UnHerd with Freddie Sayers

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks to author, Oxford academic, and Royal Geographical Society fellow Charles Foster about his book 'The Edges of the World', exploring why true creativity, spiritual growth, and human flourishing occur at the volatile margins rather than the static centres of life, evolution, and society.

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This week, riots and looting have spread across French cities after protests over education spiralled out of police control. To some, this is a cautionary tale of unbridled immigration and a warning to other European powers. But look closer and there might be more to the story than you'd find on an X feed. To analyse the mood on the ground and the wider context of the crisis, Freddie is joined by historian of French culture Andrew Hussey and writer Philippe Lemoine.

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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks to MIT evolutionary engineer Kevin Esvelt about a suspicious biological researcher's death in Irkutsk, Russia, using the incident to explore the escalating biosecurity risks posed by engineered pandemic weapons, vaccine-evading pathogens, and AI-accelerated gain-of-function research.

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Dr Iain McGilchrist has dedicated decades of neuroscience research to unravelling the inner workings of the human mind. But now, a new form of ‘consciousness’ has come to compete with the very idea of being a person. Could artificial intelligence overtake its creators? Join the psychiatrist, philosopher and author of the bestselling book The Master and His Emissary, for a live on-stage conversation with UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers.

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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks to Oxford philosopher Professor Nick Bostrom about the escalating concerns over artificial intelligence, weighing whether catastrophic warnings from industry insiders reflect genuine existential fears or commercial strategy, while analysing technical threats like deceptive alignment and autonomous AI coordination alongside the broader economic, geopolitical, and societal risks of managing superintelligence.

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Freddie Sayers talks to UnHerd columnist and co-host of The Econoclasts Wolfgang Munchau about the political earthquake triggered by the hard-Right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) historic election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, examining why young voters and non-voters are turning away from the centrist consensus, the total failure of Germany’s political ‘firewall’ strategy, the collapse of Friedrich Merz’s leadership within the CDU, and how a rising wave of hard-Right governments across France, Italy, and Germany could ultimately paralyse the European Union.

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Jason Arday, the wunderkind sociologist and youngest ever black professor at Cambridge, has an almost unbelievable backstory. Overcoming illiteracy and autism, he became the jewel in the crown of the university’s pivot towards diversity post-2021. He has been lauded by celebrities, raised millions for charity, suffered abuse from detractors and found time to run hundreds of miles. Or has he? Kathleen Stock, former professor at Sussex University, speaks to UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers about her viral investigation into academia’s ‘DEI darling’ and the plagiarism scandal that shocked Britain.

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Freddie Sayers is joined by UnHerd columnist and author Ross Barkan - a former campaign colleague of Zohran Mamdani - to discuss the New York Mayor’s rapid political rise and the controversies defining his tenure. They unpack Mamdani's anti-capitalist economic policies, his radical stance on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and assess what his brand of democratic socialism signals for the future trajectory of the Democratic Party and American politics as a whole.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt about the global momentum toward banning under-16s from social media, exploring the tension between protecting children from addictive platforms and safeguarding free speech from state censorship, while outlining how device-based age checks offer a viable solution where traditional parental controls fail.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to American political scientist, author, and prominent scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Norman Finkelstein, about the fracturing of the historically ironclad alliance between the political Right and Israel. They explore how a mixture of 'America First' anti-war sentiment and the financial incentives of the podcast economy have made criticising Israel a lucrative tool for Right-wing influencers, from Tucker Carlson to Candace Owens.

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In this exclusive UnHerd interview Freddie Sayers meets Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor under Joe Biden and chief negotiator during the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Jake Sullivan co-hosts the weekly national security podcast ‘The Long Game’ with Jon Finer, former deputy national security advisor under Sullivan.

Freddie and Jake analyse the geopolitical and financial implications of the Trump administration's memorandum of understanding with Iran. Could the concessions of the agreement that suspended the conflict to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an unprecedented financial windfall of unfrozen assets, waived oil sanctions, and a controversial $300 bill...

Freddie Sayers talks to The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles and UnHerd US editor Sohrab Ahmari to explore how Pope Leo XIV’s landmark AI encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is exposing deep philosophical and political fractures within the American populist Right over global technology regulation, transnational governance, and the Trump administration's relationship with the Vatican.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to John Burn-Murdoch, the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, as well as Hernan Moscoso-Boedo and Nathan Hudson from the University of Cincinnati, to investigate a controversial new study suggesting that the global proliferation of smartphones and social media since 2007 has drastically altered young people's behaviour, halved face-to-face socialisation, and accelerated a worldwide collapse in fertility rates that cannot simply be explained by the global financial crisis.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with journalist, author, and historian Adrian Wooldridge about the systemic leadership crisis facing the UK, exploring how the rapid decline of Keir Starmer's Labour government mirrors the previous Conservative downfall and reflects a broader decay of liberalism that necessitates a radical reinvigoration of the centrist tradition.

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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks with Odd Arne Westad – Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University – about his new book The Coming Storm, which argues that rather than entering a new Cold War, we are actually reliving the high-tension multipolarity of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a dangerous era where rapid technological shifts, the collapse of globalisation, and the friction between a rising China and a nervous United States mirror the exact structural conditions that caused the world to sleepwalk into the catastrophe of World War 1.

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Freddie Sayers talks with UnHerd’s Aris Roussinos reporting from Hungary about the downfall of Viktor Orban’s long-standing administration at the hands of Peter Magyar, explaining that while the landslide victory for the Tisza party appears to be a win for the European establishment, it is actually a political shift that represents a rebranding of the Right rather than a return to liberalism and serves as a primary example of how the broader European continent continues to drift towards the Right.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with neuroscientist and philosopher Dr. Iain McGilchrist about the psychological and cultural crisis resulting from our modern reliance on the brain's analytical left hemisphere, a perspective that views the world as a collection of inanimate parts rather than a living whole, while making a compelling case for the rehabilitation of myth and religious tradition as essential pathways to a deeper, relational truth that can protect Western civilisation from the dehumanising effects of purely mechanistic thinking.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers discusses the ongoing military campaign in Iran with former National Security Advisor John Bolton who delivers a blunt critique of the current administration by arguing that sporadic strikes are a strategic mistake and that the United States must instead commit to a total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the ultimate goal of regime change to permanently neutralise the threat of a nuclear armed Tehran, while simultaneously delivering a scathing personal assessment of President Trump's impulsive decision-making process.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with retired Major General Randy Manner, a highly decorated veteran with over 35 years of service, who delivers a scathing analysis of the Trump administration's floated military objectives in the Persian Gulf, specifically examining the tactical viability and global economic risks of seizing Iran's Kharg Island oil depot and nuclear materials, while also exploring his deep-seated concerns regarding the qualifications of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the potential strain on the military's constitutional fealty.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in his first international interview since his resignation from the Trump administration. A highly decorated Green Beret and CIA veteran, Kent became the most senior official to step down in protest of the ongoing war in Iran, which he describes as a ‘quagmire’ driven by external pressure rather than national interest. In this wide-ranging conversation, Kent alleges that the U.S. was misled into the conflict by the Israel lobby, shares personal reflections on the death of his wife in a ‘manufactured’ war, and raises question...

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with The Economist’s defence editor, Shashank Joshi, to dissect the frightening new reality of ‘democratised warfare’ in the Strait of Hormuz. As Iran utilises low-cost drones, ‘smart mines’, and autonomous suicide boats to threaten 20% of the world's oil supply, Joshi explains the shift from traditional naval battles to a war of economic attrition and investigates whether the price of entry for war has been permanently lowered - and what it means for the future of global stability.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, Helen Thompson, to dismantle the mainstream narrative surrounding the conflict in the Middle East. Moving beyond the idea that the U.S. is stumbling into war, Thompson reveals a possible strategic plan by the Trump administration to weaponise energy markets against China, while exploring how the closure of the Strait of Hormuz serves American interests in the global AI race, and how a reverse Suez moment is fundamentally redrawing the map of global power.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, Robert Pape, to discuss the high-stakes ‘escalation trap’ unfolding between the United States and Iran - breaking down the tactical successes and failures of the US military campaign and analysing how Iran is leveraging its geographical position and control of the Strait of Hormuz through low-cost drone and missile harassment. As Professor Pape draws comparisons to the Vietnam War and 1973 oil crisis, has the Trump administration lost control of the conflict's trajectory, and are we moving toward a dangerous ground power dilemma that threatens the global econ...

UnHerd’s Flo Read hosts an exploration into the global exorcism boom, investigating why demand for spiritual deliverance has tripled in the last decade and why Gen Z, in particular, is leading a resurgence in supernatural belief. A panel featuring historian Dr. Francis Young, Anglican deliverance minister Rev. Dr. Jason Bray, and legal expert Professor Helen Hall unpack the shift to a post-pandemic ‘spiritual marketplace’ where social media-fuelled occultism and ancient theology collide, and address the safeguarding risks and legal complexities of performing exorcisms in a multicultural society.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers hosts a debate on the internal future of Iran featuring two clashing geopolitical perspectives: Professor Edward Luttwak - a strategist and expert on international diplomacy, who argues that the Trump administration is successfully pursuing a strategy to achieve regime change via surgical airstrikes; and Dr Arta Moeini - international political theorist and a realist thinker, who warns that the West is dangerously underestimating the resilience of Iran’s decentralised "total state”, and that direct attacks could fuel a civil war that accelerates a global shift toward a new world order dominated by China.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers and US editor Sohrab Ahmari unpick the ideological fracture within the Republican party following the escalatory US strikes against Iran. From the notable silence of JD Vance to the resurging influence of Lindsey Graham, they explore how Donald Trump’s "Peace Admin" shifted toward a hawk-like interventionism agenda reminiscent of the George W. Bush era, at a decisive moment in the battle for the soul of American foreign policy.

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In the wake of Obama's on-air revelation that he believes in aliens and Trump's move to declassify government UFO documents, UnHerd invites two world experts to make the best case for hope and doubt about extraterrestrial life. Michael Shermer, Skeptic magazine founder and author of the new book Truth (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-What-Find-Still-Matters/dp/142145372X), and Harvard astronomer Prof. Avi Loeb ask: are we alone in the universe?

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to journalist Michael Tracey about the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and what Tracey describes as a "moral panic" surrounding the Epstein scandal. Tracey challenges the mainstream narrative, arguing that the case against the former Prince relies on fictionalised accounts and inconsistent testimony from the late Virginia Giuffre, and by examining recently surfaced FBI memos and the charges of misconduct in public office, suggests that the current constitutional crisis is driven more by mass hysteria and media credulity than by unassailable legal evidence.

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UnHerd’s Jonny Ball meets historian, academic, and author Anton Jäger to discuss his new book ‘Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences’, charting the pronounced shift in engagement and death of political institutions since the 1980s via analysis of movements like Brexit, BLM, and the rise of the far-Right.

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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers meets with former Danish Minister for Immigration and Integration, Kaare Dybvad Bek – fresh from his high-profile talk at the Policy Exchange - to explore how his centre-Left Social Democrats party successfully implemented hardline immigration policies to reduce asylum applications to their lowest in 40 years. He argues that by curbing uncontrolled migration, the Danish government has effectively neutralised the populist far-Right and maintained public trust in the welfare state, offering a blueprint for other European leaders - including Keir Starmer - on how to manage borders from a progressive, pro-labour perspective.

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UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with senior editor at Reason, Robby Soave, about the long-awaited release of the Epstein Files and the fallout following the disclosure. Has the dump of millions of unverified documents sparked a modern-day witch hunt, where gossip is mistaken for evidence and guilt by association replaces due process? They explore how both ends of the political spectrum have weaponised the files to smear opponents, the high cost of sacrificing privacy, and why the lone “no” vote in Congress may have been the most prescient voice of all.

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UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers explores the upcoming high-stakes by-election of Gorton and Denton with a deep dive into the constituency and its localised microcosm of global populist trends. He is joined by Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester, Rob Ford, founder and editor of the Manchester Mill, Joshi Herrmann, and councillors Allan Hopwood (Reform) and Shahbaz Sarwar (Workers Party) to analyse whether the Labour stronghold will crumble under pressure from a surging Green Party or a high-profile Reform UK campaign led by Matt Goodwin within a new landscape of sectarian identity politics and deepening public frustration with th...

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to eminent economist and social scientist Professor Glenn Loury about a troubling new shift in American discourse: the rise of Right-wing identity politics. Traditionally a critic of the woke Left, Loury turns his sights on the world’s wealthiest man, arguing that Elon Musk is making a "category mistake" by importing South African racial anxieties into the American context. By embracing white solidarity and racial essentialism, Loury argues, the Right is not defeating identity politics, but is instead adopting a politically destructive mirror image of the very ideology they claim to oppose.

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In this exclusive interview, UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers speaks with Professor John Bew - leading historian and chief foreign policy advisor to the last four UK Prime Ministers – about the friction caused by the Trump administration's push to acquire Greenland and the resulting panic within the Western alliance. Set against the backdrop of the 2026 Davos summit, the conversation confronts the 'break glass' moment facing Western leaders and explores the uncomfortable reality of our current era: Will the UK shift from economic dependency toward restoring its own national power to navigate a scary new era of ‘bully powers’? Is the Western alliance...

Freddie Sayers debates the killing of Renee Good by ICE Agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis with civil liberties attorney Jenin Younes and UnHerd’s US editor Sohrab Ahmari, examining the incident through the lens of the "Rashomon effect" where observers draw diametrically opposite conclusions from the same evidence. Was the shooting a catastrophic violation of civil liberties and potentially an illegal execution, or does the responsibility lie with Good for obstructing a lawful federal operation and “weaponising" her vehicle, a view echoed by the Trump administration's branding of the event as an act of domestic terrorism. The discussion concludes with YouG...

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers speaks with author and Cambridge professor Helen Thompson, economist Pippa Malmgren, and Danish MEP Henrik Dahl about the Trump administration's escalating rhetoric and strategic moves to acquire Greenland. Covering the historical legal underpinnings of Danish sovereignty while analysing modern geopolitical drivers such as the Monroe Doctrine, Arctic militarisation, and the essential role of the region in a new space race for strategic security dominance, they explore how the Greenland situation is symptomatic of a profound breakdown in trust between Washington and Western Europe, with the administration increasingly viewing European leadership as obstructive political rivals in a sh...

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Yanis Varoufakis about the unsettling rise of AI-generated deepfakes, using Varoufakis’s own experience as one of the most synthesised figures on YouTube as a chilling case study. The conversation delves into the "techno-feudal" power structures of Big Tech, where algorithms prioritise engagement and "rent-seeking" over truth, allowing misinformation to spread rapidly while the victims struggle to reclaim their own digital identities.

Moving beyond the personal, they explore an imminent future in which audiovisual evidence can no longer be trusted, debating whether this will lead to a new era where arguments ar...

Order 'The Golden Thread: A History of the Western Tradition' by Professor James Hankins here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Golden-Thread-Ancient-World-Christendom/dp/1641773995

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with Professor James Hankins, a forty-year veteran of Harvard University, about the precarious state of the Western tradition and the burgeoning resistance movement in classical education. Moving through a 2,500-year narrative arc from the ancient Greek invention of reason to the modern-day "cult of innovation," Hankins warns that elite institutions are suffering from a dangerous cultural amnesia. But, despite the degradation of the canon, offers a defiant hope rooted in...

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), about a new report revealing that 2025 has officially surpassed 2020 as the worst year on record for campus censorship and scholar sanctions. Despite the Trump administration’s campaign promises to restore free expression, Lukianoff details a disturbing shift where the political right has adopted the very cancel culture tactics it once decried, led by government officials who are now directly intervening to investigate, defund, and even deport students for controversial speech. From the fallout of the Charlie Kirk assassination to the use of executive or...

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Steve Gallant, a convicted murderer who served 16 years in prison and became known as a hero during the 2019 London Bridge terror attack, where he famously helped subdue the attacker, Usman Khan, with a narwhal tusk on his first-ever day release.

Gallant recounts the dramatic events of that day, which led to a royal pardon and an early release, but the conversation delves deeper into the complex reality of rehabilitation and the growing threat of organised Islamist terror networks—or "the Brotherhood"—who are gaining authority and converting other inmates within the UK's...