Thinking Class

Professor Andrew Hussey OBE is Dean of the University of London Institute in Paris and Director of the Centre for Post-Colonial Studies at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. Born in Liverpool, educated at the University of Manchester and Jean Moulin University Lyon 3, he is the author of The French Intifada (Faber, 2014), Paris: The Secret History (Penguin, 2006), The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (Jonathan Cape, 2001), and Fractured France. He was awarded an OBE for services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and France. He writes for the Observer, the Guardian, and...

Professor Gregory Clark is a British-born economic historian at the University of California, Davis and holds a DNRF Chair at the Danish National Research Foundation and a professor at the Historical Economics and Development Group (HEDG) at the Department of Economics, SDU. Furthermore, he is a Visiting Professor at London School of Economics (LSE) and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UC Davis. He is the author of A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World and The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility.

In this conversation Greg and I think...

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Consultant Emeritus of the Bethlem and Maudsley Hospital, London, a former research Fellow in neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and since September 2025 the Chancellor of Ralston College. He lives on the Isle of Skye. He is the author of The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale University Press, 2009) and The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the...

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom and a member of the advisory board for Restore Britain. 

Firas Modad is an analyst and political economist focused on the Middle East and global geopolitics. He runs his own consultancy, Modad Geopolitics, helping companies and investors understand the commercial impact of political, economic, and security risks they face. Firas Modad is a host on Podcast of the LotusEaters.

Britain built its economy on the assumption that global stability was permanent. The Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed for n...

Lord Tony Sewell CBE is a British educational consultant, author, and life peer. Born in Brixton to Jamaican parents, he trained as a teacher and worked in some of London's most challenging schools, during which time he completed his PhD on black masculinities and schooling at the University of Nottingham. He helped transform education in Hackney as part of the team that established the Learning Trust and the iconic Mossbourne Academy, a flagship of the Academy movement. He is the founder and chair of Generating Genius, a charity that has helped hundreds of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into...

Jonathan Rose is William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University in New Jersey. He edits the journal Book History and was founding president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. He is the author of several books including The Literary Churchill and The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes.

For the better part of two centuries, the British working class sustained one of the most remarkable intellectual traditions in any civilisation. Miners read Shakespeare. Engine-men debated Darwin. Workmen's institutes built libraries of tens of thousands of volumes. Literacy was not...

Gary Gerstle is Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Cambridge and the author of The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order — one of the most clarifying accounts written of how a set of economic assumptions came to dominate Western politics, and how they are now collapsing. He is currently Kluge Chair of American Law and Governance at the Library of Congress, working on his next book, Politics in Our Time: Authoritarian Peril and Democratic Hope in the Twenty-First Century, forthcoming from Penguin Press.

The neoliberal order is over — the set of idea...

Theodore Dalrymple is the pen name of Dr. Anthony Daniels — physician, psychiatrist, and social diagnostician. He spent years working in the hospitals and prisons of Birmingham before his essays for City Journal established him as the foremost chronicler of what he called the culture of the British underclass. His writing has also appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, New Statesman, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, The New English Review, and The Wall Street Journal. Theodore has authored numerous books, his book Life at the Bottom is twenty-five years old this ye...

Michael Lind is a political theorist, historian, and one of America's most rigorous independent analysts of class, democracy, and political economy. He is a Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, a co-founder of the New America think tank, and a visiting professor at the University of Austin. He has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and previously served as an assistant to the Director of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs at the US Department of State.

His books include The New Class War...

Dr. Carl R. Trueman is Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania and currently a visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. His most recent books are The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Expressive Individualism, Cultural Amnesia, and the Road to Sexual Revolution, (with Bruce Gordon) The Oxford Handbook to Calvin and, and To Change All Worlds: Critical Theory from Marx to Marcuse (B and H). His writing has appeared in Deseret Journal, Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, American Mind, Claremont Review of Books and Public Discourse. 

Richard IV is a writer, cultural commentator and men's mentor whose work has helped thousands of men in Britain and across the West understand what has gone wrong and what can still be recovered.

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam speaks with Richard about the invisible order that once gave men a path through life — the initiatory traditions, the moral codes, the religious inheritance — and what has happened to the men who grew up without it. They discuss why so many young men in Britain are adopting a roadman identity that has nothing to do with...

Kathleen Stock is a Contributing Editor to UnHerd, a philosopher, author of Material Girls and Do Not Go Gentle, and one of the most forensically precise thinkers in British public life.

A bill is moving through the British Parliament right now that would allow doctors to help their patients die. Its proponents call it assisted dying. Its opponents call it assisted suicide. In Canada, five percent of all deaths now occur through the state-sanctioned equivalent. In Belgium, they have extended it to newborn babies. Canada will allow it for those with mental illness alone from 2027.

...

For decades, the British Empire in India has been reduced to a simple moral claim: that it was an extractive, exploitative system which left only damage behind.

But is that really the full story?

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam is joined by Lord Nigel Biggar and Professor Tirthankar Roy to examine what the British Empire — and the East India Company before it — actually did in India, and how that history continues to shape the present.

One of India's leading economic historians, Professor Tirthankar Roy challenges the dominant narrative from within — and hi...

Will Tanner is a writer and commentator on history, politics, and the late imperial world, whose work explores the realities of decolonisation and what followed in its wake. Will is the Co-Founder of the American Tribune and he is the host of the podcast The Old World with Will Tanner.

What happens after empire ends and what should the West learn from it?

In this episode of Thinking Class, Will Tanner discusses decolonisation not as an abstract academic slogan, but as a historical process with real political, social, and civilisational consequences.

We explore...

John Waters is an Irish journalist, author, and columnist known for his work with Hot Press, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent. He has written on social and political issues, specialising in father's rights and cultural critiques. 

Ireland changed faster than almost any country in the West. The question now is whether the Irish still recognise the nation they live in. In this episode of Thinking Class, we discuss the moral, cultural and demographic transformation of Ireland over the course of John Waters' lifetime.

We explore the Ireland of his youth — ethnically and culturally hom...

Michael Reiners is a writer, lawyer, and architectural historian. Michael is the founder of the Reiners Project, which publishes essays, draft legislation and commentary on English constitutional law and the art and architectural landscape. 

Britain’s constitutional settlement has changed more in the last few decades than most people realise — and the consequences now reach into identity, speech, governance, and the question of who the country is for.

This episode forms part of Thinking Class’ ongoing inquiry: The Question of the West — examining the political, cultural, and civilisational foundations of our common life.

We d...

Lord Nigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, theologian, and moral philosopher, a member of the House of Lords, and Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford.  His most recent books are The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture War, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights?, In Defence of War, and Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation. In the press he has written articles for the Financial Times, the (London) Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the (Glasgow} Herald, the Irish Times, Standpoint, The Critic, The Article, UnHerd and...

Lionel Shriver is a novelist and columnist at The Spectator, and the author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, Mania, and A Better Life among many other books.

Lionel Shriver returns to Thinking Class to discuss mass immigration in the West—not as an abstract moral debate, but as a lived experience reshaping belonging, institutions, and politics.

We start with Lionel’s new novel A Better Life, which tackles immigration through fiction from the host-country’s point of view. We explore why the “native-born” perspective is rarely told, what happens when immigration becomes mass-scale, and why vo...

Lord Jonathan Sumption is a British judge and historian, who served as a Supreme Court Justice from 2012 – 2018. He is the author of The Challenges of Democracy And The Rule Of Law, the Sunday Times bestseller Trials of the State, Law in a Time of Crisis, and Divided Houses, which won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize.

Across Britain and the wider West democratic decision-making is increasingly being hollowed out by courts, by bureaucracies, by delayed elections, by restrictions on speech, and by a political class that often appears unwilling to govern according to the public will.

In th...

Dr Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and is the editor at the online women’s magazine Theology of Home. Carrie’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, Daily Wire, First Things, Newsweek, The American Spectator, The Catholic Thing, The Federalist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Examiner. She is a frequent radio and podcast guest and has appeared on Fox, BBC, CBC, EWTN, OAN, and Russia Times television. She is the best-selling author of eleven books including The Marian Option, and The Anti-Mary Exposed, The End...

Dr. Bijan Omrani is a classicist, historian, and Oxford-educated barrister. His research explores questions of religious history and cultural identity, spanning from ancient Roman Greece to Afghanistan and the Silk Road. He has taught Classics at Eton College and Westminster School, is a former editor of Asian Affairs, and currently serves as a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. He is also a churchwarden.

Dr. Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert is the director of the organisation Don't Divide Us. She is an educator, academic, author, and campaigner who believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality. 

What d...

Firas Modad is an analyst and political economist focused on the Middle East and global geopolitics. He runs his own consultancy, Modad Geopolitics, helping companies and investors understand the commercial impact of political, economic, and security risks they face. Firas Modad is a host on Podcast of the LotusEaters.

Firas examines how Britain’s security is being quietly undermined at home and abroad, and why so few in the political class are willing to confront the scale of the problem.

In this conversation, we think out loud about:

Professor Azar Gat, one of the world’s leading scholars of nationalism, war, and political identity.

Professor Gat is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the author of several major works on conflict and political order, including War in Human Civilization and, most notably for this conversation, Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism.

In that book — and in our discussion today — Gat challenges one of the most dominant assumptions of modern political thought: that nations are merely recent inventions, artificial constructs, or the superficial products of elite...

Renaud Camus, writer, painter, photographer, was born in 1946. He is now the author of more than one hundred and sixty works. His works are marked by the question of meaning and the fight against the industrialisation of man and the massacre of landscapes. 

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam and essayist Renaud Camus engage in a wide-ranging conversation about what Camus has long described as “the disaster” — the civilisational, cultural, and demographic transformations reshaping France, Britain, and much of the Western world.

Camus is widely known in public debate for his writings on demogra...

William Clouston is the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the United Kingdom and a member of the advisory board for Restore Britain. 

In this conversation, William Clouston and I think out loud about the current state of British politics, focusing on the disconnect between government promises and actual governance. We explore:

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at The University of Buckingham and Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science. He directs Buckingham’s new MA in the Politics of Cultural Conflict and PhD in Cultural Politics as well as its open online course on Woke: the Origins, Dynamics and Implications of an Elite Ideology. He is the author of Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution, Whiteshift: Immigration, Populism and the Future of White Majorities, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth, The Rise and Fall of Anglo-America, The Orange Order and one other book. He is co...

Stephen Balogh is the Chairperson for the Social Democratic Party. Stephen is also active in non-profit and public policy organisations that promote the flourishing of society through the thoughtful application of socially responsible, small-c conservative politics. Following a 30-year business career, he now devotes his time to initiatives aimed at community building from local neighbourhood to international levels, whether by means of social, political or commercial exchange. Stephen has also acted as New Culture Forum’s National Organiser, helping to establish a network of “NCF Locals” groups around Great Britain and he has acted as contributing author to two NCF pu...

Driss Ghali is a political author and speaker. Driss was born in Morocco and educated in Europe. He graduated from prestigious French universities and spent a lot of time in a corporate career focused on high-tech companies. Driss is an intellectual and observer of human nature as it is: ugly and splendid at the same time. Since 2017, he has written books about violence and identity. Driss frequently appears in French media to talk about immigration, diversity, the Middle East and French politics. One of his books has been translated into English titled, A Counter-History of French Colonization.

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Neema Parvini is the author of nine books including Applied Elite Theory, The Prophets of Doom, The Populist Delusion, The Defenders of Liberty, Shakespeare's Moral Compass. He has also written dozens of chapters and articles in scholarly publications and the media. Neema is the Director of Academic Agency, which he set up to focus on core academic skills and knowledge areas which can help students and learners of all ages to achieve both academic excellence and improve communication and research skills in the workplace. He runs the YouTube channel Academic Agent and the Substack The Forbidden Texts.

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Alexander Chula is a medical doctor and writer working in London. His first book, Goodbye. Dr Banda was published 2023.

In this episode, Alexander and I think out loud about what an African dictator can teach the West about itself, how multiculturalism impacts conceptions of personal and national identity, the perceived cultural openness of modern society compared to the past and why engagement by middle-class Westerners on with foreign cultures on their travels are superficial in their nature, why this is a quick contrasts this with the more profound respect and curiosity exhibited by earlier generations, including those...

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

Martin Sellner joins John Gillam to address the sensitive topic of remigration and national identity in contemporary Europe. Placing demographic shifts and political identity in historical perspective, this conversation explores why questions about cultural cohesion and national futures are increasingly central...

David Betz is Professor of War in the Department of War Studies at King's College London where he heads the MA War Studies programme. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Prof. Betz's most recent book, The Guarded Age: Fortification in the 21st Century, is published by Polity.

In this episode, David and I think out loud about the role of political institutions in civil conflict, the impact of demographics on politics & how the election of Zohran Mamdani for Mayor of New York City and continued election of Sadiq Khan for the...

Nina Power is a philosopher, writer, and author of books including What Do Men Want?: Masculinity and Its Discontents. Nina runs philosophy courses with Verdurin and is also the author of the Substack Nina Power and the host of the podcast The Lack.

In this episode, Nina and I think out loud about whether the end of liberalism is real, whether post-liberalism is a dead end, why lots of English people keep invoking Tolkien and the scouring of the Shire, whether there's an England left to be saved, what a restoration of Britain would like beyond deportations...

Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the UCL, where he researches and teaches on the topics of international order, multinational military intervention, and conflict management. He has 20 years of academic experience, having previously worked as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kent and a Temporary Lecturer at the UK’s Joint Services Command and Staff College. He obtained his PhD in War Studies from King’s College London. He has also worked as a contributor to the Economist Intelligence Unit.

He is a prolific author and editor, having published eight books and numerous acad...

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

Paul has written extensively about working-class politics and culture, including for UnHerd, The Huffington Post, The Spectator, Spiked and Compact. His first book is Despised: why the modern Left loathes the working class, which was published in 2020.

In...

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

Nigel is the author of several acclaimed works, including Reparations: Slavery and the Tyranny of Guilt, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, What’s Wrong with Rights?, In Defence of War, and Between Kin and Cosmos: An Et...

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

In this episode, Andreas and I think out loud about the critical importance of energy resilience for Western nations in today’s multipolar world. We discuss why the much-vaunted “energy transition” to renewables has not only failed...

Dominic Frisby is a financial writer, broadcaster, and comedian. He is the author of Life After the State, Bitcoin: The Future of Money, and Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future. He writes regularly for MoneyWeek and has performed stand-up comedy in the UK and internationally.

In this episode, we think out loud about the long and revealing history of gold — and what humanity’s relationship with money tells us about power, honesty, and civilisation itself.

We discuss why gold has been desired, hoarded, stolen, regulated, and demonised throughout history; why...

David Shipley is a writer, campaigner, has worked as a consultant prison inspector, and is the author of the Substack Shipley Writes. David's work has appeared in The Spectator, The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. 

In this conversation, we think out loud about the moral and institutional collapse of Britain’s justice system — and what meaningful reform would actually require.

David reflects on his extraordinary life journey: from a career in corporate finance, to imprisonment for fraud, to becoming one of the most forthright critics of Britain’s prison regime. We discuss how the prison system...

Lorenzo Warby, is a writer of the Substack Lorenzo from Oz and a regular contributor to Helen Dale’s Not on Your Team, but Always Fair, a Substack-recommended publication.

In this episode, Lorenzo and I think out loud about the idea of institutional capture, how Western institutions have been overtaken by fashionable ideologies, and how this has led to the rise of unaccountable classes within bureaucracies. We discuss how these unaccountable elites influence policy and norms across both politics and private institutions, what Lorenzo means by the “feminisation of institutions,” and why governance and accountability have been so bad...