendid at the same time. Since 2017, he has written books about violence and identity. Driss frequen...

Neema Parvini is the author of nine books including Applied Elite Theory, The Prophets of Doom , The Populist Delusion , The Defenders of Liberty , Shakespeare's Moral Compass . He has also written dozens of chapters and articles in scholarly publications and the media. Neema is the Director of Academic Agency , which he set up to focus on core academic skills and knowledge areas which can he...

Alexander Chula is a medical doctor and writer working in London. His first book, Goodbye. Dr Banda was published 2023. In this episode, Alexander and I think out loud about what an African dictator can teach the West about itself, how multiculturalism impacts conceptions of personal and national identity, the perceived cultural openness of modern society compared to the past and why engagement by...

Martin Sellner is an Austrian activist, author and political organiser and his "goal is to save the identity and soul of [his] nation & Europe". He is author of several books in the German language, one of which, "Regime Change From The Right", is now published in English, while another, "Remigration", will be published in English early 2026. Martin Sellner joins...

David Betz is Professor of War in the Department of War Studies at King's College London where he heads the MA War Studies programme. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Prof. Betz's most recent book, The Guarded Age: Fortification in the 21st Century , is published by Polity. In this episode, David and I think out loud about the role of political institu...

Nina Power is a philosopher, writer, and author of books including What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents . Nina runs philosophy courses with Verdurin and is also the author of the Substack Nina Power and the host of the podcast The Lack. In this episode, Nina and I think out loud about whether the end of liberalism is real, whether post-liberalism is a dead end, why lots of English pe...

Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the UCL, where he researches and teaches on the topics of international order, multinational military intervention, and conflict management. He has 20 years of academic experience, having previously worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent and a Temporary Lecturer at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College....

Paul Embery is a firefighter, trade union activist, writer and broadcaster. Paul has been a member of the Labour party since 1994 and active in the wider labour movement for most of his adult life. He has served on the executive council of the Fire Brigades Union and as the national organiser of Trade Unionists Against the EU. Paul has written extensively about working-class politics and culture,...

Lord Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a PhD in Christian Theology and Ethics from the University of Chicago. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for 'services to higher education'. Nigel is the...

Andreas Svanlund is Chief Commercial Officer at Safe Clean, a Norwegian hydrocarbons company. Formerly an officer in the Norwegian Armed Forces, Andreas later joined the defence industry as a business developer with a focus on NATO and Europol special forces. He has also supplied combat uniforms and equipment to the Norwegian military, working closely with national counter-terrorism and organised...

Dominic Frisby is a financial writer, broadcaster, and comedian. He is the author of Life After the State , Bitcoin: The Future of Money , and Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future . He writes regularly for MoneyWeek and has performed stand-up comedy in the UK and internationally. In this episode, we think out loud about the long and revealing history of gold — and w...

David Shipley is a writer, campaigner, has worked as a consultant prison inspector, and is the author of the Substack Shipley Writes. David's work has appeared in The Spectator , The Sunday Times and The Telegraph.   In this conversation, we think out loud about the moral and institutional collapse of Britain’s justice system — and what meaningful reform would actually require. David reflects...

Lorenzo Warby , is a writer of the Substack Lorenzo from Oz and a regular contributor to Helen Dale’s Not on Your Team, but Always Fair , a Substack-recommended publication. In this episode, Lorenzo and I think out loud about the idea of institutional capture, how Western institutions have been overtaken by fashionable ideologies, and how this has led to the rise of unaccountable classes within bu...

George Owers is an editor, writer, and author of the newly released The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain. In this episode, George and I think out loud about the origins of party politics in Britain, tracing how the Whigs and Tories emerged out of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, how the Whigs’ eventual dominance led to the creation of many of Britain’s most enduring institut...

Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist, writer, a former Anglican priest, the host of the YouTube channel Plato's Podcasts and the author of the Substack A Golden String with Mark Vernon . Mark holds a PhD in Ancient Greek philosophy as well as degrees in theology and physics. He is the author of A Secret History of Christianity, Jesus: The Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness , Dante’s...

Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is a writer, priest, and current Vicar of Charlbury in Oxfordshire. Educated at Oxford and Cambridge, he has ministered in parishes in Liverpool and Central London, and spent time living and working in the Czech Republic and South Africa. Fergus is the author of Touching Cloth —a Times and Mail on Sunday Book of the Year—as well as Priests de la Résistance! (a Spectat...

Nathan Pinkoski is a senior fellow at the Centre for Renewing America. He has written for First Things, Compact, Perspectives on Political Science, and The Claremont Review of Books. His forthcoming book, Actually Existing Post-Liberalism , explores the transformation of the West since 1989 and is due to be published by Basic Books. He is also translating Éric Zemmour’s bestseller The Suicide of t...

This is a compilation episode about the state of boys and families in Britain, the ideological crusades that have undermined them, why the loss of faith and hyper-liberalism are to blame for this, and what may be required to save our individual and collective souls. You can expect to hear from Ed Davies of the Centre for Social Justice , Lois McClatchie Miller from the Alliance for Defending Freed...

Momus Najmi is a writer, cultural commentator, and history enthusiast. He writes The World of Momus on Substack and runs a YouTube channel exploring Britain’s cultural, political, and civilisational predicament. In this conversation, we think out loud about a question many sense but struggle to articulate: has Britain lost its way and if so, what would genuine reform actually require? We explore:...

Father Benedict Kiely is a priest of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the founder of nasarean.org , a charity that supports and advocates for persecuted Christians across the Middle East and beyond, offering practical aid to displaced families and small businesses. Christian persecution is one of the world’s most underreported realities—and its neglect tells us somethin...

Tom Jones is a writer and a councillor for Scotton and Lower Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. He is the author of the Substack, The Potemkin Village Idiot and has written for The Spectator, The Critic, Conservative, Home, CapX, UnHerd and The Guardian. In this conversation, Tom and I think out loud about the dramatic shift in British political discourse since 2024, why public trust in institutions is...