China’s history is one of immense depth and complexity, and Frank Dikötter is one of its leading experts. For over three decades, he has published tome upon tome exploring the nation and culture, including the wildly acclaimed ‘People’s Trilogy”. His latest - Red Dawn Over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity - was published in February of this year.

Why did we invite him on?

In the next decade, China’s position on the world stage is set to change drastically. For centuries, it was destitute; soon, it may be the central superpower in geopolitics.

Understanding how we got here is a challenge, but crucial. Our knowledge - ours, as well as the West’s - is, instead, poor. We’ve been meaning to have a conversation on the subject for some time - Frank is a natural first-draft pick.

What is it that makes China distinct from other countries? Why has it persisted for millennia? How is its current trajectory being shaped by its past?

What did we learn?

China, to the layman, is defined by three key features: conquest, culture, and brutality. Most of its past, at least as far as what’s known by anyone outside of the expert class, is most defined by the last of them. Is that fair?

”I don’t think it’s any more brutal than anywhere else. You have to be fair. During the Great Leap Forward, millions were starved to death, but proportionally, it’s about the same. China is so much large and more densely populated; there’s more to ‘play’ with. The answer: human beings kill. And if you’re very lucky, you’ll have an emperor or king who is likely to contemplate an alliance with their neighbours, rather than massacring them. But, until the advent of the division of power, that’s just not the human way.”

Common understanding of Chinese history is, as Frank will go on to prove, a flawed one. Even our comprehension of modern China is muddled. Is it a communist country, or a capitalist one? Is it an empire, or an isolationist nation-state? A paper tiger, or the one true rival to Western hegemony?

What we see today, Frank stresses, is nothing new. Knowing that, we may be able to predict what comes next.

”The China we see today is roughly based on the empire we saw from the middle of the 17th century up to 1911, when it collapsed … They were overstretched, and had to control a huge amount of territory. They also conquered so much through pure violence that as soon as there was a moment of weakness, the subjects rebelled. Then, from 1911 - ‘49, you see the rise of this extraordinary time in Chinese history: the Republic of China.”

Today, China is understood to be a monocultural, top-down-enforced monolith. One of tight restrictions, rigid laws and customs, and an overarching adherence to tradition. In many ways, the antithesis of the West.

But that wasn’t always so; for a few decades in the 20th century, China could credibly claim to be the most modern, progressive nation on the face of the Earth.

“At every level of society, from scholars to artists to writers to ordinary workers, they take the freedoms they have acquired - of speech, of assembly, of travel - and go to discover the world. This is a new age of openness. They can read, publish, almost anything they want - though, within limits. Compared to some of the regimes in Europe in the ‘20s and ‘30s - Hitler, Mussolini, Franco… the Republic Of China is very liberal, very free. Keen to be at the vanguard of modernity.”

It sounds like nirvana. Knowing what was to come in 1949, one can’t help being puzzled at how the Chinese gave it up.

Communism typically arises in times of discontent. When the populus is beholden to the iron fist of the state, they come to fantasise about being the fist themselves. Mastering their destiny, extolling their own, seizing the means of production.

This bears little elation to the image of the Republic that Frank paints for us. What’s the story?

”You can read any book about it, you can read Wikipedia, any text book, the story is always the same. The collapse of the Xing, nasty social forces appear, fascists and imperialists and feudal landlords rise, the communists rise up in response… But that’s not true. Throughout the age of the Republic, China’s communist population is consistently dwarfed, relative to other countries. By 1940, 1 in every 1,700 people were Communists; the same, in relative size, to the United States. And the USA is hardly considered the vanguard of the worker’s revolution. Moscow is sending immense resources, yet China remains one of the least communist countries you can find.”

In many parts of the large country, communists were hugely unpopular. The party were seen, contrary to their message, to be enemies of the typical worker, not without just cause.

”The “rich peasants” [farmers] have their land seized, until soon there is no land left. Then “middle peasants” are deemed rich, and “poor peasants” are deemed “middle.” Soon, there is nothing left - peasants quickly realise that the Communist Party will take any surplus. They need grain and cannon fodder, and they’ll take everything. They were bandits - they squeeze until it’s dry.”

So, why were communists able to secure power in ‘49?

Here, we arrive at Mao.

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You won’t know Dimitar by name, but you’ll want to know his story.

A former MET officer, Dimitar is joining us to speak publicly for the first time about his experience on the force, their DEI practices, and the recruitment procedures that are weakening our institutions of law.

What is the state of our police? What does it entail for society? What does Britain’s future look like if things don’t change?

What did we learn?

Talk to any Londoner who doesn’t live in a sequestered, guarded alcove, and they’ll tell you the same thing: the city has become noticeably more dangerous. Everyone has either seen or been, or knows, the victim of a mugging. Petty theft is normalised, knife crime is a fact of life.

Then again, rose-tinted glasses are a powerful lens; perhaps London, as many capital cities are, was always a more threatening part of the country. Are they right to think things are getting worse?

“Yes. That’s more definitely the case. I actually think people don’t speak enough about how dangerous London has become; they have reached a level of detachment from reality. They’re bringing it up, and nothing really happens. A lot of people know, but they don’t talk about it anymore.”

But isn’t crime going down? The government love to brag about how the trend for crime, especially violent crime, is on a downward trend. The statistics certainly seem to bear that out.

”The statistics are saying that because people aren’t bothering to report it. Let me give you an example. I don’t have many hobbies, but I love mountain biking, so I bought an expensive one. After a couple of months, it was stolen. I, a police officer, didn’t report it, because I knew nothing was going to happen.”

So, what else are they doing? By the sounds of it, not a great deal of policing.

One of the things we wanted to discuss with Dimitar was the nature of police training. Neither of us - it’ll surprise you to hear - has a moment of experience in it, but much has been made about how ‘wokified’ it has been in recent years. Is that true?

”In the training, we had a lecture called ‘How Treating Everyone Equally Leads to Inequality’. It’s a little Orwellian … We didn’t want to learn like that. We wanted to be on the street learning practical skills, and my class was outspoken. But we were told if we didn’t do it, we could lose our jobs.”

Dimitar and his peers were given an option - absorb the nonsense (that even the teachers realised was nonsense), or leave policing entirely. What they learned was not just benign; it had serious consequences on the psyche of officers. Dimitar felt it first-hand.

”You start to doubt yourself. ‘Am I right to say All Lives Matter?’ It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but am I right? ‘Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I need to find within myself that I have a bias.’ It makes young officers question themselves.”

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There are few things we value more on our show than heterodox thinkers. Today, we’re joined by two of them.

Nigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, writer, and life peer. From 2007 to 2022, he was Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford. Elsewhere, he is an acclaimed social critic and author, having published over a dozen books since 1993. His latest - The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win the Culture Wars - was published in February of this year.

Robert Tombs is professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of St John’s College; for his work, the French government awarded him the Ordres des Palmes academiques in 2007.

Together, in 2021, Nigel and Robert created History Reclaimed - a website and online resource dedicated to countering censorship of historical texts in modern universities. Combining their talents, the two are due to release their first collaborative book - Our Island’s Story: A Better Story About Britain - this October.

Why did we invite them on?

Nigel has been on our show twice before. The first time was just shy of six years ago, when he joined us to ponder whether Britain’s history was a shameful one, before returning again in 2023 to weigh up the merits and demerits of the nation’s colonial past. He’s always a tremendous guest, and we felt it was high time we had him back.

This is Robert’s first time here, but he’s been someone we’ve been hoping to host for years. When we received word that the two were working together on a new book, we felt the stars had aligned in such a way that we couldn’t ignore.

Our Island’s Story seeks to remedy what these two historians perceive to be a gap in historical education - a complete picture. In schools, history is taught piecemeal; children learn how to write fine essays, but never gain a holistic comprehension of the matter at hand.

We wanted to explore that with them. What are the gaps? What should people know but don’t? What are we missing?

What did we learn?

It’s hard to know where to start. As Robert describes from the outset, the problem is much more profound than is often made out. Our historical education, as laid out in our schools, is not just poor - it hardly exists.

Robert: “We teach very little history in British schools, compared to other countries, especially European ones. In France, it’s compulsory right to the end. In Britain, most students will get half an hour a week, and they’ll stop in Year 9. We never thought it was necessary.”

Over successive generations, the educational bodies and institutions that shape our curriculum have come to value history less and less. Once our professors and lecturers understood that learning history was meaningful for its own sake. Now, it’s been reduced to either a disconnected sequence of morality tales or a mere means to an end.

”To some educators, the only way you could justify teaching history was by saying it taught certain skills. The history doesn’t matter; it’s about deconstructing arguments and citing sources, and only in a very crude way. In a way that real historians would never do. There’s a sense that history is only valuable as stories. That’s why they change it. That’s why they say there were black and African soldiers at Hadrian’s Wall. And when some pedant comes along and says, “Actually, they were Greek or Roman” because that’s what the evidence suggests, they ask, “Why do you want to upset people?” After all, what happened doesn’t really matter; these are just stories. Let’s just tell the stories we like.”

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Rising to fame in 2001 with the release of his breakout success Catherine the Great & Potemkin, Simon Sebag Montefiore has spent the 21st century enjoying a career as one of Britain’s most respected historians.

His catalogue of books, including history-buff mainstays Jerusalem: The Biography and 2016’s The Romanovs, has earned him awards from all of the world, as well as countless nominations. Elsewhere, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, as well as a Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Buckingham.

His latest work - The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East - is out August 25th, 2026.

Why did we invite him on?

Simon’s bibliography speaks for itself, and we’ve been avid readers of his for years. When we received word that his next book would be covering ‘the making of the modern Middle East’ - a subject which dominates headlines week-in-week-out, we knew it was time to finally host him.

It sounds like well-trodden ground. It isn’t. Perhaps naturally, almost every book available on the topic is charged politically one way or the other. Some are effervescent and breathless tributes to Israel, others are vicious condemnations of ancient colonialism. Both have their place, but neither tell the whole story.

Instead, Simon brings a fresh perspective to events, charting a history that, until the release of his book, has gone broadly underdiscussed in the literature. We wanted him to share some of that, with us and with you. This is that conversation.

What did we talk about?

”I didn’t want to write a neo-Marxist book of decolonialisation, but I also didn’t want to write a Zionist book. I wanted to do something that was as balanced as I could make it, without ideology.”

History of the Middle East stretches back as far as civilisation does. Where does one decide to start?

Ultimately, Simon is interested in the first dominoes that shaped what life in the region looks like today. To do that, he traces back to the early part of the 20th century; the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

It’s easy to forget just how imperious the global state in question was. Lasting over 600 years (1299 to 1922), and spanning parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Ottomans ruled over huge swathes and had immense influence on international trade and relations. Despite its clear historical significance, the Empire is somewhat misunderstood. Often viewed as a visage of tolerance in an intolerant time. Simon is keen to correct the record.

”The myth of ‘the great tolerance’ is something you read about quite often. People say that the Middle East was once tolerant, until it was destroyed by America, or by nationalism. And that’s true - up to a point. The Ottoman Empire, in the end, was something quite different to the way it had started.”

Whether the Empire became intolerant as a reaction to its ailing health or it crumbled as a result of its intolerance is a topic still hotly contested today. What is not debatable, however, is the staggering and callous brutality they exerted over their citizenry.

”The Ottoman Empire, far from being tolerant, ended up under the control of the Three Pashas [a dictatorial triumvirate that de facto ruled the empire the 1913 coup d'état until the end of World War I in 1918]. They were a fascist, eugenecist, Turkish, Islamic supremacy. They massacred 1.1 million Armenians, but they also committed now-forgotten genocides. The starving of Christians, the massacres of Greeks…”

One can look back now and see that their demise was inevitable. At the time, that wasn’t so clear. If the Ottomans were ever to fall, it would take an outside influence. In World War I, Britain saw an opportunity.

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Even among a competitive field, Colin has one of the most storied careers in modern British journalism.

Since joining Sky News in 1997 - where he would remain for 24 years - he has placed himself on the frontline of many of geopolitics’ most volatile quagmires. He was the first British journalist to enter Iraq during the coalition invasion of ‘03, and later conducted one of the final interviews with Muammar Gaddafi before his execution by rebel fighters. For his coverage of the 2016 migrant crisis, Colin won an International Emmy and was nominated for BAFTA.

In 2023, he left Sky for GB News, before leaving again in April 2023 when he joined the team at LBC to host a late-night programme, before declaring his resignation from broadcasting that August to study farming - something he described as a “long-held dream”.

Why did we invite him on?

We’ve been admirers of Colin’s work for years now. In many ways, he represents the last of the old guard of journalism; pounding the pavement, getting the scoop from its source. It’s given him a hell of a life story, and one we hoped he’d share with us and you.

Having now been out of journalism for three years, we wanted to get his thoughts on the current state of British and Western politics. When he retired in 2023, could he have predicted where we’d be now? What does he think of it? Where does he think we’re going?

What did we talk about?

Colin is a man deeply in touch with his roots. Born and raised in Bradford, he’s been keen to stress his heritage throughout his career. But Bradford in the late ‘60s is a very different place to Bradford today. If you haven’t been, you’d be forgiven for having no idea - it’s not a story the media are interested in covering. Or more likely, one they don’t know is happening.

”My sister works on the checkouts at a local Co-op, and she’s my window into life as it really is. She sees ‘white flight’, she sees people in their shrinking enclaves, she’s on the receiving end of racial abuse from angry Pakistani men; this is a world that Sky and BBC don’t even know exists.”

So, what is Bradford like now? If the media are refusing to report or explore what’s happening to our depreciating cities, what can Colin tell us about them?

”I don’t know. And I don’t know because I don’t want to live there. Why would I? I was talking to someone the other day who wanted to move back to Twickenham, and I thought: ‘How lovely.’ How lovely to be able to go back to the place you grew up in. Bradford is a city that’s regressing.”

”Regressing.” It’s not a promising term, and not one you often hear used to describe a city. There are cities in decline, cities that lack adequate support, and cities which are merely mismanaged. But ‘regressing’ implies something different. It implies going backwards.

”It’s not developing, it’s massively segregated; there are no-go areas. When I was a kid, the indigenous population and the immigrants would at least work together. Now, their paths never cross. You can go days without seeing anyone that doesn’t look like you. That’s regression, isn’t it?”

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Dan Snow is one of the most revered popular historians in Britain. In 2002, Dan came onto the scene with his acclaimed BBC documentary El Alamein, charting the events of the Second World War battle for its 60th anniversary. In every year since, he has released several popular history programmes, covering everything from Rome to China, the Vikings to the Nazis, and the history of Britain. He is also an ambassador of the Electoral Reform Society. His latest show - a one-off special: The Odyssey with Dan Snow - premiered on Channel Five last month.

Why did we invite him?

Just shy of a year ago, we had Dan on the show to give an overview of the ‘True History of England’. It remains one of our favourite interviews ever, and it looks like you agreed; at the time of writing, it boasts nearly a million views on YouTube - a number eclipsed when you account for downloads.

Ten minutes from the end, Dan said: “We’re getting to the best bit.” By that, he meant the Industrial Revolution. Having to cut him off before we could explore that was torturous for us, and something we insisted on remedying as quickly as possible.

Ten months later, we have him back to do precisely that.

What did we learn?

”It’s one of the most exciting stories in the whole of human history. A little island off the coast of Eurasia, for thousands of years, it does very little. Then, around 1700-1750, it goes mental. It builds the largest empire the world has ever seen. Roughly a quarter of the world’s area and population is under the control of a tiny island in the North Sea. Why?”

Why indeed. England’s outsized influence over the world remains one of the most puzzling facts of its history. Its music, literature, theatre, films, architecture, practices and norms are present in almost every corner of the planet; even in ones they never outright controlled. What was it about this ‘little island’ that meant it was able to have such a seismic impact?

”At the time, the argument was that ‘God is an Englishman’. But the truth is much more interesting. Why do you get these explosions of creativity? Or naval might? Why does it happen? And how can you replicate it?”

Some things can only happen once. It’s a miracle they ever happened at all. Understanding that about British history, it’s easy to dismiss what happened as a freak event. But that undersells the factors that profoundly contributed to the ‘fate’ of the nation and the ones it controlled, or even just inspired.

There are countless we can explore, but Dan starts with the key cultural difference between Europe and its rivals in the Far East.

”Europe is incredibly competitive. If you have an invention in Nanking [in China] and the emperor doesn’t like it, that’s the end of your invention. If you have an invention and the king doesn’t like it, you can be in another country in two days.”

Going further, our guest explains how innovation, Columbus, the achievements of English explorers, conflict with France, gain and loss of the United States, and even the natural weather patterns around the isle, lay the ground for what would be true catalyst: industry.

”Historians really argue whether empire and industry are distinct or linked. I think they are linked. As Britain pushes ahead with its trade and overseas power projection, things start happening at home. The desire to build better ships means embracing science; you’re constantly thinking about how to improve them, and navigate more effectively. There are so many breakthroughs in this time.”

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Another crucial feature was the advent of capitalism. Quite unlike the myth often told, capitalism was not an enslaving practice - it was a liberating one. Adam Smith, forefather of the model, made the case that a system in which willing workers are compensated by their boss is not only more ethical than slavery, but also more economically sound.

Here, Dan cuts against the established narrative that all of the West’s wealth and prosperity was built on the slave trade; it wasn’t until after it ended that these countries entered the truest phase of affluence.

”[Smith] made the case that capitalism would save everyone money, even the slave owners. The cost of policing this institution was more than it earned back; by paying them a wage, they fostered an economy.”

These days, the story goes that Britain was a uniquely cruel and barbarous coloniser. One with a history to be deeply ashamed of. There are doubtlessly aspects that make one wince, that make patriotism more difficult. Are we right to feel that way?

”The past was a monstrous, unimaginably brutal place. What do we do about that?”

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James Hankins is one of America’s most admired historians.

In 1985, he joined the history faculty at Harvard, where he would remain for 40 years before leaving in December of last year. Today, He is the general editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library - a book series by Harvard University Press dedicated to republishing classic works of Italian literature. His latest book - the concluding volume of The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition duology - was published earlier this year. Today, he also publishes on a Subsack of the same name.

Why did we invite him on?

James’ story instantly caught our interest. What is it that motivates an acclaimed professor, after four decades at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, to leave his position? How did it feel then? How does he feel about it now?

More broadly, we also wanted to explore James’ area of expertise: Western civilisation, with particular attention paid to Italy’s contribution. Something James felt, towards the end of his tenure at Harvard, he could no longer teach. He left to do precisely that. We were more than happy to host him.

What did we learn?

Learning about civilisation is unique among academic pursuits. As you learn, you become part of it. It’s not merely a detached assessment of what’s come before; in the act of educating oneself, they become an active participant. By learning about the cerebral tools of Western civilisation, we are imbued with them. It demands we rise to the occasion.

This, James asserts, has long been forgotten.

”This strikes me as a mistake of modern, humanist studies: it’s so important to communicate in our world, and at a very high level. It’s how you become a civilised person. Not just good manners, but intuitions, poetic insights, sublimity… These [skills] can only be developed in a civilisation. You’re not just a citizen - you’re a member of the society, and you interact with it in a profound and subtle way.”

These are not inborn abilities. The most elevated forms of art - in theatre, sculpture, music, and literature - are only fully understood when we’re taught how. What to look out for, which parts to admire.

Many of the universities pride themselves on taking a strictly “critical” approach; rigorous scepticism that undresses and assesses the inherited knowledge of past eras. It sounds good, but is it? Perhaps the best way to learn about - and respect - the great works and achievements of a civilisation is from someone who actually does.

”It’s not automatic that people will understand classical music. It’s an acquired taste, and to acquire it you have to be brought up and educated in that. You have to have people who communicate their love of it to you, teachers who are enthusiasts. If you want to understand Western civilisation - Michaelangelo, Beethoven, Dante - you need the skills to do so.”

If this is such an important process, why did James take himself out of it?

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In 2025, after 40 years of teaching, James retired from Harvard University. There were a myriad of reasons, but central to his motivation was the university’s intensifying unwillingness to allow his position to be heard. He only left last year, but the decision had been brewing for some time.

”I decided to retire in 2020; the year of George Floyd, the year of COVID. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. They created such a terrible atmosphere. They wanted us to do lectures with masks on, which I refused to do … I was also banging my head against the wall trying to get the university to continue teaching the history of Western civilisation. That was a mainstay for decades, but my department [wanted to get rid of it]. It was evident to me that someone had made a decision to zero out ‘Western Civ’.”

What remained of James’ freedom to teach was not what he hoped for. As years went by, James increasingly found he was discouraged from exploring the majestic elements of Western civilisation, or even a balanced approach. He could only teach the dark underbelly - the shameful, immoral components of our past.

”You could teach the French empire and all its evils, but you couldn’t teach the Revolution. You could teach about the English monarchy and the colonies, but not the Magna Carta.”

It invites the question: why?

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Even if you don’t know Robert Hardman, you certainly know his work.

As well as working as a royal correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and writing for the Daily Mail and Spectator, Robert Hardman is a fixture of Britain’s state occasions. If you watched the BBC’s coverage of King Charles III’s coronation, or the 70th anniversary of D-Day, or the funerals of Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth II, you’ll have heard his voice.

His latest book - Elizabeth II: In Private. In Public. The Inside Story. - was published earlier this year to widespread acclaim.

Why did we invite him on?

The monarchy is, quietly, one of the most divisive subjects in contemporary Britain.

To its defenders, the chain of royals ties us back to a thousand-year history, providing an invisible stability and identity to a nation facing crisis. To small-r republicans, it’s an institution that entrenches our society with inequality, corruption, and magical thinking; a direct, expensive contradiction to the principles of the Magna Carta.

We invited Robert to make the case in favour. As one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, he was a natural choice, and it made for a fascinating conversation.

What did we learn?

Francis and Konstantin concede from the off - neither understand why it’s a big deal either way. Whether we have a monarchy or not, does it really matter? If it were to go away, short of the odd state funeral going amiss, would we even notice? To Robert, the answer is obvious.

”At every level, the monarchy plays a role. They are the thread that weaves through it all.”

Robert’s dedicated his life to researching and following our royal family. Yet, even he didn’t quite realise the profundity of their influence until 2022, when Queen Elizabeth II - Britain’s longest-reigning monarch ever - passed away.

”It was an extraordinary week. We’d just changed our head of government [Rishi Sunak replaced Liz Truss as PM], and we were also changing our head of state. In most countries, when you change [either], there is upheaval. We changed both in a week, and not a shot was fired, or an angry word said. People just carried on. That summed up the heft and stability the family provides. It’s the bedrock. People don’t know it’s there.”

Across the last thousand years, especially in the last century, we’ve seen the direct power of the Royals dip considerably. At one time, the monarch was seen to be anointed by God himself, and they enjoyed all the power such an anointment entails. They could declare and lead wars without permission from anyone else, raise taxes at will, and change laws for any reason and at any time. Elizabeth II oversaw a mass reduction in the scope of the empire, but even before her, the grip was loosening. As time’s gone by, we’ve seen that role reduce to, seemingly, cutting ribbons and shaking hands. It hardly seems worth keeping.

This, Robert suggests, is a misunderstanding - the power has changed, not diminished.

”Their power is what we call ‘soft power’ [the ability to shape behaviour and beliefs without force]. I interviewed Professor Joseph Nye of Harvard University, the man who codified and defined ‘soft power’, and he said Britain has two tools of it that are completely inexorable - the English language, and the Royal Family. It gives [us] enormous influence, and places us at the top of the ‘soft power’ index.”

Again, this was perhaps best captured by the relationships Elizabeth II enjoyed with international figures of consequence. For over 70 years, she liaised with the most powerful people on the planet, winning friends across all political divides.
Even Donald Trump - famously fickle - demonstrated reverence for her. It was only that reverence that gave Robert the chance to speak to the President.

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Last September, we welcomed Kehinde Andrews and Rafe Heydel-Mankoo on to our show to debate the ethics of reparations, slavery, and colonialism.

It sparked a ferocious conversation - first in the studio, and later online. Immediately, we were eager to host another. We considered a variety of subjects to explore, and ultimately landed on what is perhaps …

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With approaching 40 years’ experience, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is one of the eminent figures in his field - one which has only become increasingly significant.

For 23 of those years, he served in the British Army as an officer, reaching the rank of colonel (a position he held for 10), before leaving to advise the Union of Syrian Medical Charities. In his time in service, he saw action in the First Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War. As a commentator, he is published in the BBC, ABC, the Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph. In June, he published his latest book - Tank Command.

What did we learn?

This is a time of reawakening. While Britain is not at war yet, the 2020s have seen us reckon with that reality more than we have at any time since Iraq. Things are arguably worse now. In that case, it was a voluntary engagement; we might find we have no say in our next conflict.

”It was only when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022 that we, as a country, realised: ‘Blimey, we don’t have a credible deterrent.’ At the moment, the British army, air force and navy are trying to recover from 40 years of disinvestment and poor morale. You can get there, and quickly, but it takes funding. We must give our men and women the right tools to do the job.”

For decades, the UK has depended on its bigger, badder, younger brother across the Atlantic. Under the watchful eye of the world’s most mighty military, we - and our European neighbours - have dropped our guard, safe in the knowledge that, should the worst come to pass, we have the golden goose on our side. Under Trump, that relationship is changing. No longer can we expect to free-ride on America’s good graces. To Hamish, this is no bad thing.

”I don’t agree with everything Trump does and says, but he has stirred up the Europeans. We realise now that we can’t just depend on the US - we must prepare our own military capabilities, so that when Putin - or whoever replaces him - looks West in the future, he sees a credible defence and doesn’t invade.”

But how did it come to this? Why did it take a renegade, China-shop-bull President like Trump to rattle our cages before we realised what we were facing? Why did we wait until Putin had already put boots on Ukrainian soil to consider our own safety?

To Hamish, the answer is simple: we didn’t take the threat seriously. We slacked off. We cut budgets, we lost interest. As we come nose-to-nose with reality, it’s clear how imbalanced things have become.

”Priorities for the government have changed. You hear every Prime Minister since Churchill say defence is the most important priority for our nation, but it’s not been since Churchill that we actually believed that. That’s an issue. A Russian soldier gets paid 80 grand a year; that’s at least twice what they get here. When we’re spending six-times as much on welfare as we are on defence, I feel we’ve got something wrong here.”

So, how bad is the problem really? Francis mentions one of Hamish’s articles, in which he revealed that the army was being underfunded to the tune of £28 billion. It sounds troubling, but as laymen, it’s hard to guess at what the material consequences of that shortfall are. What does that entail in real-world terms for our soldiers?

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Every generation gets the film critic it deserves, and Will Jordan is his.

Tackling Hollywood’s fad-fuelled obsession with identity politics, wokeism, and progressive ideology, the Critical Drinker has, in the last decade, has grown from an irreverent comedy character to one of the most widely-listened-to media analysts in the world.

Today, his channel boasts 2.4 million subscribers and just shy of a billion combined views.

Why did we invite him on?

We’ve had Will on the show twice before: first to discuss how the movie industry was poisoned by politics, and later to consider whether the era of hyper-liberalism in mass entertainment was behind us.

This time, we wanted an update on the current state of cinema. Have things improved, or gotten worse? More importantly, what does the future have in store?

What did we talk about?

Naturally, the conversation opens with the cinematic event of the year: Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation of The Odyssey. It’s been out only a fortnight, yet already it’s a contender for the decade’s most divisive blockbuster. While acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece and earning hundreds of millions at the global box office, the film has had, to put it mildly, its share of detractors. Not mere internet trolls either; Elon Musk has floated the idea of privately funding a more ‘authentic’ adaptation with Mel Gibson at the helm, while famed translator Emily Wilson described the modern screenplay as work she would be “ashamed” of.

Where did the Critical Drinker land?

”Meh.”

People watched the review thinking I’d hate it, but I was just mixed on it. There are technically brilliant aspects, and Christopher Nolan’s a very competent director. My only real issue was the lack of emotional connection, which is common for [Nolan] movies at this point.”

That’s more or less how we felt. We seem to be the only three that did. So why is the film so contentious? An Oscar-winning director with an iconic catalogue, working with a cast of stars, to depict the West’s most eternal story. It’s hard to quantify a more sure-fire recipe for success. How did it attract such ire months before it was even seen?

”It’s the casting choices. When it was first announced, everyone was pretty enthusiastic, myself included … I was sure he’d do a great job. Then the first trailer comes out… You find out Lupita N’yongo is playing Helen Of Troy - quite a departure from what we know Helen of Troy to be… and that Elliot Page is going to be in it. It generated a crazy pushback online. I haven’t seen anything like it since [2023’s] Snow White.”

The film, contrary to what many online pundits would have had you believe, was neither especially woke nor anti-woke. It wasn’t a perfect film, but it largely managed to avoid the unsavoury trappings of either. Are we seeing some kind of ‘woke PTSD’ whereby everything is viewed through the lens of friend-and-enemy? Is it the same reason that every film which isn’t blatant propaganda is welcomed as a return to classic Hollywood?

How has Hollywood painted itself into such a corner?

”They looked at the internet and thought the world was a big, progressive echo chamber. So they made films for that world, and they’re finally waking up to the fact it didn’t work. It took tens of billions in lost revenue, but they got there in the end. It’s just a shame Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or whatever else, have been casualties of that trend.”

It’s why Will, regardless of its faults, welcomes bold films like the Odyssey. Non-franchise, serious films that make requests of their viewer. That require attention and patience.

”I would rather watch [The Odyssey] a hundred times over than just another piece of superhero slop, or whatever franchise like Star Wars or Jurassic Park are recycling for the dozenth time. I’m glad to see it succeed over films of lesser artistic merit.”

Here, Will is speaking to what looked for a while to be a terminal trend: the ever-diminishing interest in art in entertainment. Commerce is an inexorable component of cinema, but for much of the 21st century, it’s felt like the only thing that matters. Regurgitated franchises with aged-out characters and reference-heavy dialogue, churned out, swallowed, and regurgitated again. It’s become so tedious, even the most popular franchises in the history of entertainment are struggling to turn a profit.

”The demand for interesting films is still there. Look at Obsession - with horror films, all you need is a good idea. A good hook to get people. You don’t need a huge budget for special effects - you just need a good premise, a solid script, and some good performances. That movie cost $750,000 to make, and it’s sitting at $460 million. It’s on track to be the most profitable film of all time, relative to budget. It can still be done.”

And it can still be done on the largest of scales. For all the blockbuster exhaustion we three share, this year also saw the release of one of the best in some time…

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Peter Hitchens is one of Britain’s most beloved conservatives. In his career, he has contributed to the likes of The Spectator, the American Conservative, The Guardian, and the New Statesmen. Today, he writes primarily for the Mail On Sunday, while continuing to publish best-selling books.

Why did we invite him on?

”I’m in my mid-70s. I have little to gain in life, and not much longer to live; if it were possible for me to do something, I would. But people are drawn to more seductive voices, and I can’t offer seduction - it would be dishonest.”

Across the eight years we’ve been doing our show, Peter has firmly established himself as one of our favourite recurring guests. His firewood-dry wit and expert and unorthodox analysis always make for a brilliant conversation, and we thought it was high time we had him back.

Last time he joined us, we discussed the then-upcoming 2024 election. Peter shared a view that divided our listeners, and two years on, with so much having changed, we wanted to see if he stood by it. Beyond that, we also wanted to explore what he sees in our nation’s future, both the immediate and the distant. What came of it was typically fascinating.

What did we talk about?

”Last time I was on your show, I said that a vote for Reform was a vote for Labour, and that seems to me to have been proven true … How anyone thought putting a Labour government in office would solve the social, political, and economic conditions of the country, I just don’t know.”

With that last election now 24 months behind us, it’s hard to say with any certainty that Britain is in a better place. Those eight seasons have been characterised by riots, upheaval, division and decay. But with Starmer now bowing out, does Peter feel any more hopeful than he did before?

”The country is obviously finished. It’s just a question of how and when this will be apparent to everybody.”

To Peter, the theatrics of politics are just that - theatrics. The Conservatives are not conservative, Reform can’t reform, the Greens are too green, and Labour doesn’t work. As wide a gulf as there seems to be between these parties, they are all fundamentally operating on the same delusion. Unless radical change is implemented, it’s all just lawn-mowing at the foot of Krakatoa.

”Everything we do is based on an overestimation of how rich we are, and if the currency shrinks, you can’t keep up that pretence anymore - the government spending will [have to] shrink. We have also trashed the talent pool of this country; we have people at the elite level who are unable to think properly. We have a transport system that doesn’t work and is falling to pieces. We have a criminal justice system that might as well have been abducted by aliens … These all contribute to a feeling that nothing works. It’s as though someone has cursed us.”

So far, Peter has given us very little reason to feel optimistic. What he describes isn’t a country in decline but a declined country that can’t see itself. Britain has run off the cliff, but it hasn’t looked down. Is there anything we can do to change course?

”We need someone to tell the people that things have to change, and they will be difficult. There will be fewer of the things we have gotten used to, and that’s a hard thing to accept - it doesn’t tend to win elections.”

Peter explains that if we don’t face things now, we’ll be forced to later, when they’ll be much, much worse. He warns of cycles of hyperinflation and poverty, “the likes of which we never thought we’d see”. With poverty comes division. Under such circumstances, political extremism is inevitable. In a sense, it’s already here.

”You’re already seeing that. People are willing to listen now to people they ought not to listen to.”

Who is Peter talking about here?

”[Sighs] You can guess. It’s not even worth raising the names. There are people now on the edges of politics who are becoming very influential, and they’re very worrying. I don’t want to help them now by naming them.”

History, it’s been said, comes in cycles. The collapse is as predictable as the rise, and the rise is as inevitable as the collapse. If the country is “finished”, it isn’t really; something will come in the wake of it. Perhaps something better. That rejuvenation may fall outside a 10-year-plan, but, as Konstantin asserts, if things turn bad enough, a revival is sure to come. There is only so much the average person will put up with. So far, they’ve allowed themselves to be squeezed, but we’re already seeing their teeth.

Nations that suffered much worse fates have recovered. Former communist states, former military dictatorships… even those who participated in the Second World War. Is that something to comfort in?

”That’s rather Marxist of you.”

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Everybody has an opinion on Nigel Farage.

To some, he’s the heir apparent to Enoch Powell, the face of English bigotry. To others, he’s a lovable rogue, the parliamentary phoenix of right-wing politics - an unsmotherable force that, despite everything that comes his way, shapes and defines the movement in his image.

He’s Britain’s most divisive politician of the 21st century and arguably the most influential to never hold the top office.

That might soon change.

Today, according to recent polls by IPSOS, YouGov, and Freshwater Strategy, Reform UK is the most popular political party in the country, and the favourite to win the next general election.

Why did we invite him on?

Nigel is never far from controversy. The scorn he faces is often commensurate with the adulation he enjoys. As Reform continues to enjoy a surge in public support, the predictable tide of scrutiny comes his way. It’s a pattern as old as his career in politics.

The last month, however, has proven to be one of his most testing yet. Between scandal and tragedy, Farage and his party have been put through the wringer. We wanted to get a sense of what things are like in the eye of the storm. Is this another test in the long and storied history of a divisive firebrand, or are we looking at the end of one’s public life?

What did we learn?

Our conversation comes mere days in the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s shocking murder. A well-known conservative voice and Reform Party spokesperson, Nigel had a close relationship with Ann; though we initially planned to focus on the by-election, it would be wrong to not start the discussion there. Nigel asserts that the two events are not so disparate.

”They’re directly linked. The full-scale attack on Reform, which has really gone into gear since May 7th. Why May 7th? Massive set of elections across the UK. We wipe out the Conservatives in East Anglia… unbelievable. We take out Labour in Northern England, the Midlands, we make big breakthroughs in Scotland and Wales. Ever since that moment, the attacks on the party have been unrelenting. [They say] we are extremists, a threat to Britain, more dangerous than Putin, and we’re all criminals. This is the narrative that’s going out unendingly.”

Nigel’s used to scrutiny; over four decades in political life, he’s faced his share of barbs and jabs. He even welcomes it. This, he believes, is different; the political tension we’re seeing, the will for violence, is unlike anything he’s witnessed in his lifetime.

”I’ve been in this game a long time. I’m used to the rough and tumble of politics. In a way, that’s what democracy is … But when stuff going out in national newspapers that is simply untrue, or exaggerated beyond belief… If you demonise people, like in Ann’s case, because they don’t believe in gay marriage, or have strict views on abortion, or they believe in strict immigration control… If you dehumanise them, is it surprising that it engenders a form of hate?”

And hate, to Nigel, contrary to what initial official reports suggested, is what this is.

”It was obvious to me from the first moment that this was politically motivated and premeditated. It was an assassination, directly downstream from the anti-Reform campaign waged by the House of Commons and the mainstream media every week.”

Things are at a crossroads; they can go one of two ways. This either results in a normalising of sociopolitically inspired acts of terror or a realisation that we’ve already let things go too far. With, as Konstantin notes, Gen-Z up to 7 times more in favour of political violence than previous generations, they don’t look promising.

”[The left] so believe in their righteous virtue that they feel allowed [to say anything they want]. I cannot think of a single conservative commentator who would ever say anything approaching that about the death of a senior public figure. If Jeremy Corbyn died, I’d say ‘I don’t agree with him, but he believed in what he believed in, and he fought for it for decades.’ That’s the difference here.”

It’s no shock to Nigel; he’s been at the sharp end of this cultural shift for years. Recently, The Times revealed that the party leader receives up to 300 death threats a month. How serious are they?

”Oh, it’s serious. It’s been serious, in my case, since 2013, but nobody cared … We requested protection, but we were told the threats ‘did not meet the threshold’. ‘Did not meet the threshold.’ And yet, Lucy Connolly, who puts out an intemperate tweet and removes it four hours later, goes to Britain. Two-tier policing, two-tier justice, two-tier attitudes. Hopefully, after the horrific and deeply upsetting murder of Ann, something will come of it. Maybe the police will start to take threats seriously, regardless of which end of the political spectrum they’re on.”

This brings us neatly to the other key subject we planned to explore. On July 7th, Nigel announced his resignation from his post as the MP of Clacton. Not to disappear from public life, but to trigger a by-election in his constituency. The news came after weeks of increasing criticism from rival parties and major media outlets, generally pertaining to a controversial “gift” - £5 million from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne - and in a valley of Reform’s popularity. Why did he call it?

”I called this by-election before Ann’s murder, but I ordered it [to combat] that daily assault. Being slandered in the media every single day, without any way to come back from it, had left the party in a state of paralysis. I want the people of Clacton to be my judge. If you think I’m a crook, get rid of me. If you don’t, and if you think the mainstream media are out of touch, then vote for me on August 13th.”

It’s an understandable position, but if Nigel is going to accuse the mainstream media of lying and exaggerating, he has to demonstrate why they’re wrong. Here, he’s unflinching in his defence.

“Have I broken the law? No. Have I broken tax law? No. Have I fiddled my expenses? No. Have I used public money? No. I’ve claimed nothing on expenses; I don’t need to. What is my crime? What is my sin? The rules of procedure, for parliamentary standards, which are only there to regulate your public life - not your private life - say that any political donations that you receive have to be declared.”

There are two key questions the voting public has here. The first pertains to the origin of the money. Who is Christopher Harborne? Is this some kind of pseudo-grant? A bribe?

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Alastair Campbell is one of the most influential, discussed, and divisive figures in modern British politics.

Rising to prominence in the ‘80s as Political Editor for the Daily Mirror, before moving to Today in the ‘90s, Alastair left journalism to become press secretary to the then-newly-elected opposition leader, Tony Blair. When Labour secured an electoral victory in 1997, Alastair also became Blair’s speechwriter and chief strategist. Ingratiating himself as a key figure in the New Labour movement, he would oversee two more re-election campaigns.

Since leaving his post under Blair, Alastair has kept busy, continuing to act as a freelance political advisor for various European governments, as well as editing The New World and interviewing for GQ. In 2022, Alastair partnered with Rory Stewart to launch The Rest Is Politics, which - at the time of writing - ranks as the single most popular podcast in Britain.

Why did we invite him on?

It’s always easier to criticise and prospect from the sidelines. To thrust utopianism on the real world without ever facing the consequences. It’s another thing entirely to make calls on the world stage.

We are fascinated by outspoken characters, especially those who have seen the machine from the inside. Alastair is one such case.

We wanted to explore Alastair’s assessment of Britain in 2026. The state of our politics, the fate of its people, and the marriage of the two as captured in the rise of populism.

We got that, and we got more.

What did we talk about?

‘Elites’, whether that be billionaires or academic authorities or career politicians, have never been less popular. For the first time in recent memory, credentials are a mark against you - the public wants one of their own. If you’re a hopeful political actor and want to pull people in on the left or right, you have no choice but to adopt the populist view. Whether Alastair likes it or not, the age of populism has arrived.

He doesn’t like it. Why not?

”It depends how you define it … For me, populism is about exploiting problems and not solving them. It’s not about meeting challenges together; it’s about driving people apart. That’s my take, and that’s why I don’t like it.”

Woven into Alastair’s definition is a key recognition: there are indeed problems. Some argue that they alone are sufficient explanations for the rise of populism. Alastair disagrees.

”There are some very effective political operators who have worked out that their route to power is populism as I define it. Trump in America, Farage here, we know who they are. One of the things I find so comical about the populist right is that they’re very nationalist, but they fight it on a global level. It’s such a con that they’ve tricked people into thinking they’re on the side of the people. They’re globalists fighting against globalism.”

Framed like that, it’s unclear how it caught on. If democracy is the sum wisdom of a population, why does Alastair think they keep falling for hucksters?

”There’s a sense that democratic politics wasn’t producing leaders that people felt were their leaders. I think Tony probably was the last one here. I didn’t like Thatcher, but when she was Prime Minister, I didn’t think ‘It’s ridiculous that she’s the Prime Minister’. I think that all the time now.”

Konstantin suggests that these criticisms ignore the real problems. They condemn the results of the problems more than the problems themselves For example, Farage came to prominence on a wave of anti-immigration sentiment which has percolated more and more over the last decade or so. Is his popularity his own fault, or a comment on how betrayed the British public feels about his chief issue?

Or take the case of the grooming gangs. If it had been tackled properly in the first place, would the “con-artists” Alastair talks about have been able to “exploit” it?

”I don’t know. Some of the anger is justified, but a lot of it isn’t.”

Konstantin lays out his view: 50,000 illegal immigrants should not be coming into the United Kingdom every calendar year. Is that a fair position?

”Depending on the wider context, it might not be.”

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What is happiness?

For as much as we dedicate our lives to it, the answer is unclear. It is elusive by nature; look directly at it, and it ceases to be.

It’s a problem that Arthur C. Books has dedicated his career to solving.

Returning to academia in the late ‘90s after a career in classical music, Arthur has explored the subject of contentment at several of America’s most prestigious higher-education centres, including Harvard Business School - where he continues to lecture today. Since the turn of the millennium, he has authored and co-authored a dozen books - including 2023’s Build The Life You Want, sharing credit with Oprah Winfrey. His latest - The Meaning Of Your Life: Finding Purpose In An Age of Emptiness - was published earlier this year.

Why did we invite him on?

However you define ‘happy’, one thing is inarguable: most people are not it. Much has been made of the 21st century’s “crisis of meaning” - a post-industrial condition whereby ordinary people, separated from the pursuit of their base needs and simultaneously locked out of adventure, are left scrambling for purpose.

That crisis manifests in ugly ways. Violence, sectarianism, and suicide, to name just a few. If human beings could find meaning in escaping it, perhaps the problem would solve itself.

But how?

That’s what we wanted to know, and Arthur seemed like precisely the person to ask.

What did we learn?

Before we can explore what happiness, it’s wise to identify what it isn’t. To Arthur, people often mistake it for lower-value goods. Some view it as nothing more than ‘pleasure’. This, he argues, is the root of all misunderstanding.

”Happiness is not a pursuit of pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure does not lead to happiness; it leads to rehab.”

Perhaps happiness isn’t the presence of something good, but the absence of something bad. Life is defined by suffering - grief, fear, stress, death - and maybe what we call ‘happiness’ is best understood as a temporary escape from these pressures. Is that closer to the truth?

Still no.

”Negative emotions and experiences are behind your survival. And yet, people don’t want them. That’s the conflict - they want something they know they can’t have. Happiness isn’t the absence of negative emotion … it’s a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning. Those are the macronutrients. Don’t pursue ‘happiness’, pursue those three things, and happiness will find you.”

”Enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning.” It’s a helpful framework, but are these terms any more easily defined than ‘happiness’. To test his hypothesis, we ask Arthur to break them down one by one.

”Enjoyment is the engagement of pleasurable things under the right circumstances … If you’re in Vegas at 4 in the morning, pulling the [slot machine arm] again and again, we’ll need to talk. But if you’re sat at the blackjack table, prudently gambling with money you can afford to lose, and surrounded by your best friends? That’s enjoyment.”

That’s straightforward enough, and difficult to argue with. Noble sacrifice might be admirable, but without any pleasure at all, it’s hard to call that ‘happiness’. What about satisfaction?

”Satisfaction is very paradoxical - it’s the enjoyment of an achievement reached through struggle. Only homo sapiens want pain; if you don’t have to give something up to achieve something else, you’ll get no sweetness from it. If a student cheats on an exam, they’ll get no satisfaction from their A. But this is where it gets weird…”

Here, Arthur explains something we all know, but rarely recognise. Have you ever noticed that the elation you feel after the attainment of a long-fought goal never sticks around? Have you wondered why? It’s because hardwired into the human brain is an evolutionary trap that keeps us from achieving long-term satisfaction but protects us from knowing that we won’t achieve it.

”There’s something called ‘the arrival fallacy’. It’s the idea that, because it was fun to make progress towards something challenging, the goal will be bliss. It never is. When people win an Olympic gold model, they fall into a clinical depression. Your emotions don’t work to put you in a permanently good mood, and we know that, but Mother Nature wants you fooled again and again and again so we stay in the hunt.”

With ‘enjoyment’ and ‘satisfaction’ now clearly defined, we can move on to the most challenging of the triumvirate - meaning. Everyone knows what enjoyment feels like, and the same is true for satisfaction. There will be a large number of people out there who have no personal experience of ‘meaning’ as it’s often described. So, how can we identify it?

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Establishing himself through a career of acclaimed books and programmes for TV and radio, rendering the tangled tales of history for an audience of millions, James Holland is one of Britain’s eminent popular historians. Today, he also co-chairs the Chalke Valley History Festival and co-hosts - with comedian Al Murray - the brilliant podcast, We Have Ways Of Making You Talk.

Why did we invite him on?

After Tucker Carlson’s highly contentious interview with amateur historian Darryl Cooper, we invited James on our show for the first time. Long-time admirers of his work, we felt he was the perfect candidate to explore the eminating myths of World War II revisionism. He was an exceptional guest, masterfully separating the fact from the fiction, and we knew instantly that we’d have him back again.

We also knew we wanted to go deep. Deep into the murky, disturbing world of the 20th century’s greatest monster: Hitler.

A telling of the dictator’s life has been missing from our historical catalogue. It’s such an immense subject, one so sensitive and densely woven, we couldn’t help but approach it with caution. Once it was covered, that was it. We had to get it right.

We had faith in James, and were thrilled when he accepted our offer to host him once more. The interview was scheduled to run for 90 minutes. By the time we wrapped filming, we’d gone for three hours.

What did we learn?

Typically, we would take the time here to share some of the highlights and insights from the interview.

In this case, that feels wholly inadequate. This is one of the longest, most detailed, and comprehensive conversations in the history of the channel. Dicing it up would defeat the point. Rather, we feel you should enjoy it in full. Believe us - you’ll want to.

Over the course of our three-hour exploration of the life of the last century’s great tyrant, we left no stone unturned. We talked about…

- Hitler’s distinct lack of charisma in his youth, and how his heroism in the First World War sets about a rebirth of character.
- How the momentum post-war spite shaped his political outlook, carried him to party leadership, and guided him to finding his voice.
- His 1000-year vision of Germany and how long-termism shaped the Nazi project.
- Whether the Nazis were a right- or left-wing party, or if it even matters.
- Their iconography and its subliminal messaging.
- The psychology of imperialism and initial expectations.
- The miscalculations in battle.
- His final throes of desperation…
- … and humiliating demise.

and ask what is arguably the most explosive question of all… Is there any feasible moral understanding of Hitler?

And yet, that’s still not all. These kinds of interviews come along only once in a while, and we can’t wait to share this one with you. The whole thing comes to Substack tonight before going out on YouTube and X tomorrow - 7PM UK / 2PM ET. Don’t miss it.

Bill’s story is one of the most fascinating we’ve ever heard.

A Brit born and raised in America to a Communist family, Bill moved to Russia as a young man and a ferocious capitalist.

”When I grew my hair long, that didn’t upset my family. When I followed the [jam band] Grateful Dead around the country, that didn’t upset my family. When I put on a suit and tie, that p*ssed them off good and proper.”

Specialising in Russian markets, Bill is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund which, in 1997, ranked as the best-performing investment fund in the world.

In 2005, in retaliation to his challenging of several large Russian corporations, Bill was refused entry to the country, deported to the UK, and declared a national threat.
Two years later, the firm’s Moscow offices were raided, and the man Bill assigned to investigate the raid’s cause - Sergei Magnitsky - was arrested, held without trial, before falling ill (a result of his mistreatment) and ultimately dying in custody.

After Magnitsky's death, Browder became devoted to political activism, lobbying for Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators. In 2012, it was signed into law by President Obama.

Bill has remained a steadfast enemy of the Kremlin ever since.

Why did we invite him on?

Bill’s unique experience with Russia has gifted him a unique insight. He’s seen the best and the worst the country can offer an individual, and hence possesses an intimate, unorthodox understanding of its quirks, curios, and dangerous components.

That extends to his assessment of their war with Ukraine.

To most in the West, Putin’s intentions are clear - to revive Russia’s dimmed glory by knocking back what he sees as European encroachment. It’s his attempt to assert himself as a once-in-a-century political figure, a Peter The Great-style figure for the 21st century.

Bill disagrees: Putin’s war in Ukraine is not a man-of-history story; it’s a cover-up.

Of what?

That’s what we wanted to find out.

What did we learn?

”When Putin came into power, he wasn’t a monster. He was a technocrat cracking down on the oligarchs. I was one of the people supporting him! When he got [former wealthiest man in Russia] Khodorkovsky, I thought ‘One down, twenty-one to go.’”

It’s remarkable to hear, given everything that would soon happen to him and his associates, how warmly Bill once felt about the Russian dictator. Initially, he seemed like the remedy for Russian corruption. It’s almost funny to think of that now.

Putin’s supposed crack-down on oligarchs turned out to be, unsurprisingly, self-serving. The only way they’d be allowed to continue to operate in Russia would be if they gifted 50% of their earnings to the President. Not the Presidential account, not the Kremlin - Putin himself.

This was the beginning of the autocrat’s shady efforts to enrich himself through his office.

”He stole too much. He’s been a crook since the beginning. Nobody goes into public service to serve the public. If you’re a traffic cop, it’s to extract bribes. If you want to be a building surveyor, you do it to extract bribes. The bribes just get bigger. Putin stole an exorbitant amount of money. More than you can imagine.”

Try us.

”Over the course of 22 years, up to the start of the war, Putin and a thousand other people stole over a trillion dollars from the Russian people. Money that should have been spent on roads and schools and electricity was instead spent on private jets and houses in the South of France.”

Eventually, everything comes to light. It’s only a matter of time before these crimes are exposed and, when they are, the people will want his head. This, Bill asserts, is the real motivation for the Ukraine War.

”He stole so much money that he’s afraid of his own people. The best way to have your own people not be mad at you is to invent someone else for them to be mad at. It’s Machiavelli 101: create a foreign enemy and start a war.”

The prospect of a million men storming the Kremlin might sound a little far-fetched. But is it?

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Dan Jones has quickly established himself as one of Britain’s favourite and most prolific young historians.

Since 2009, he has published 14 books, including 2012’s The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England, and in 2022, he released his first work of fiction, Essex Dogs, the first of a trilogy. In TV, he boasts the creation of several documentary series for Channel 5. He has also written for The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The New Statesman and GQ, and continues to write columns for the London Evening Standard.

Why did we invite him on?

We have a wish list of historical stories that we want to cover on our show, and while we’ve done a good job so far of ticking them off, one has sat waiting for years.

The Hundred Years’ War.

Despite being the longest military conflict in European history, its key events, main players, and consequences are firmly the domain of history nerds. The general public seems to know very little about it. We include ourselves in that.

We’ve wanted to have Dan back for some time, and this just so happens to be one of his areas of expertise. As far as guest and subject go, it’s a match made in heaven.

What did we learn?

Let’s start with the most important question: is the Hundred Years’ War why we hate the French?

”It’s certainly one of the ways that that relationship is shaped. You see it now, even in sporting events. If England were to play France in this World Cup, you can guarantee there would be a montage package ahead of it that would somehow reference the Hundred Years’ War, something about the plucky English taking on the French nobility and winning. Is it why we hate the French? I’m not sure it’s the reason, but it’s part of the story.”

Going back seven centuries, we encounter an England largely different from our own. France likewise. These are less recognisable as ‘nations’ as we now understand them, and more as “personal fiefdoms held together by monarchs.” Monarchs who held competing claims over one another’s kingdoms. It is that tension that, ultimately, starts the war.

”The war starts over a very specific incident. For decades, there had been squabbles between the kings of England and France, particularly over Gascony [an English-controlled territory in southwest France]. In 1328, there is a succession crisis over the French crown, and the young king of England - Edward III - got in his head that a way to solve it would be to claim to be the king of France himself. He decides that that would be his excuse for an expansive war, and also something he can use as a bargaining chip. Just under a decade later, he makes that claim officially.”

From 1337 onwards, kings of England perpetually made their claim to be king of France, and repeatedly found themselves going to war to enforce it. But already, what a diversion from the status quo. It invites the question: how radical was Edward III? What is his reputation in the annals of history?

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Across five full decades, Melanie has contributed to almost every British news institution, from beginning her career as a writer for The Guardian and the New Statesmen, to winning the Orwell Prize for her work at The Observer, to becoming a regular panellist on The Moral Maze and Question Time.

Today, Melanie’s work can be found in the likes of The Times, The Telegraph, the Jewish News Syndicate, and The Jewish Chronicle.

Why did we invite her on?

The last twelve months have seen Trump haemorrhage his coalition. Between the baffling handling of the Epstein scandal and the questionable wars with Iran, he’s lost the libertarians, the paleocons, and the disenfranchised liberals that accounted for his votership in 2024. Even some of his most ardent proponents - Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc. - have withdrawn support, the pair having recently gone as far as to leave the Republican Party.

For a time, it seemed his only defenders left were, outside of the ride-or-die ‘MAGA Republicans’, the pro-Israel right. In the wake of the prospective deal between the warring nations, he may have lost them too.

With the likes of Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin publicly scolding the President for ‘kowtowing’ to Iran, Trump is enduring a fresh wave of criticism from his last line of defence. At the least, he’s been accused of fumbling a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to quash a long-time rival once and for all. At most, he’s been labelled a traitor.

What’s the truth? Is he, as the deal’s advocates claim, finally putting America first, even if only far too late? Or is he surrendering the world’s greatest superpower to one of the most evil regimes of modern times?

We have our view, we want to have it challenged and Melanie is the perfect candidate for the task.

What did we learn?

Whether this MOA holds remains to be seen, but America and Iran find themselves as close to peace as they’ve been in months. Trump’s 40-odd claims of victory aside, it now looks like a possibility.

If you can call it “victory”, that is. To almost everyone, this looks like defeat.

”Trump goes to war with Iran and enjoys tremendous successes. But much to obvious his horror, the Iranian regime, having taken this great punishment … they didn’t [surrender]. Trump wanted a war done in weeks.”

So, what happened? If Trump was enjoying such ‘tremendous success’, why is he throwing in the towel?

To Melanie, Trump is responding to the worst actors in his party, giving in to the most shallow demands of his base. They don’t want war, so Trump’s not pursuing it. What it leaves us with is an incoherent narrative.

”From what I’ve been reading, the Israeli government went to Trump and told him that the only way to change the regime was to take the existing one out. The only way to do that was a war that would last a year. Trump [refused], so Israel adapted to what America wanted … Later, Iran has America by the throat. What do you do? Well, if you’re Trump, you say ‘We’ve won! Let’s now negotiate the terms of their surrender!’ None of it makes sense. If they’ve surrendered, it’s not a deal. If they’ve surrendered, what is there to negotiate? It was all total rubbish.”

Facing mid-term defeat, evacuating support and an economic hit at home, Trump found himself in an inexcusable, irreconcilable position. The America First President launched a war thousands of miles away and Americans are paying the price. How does he squirm free from that?

”He had to find a scapegoat, and that scapegoat is Israel.”

The last few weeks have seen various reports published of a souring relationship between the US and Israel. Most of it was, allegedly, going on behind closed doors. Now, that rift appears to be going public, with the likes of VP J.D. Vance warning Israel not to jeopardise the negotiations.

To Melanie, as the global perception of the Jewish state worsens, it becomes easier to ascribe one’s failings to them. Trump is merely taking advantage of that truth.

”In my view, this is wicked stuff. It contributes to this idea held by an unpleasant number of British people that Israel is somehow the aggressor in the region. They just don’t know what’s going on. He’s using the Israelis to explain why Iran isn’t cooperating. [If it weren’t for the Israelis], they’d all be friends. This is ludicrous, and tremendously dangerous.”

What is Melanie prescribing? Should Trump not negotiate for fear of emboldening a few keffiyah-draped protestors in London?

Melanie is not merely against this deal; she’s against any deal. Full stop. End of story. In her mind, negotiation itself is a form of surrender. The Iranian regime can and will endure much more pain for its mission than the West, and so will always win. There is nothing America or Israel can offer them that will veer them off course.

”The Iranian regime will never resile from its aim; firstly, to destroy the state of Israel, as a precursor to destroy America. The longer [the regime] goes on, the worse the eventual war will be for all of us.”

We disagree.

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Joanna Moncrief is, at once, one of the most radical and conservative thinkers in the field of psychiatry.

She is a Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at UCL and, in 1999, she co-founded the Critical Psychiatry Network - an advocacy group of psychiatrists seeking reform of the current treatment of mental illness. Her books - The Myth of the Chemical Cure and The Bitterest Pills - have since become foundational texts of the movement.

Her latest, Chemically Balanced: The Building and Unbuilding Of the Serotonin Myth, was released last year.

Why did we invite her on?

In 2022, she (along with fellow psychiatrist Dr Mark Horowitz) undertook her most significant project to date, seeking to answer what is arguably the most consequential, pervasive psychological problem of our time: where does ‘depression’ come from? Does it even ‘come from’ anywhere?

For decades, the consensus read that depression was merely a “chemical imbalance” - an insufficiency of serotonin. With the right diet of drugs, it could be remedied. Joanna and Mark’s umbrella review, drawing upon a wealth of research, found that there was no such relationship. In their words, "there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity".

So, what does that mean? Can depression be treated? Is it even real?

History is littered with explanations for mental illness that we now, in enlightened times, find baffling. Demonic possession, Saturn’s influence, an imbalance of the humours, too much black bile - all easily dealt with via exorcism, inhaling pleasant smells, or having a hole bored in your skull.

These beliefs are, thankfully, at no risk of making a comeback. Trouble is, that’s no guarantee that we don’t have misguided beliefs of our own. Beliefs that, through the infrastructure of the billion-limbed pharma industry, have become so entrenched, so endorsed for profit, that they may prove difficult to disentangle. If Joanna’s claim is correct, millions have been lied to.

As soon as we read Chemically Imbalanced, we knew she would make for a perfect guest.

What did we learn?

”We treat depression like cancer; we think we can treat everyone the same way. And that’s what we do. We give them antidepressants, cognitive behavioural therapy. These might work, but I think we should see it differently.”

Some may read into Joanna’s words a contempt for modern psychiatry. This would be false. Rather, she’s suspicious of the practice’s one-size-fits-all approach - treating the symptoms rather than the underlying problems. In Chemically Imbalanced, she strives to take the totality of research and derive the solution from that. It turns out, there is much more contradiction than we’ve been led to believe.

For decades, the average person has been fed the line that depression can be reduced to a lack of the right chemicals in one’s brain. A disharmony of the glands. If they can be righted, the symptoms will go away and hey presto, no more depression.

Some studies support this hypothesis. Some. The truth is much more complicated.

”There are thousands of studies. Some of them find a link between serotonin and depression, that it’s a bit lower in people who have it. Some find that there is no relationship, some even find that serotonin is higher in people with depression. So, taken all together, overall, there is no consistent evidence of an abnormality either way.”

While it may feel like an unchallenged, axiomatic truth now, Joanna is keen to stress this wasn’t always the case. That we all now believe it is no accident - it was the deliberate, and expensive, work of a billion-dollar industry that got us to this point.

”The idea that depression was caused an abnormality of the brain or a chemical imbalance has been around for a long time, but it wasn’t widely accepted among the general public. In the ‘90s, the pharmaceutical industry launched campaigns to spread this idea. They did it to sell more drugs.”

And it worked. For all the campaigning that’s been done to raise awareness of mental health troubles, millions of people are quietly dependent on these drugs. Someone you know has likely revealed to you that they take them. Dozens you know have not.

”8.7 million in England take SSRIs. That works out at 15-17% of the adult population. It’s absolutely staggering.”

For just shy of 9 million people to be using something, it must work in some way. These receipients have to be getting something out of it, otherwise why would they bother? Why wouldn’t they go back to their medical professional and report that the drugs had had no effect?

Joanna corrects us: they are having an effect. It’s not disputed that antidepressants can alter one’s mood. The query is why, and at what cost.

”The mainstream view is that these drugs are targeted some kind of underlying abnormality. Drugs that enter the brain are going to change our normal feeling states. Think of alcohol; you can be feeling very depressed, have a shed load of alcohol and feel better. It’s not solving anything except in the moment. Most antidepressants have an emotionally numbing effect. People on them often can’t cry, or feel overjoyed. They might not feel as intensely sad as they once did, but whether that effect is beneficial is questionable.”

There is one thing that serotonin is credibly connected to. Unfortunately, though phonetically similar, it’s not happiness.

”There has been research into what serotonin levels [actually] effect. The only thing where there seems to be a meaningful correlation is sexual function, and it’s bad for it. The more serotonin you have, the less likely you are to want sex, or for your sexual organs to work properly.”

Depression, however unpleasant, may not be a bad thing. In the same way that the suffering one feels when they burn their hand on the stove isn’t ‘bad’. It’s your body’s way of conveying crucial information. One can look at someone who has recently been made redundant, or undergone a painful breakup, or received other terrible news, and the ensuing depression is no surprise. In fact, it’s probably a good thing they have that response - it demonstrates a sensitivity to their circumstances. Proves that they’re tuned into their own life.

In cases like that, depression might be, on some level, desirable. If nothing else, it inspires the patient to act. But what about cases where depression is not so easily explained? Where, on the face of it, the patient’s life is one of prosperity, security and pleasure?

This kind is often called ‘clinical depression’ - a condition more serious, less coherent than merely ‘being depressed’. One that requires medical intervention.
Even among those who are sceptical of medications, ‘clinical depression’ is frequently given a carve-out, treated as an exception to the rule.

Now, we find ourselves asking: does it even exist?

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