UnHerd's Freddie Sayers gives his reaction to the UK’s £200 million COVID inquiry and the official narrative. After 800 pages, the report reaches the conclusion that Britain’s only mistake was not locking down sooner - but at what cost? From the missing chapter on Sweden’s success to the ignored collateral damage inflicted on a generation of children, was the lockdown experiment actually a civilisational error that the state is now too afraid to admit? And is the inquiry an establishment whitewa...
Nov 21, 2025•42 min
UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with writer and philosopher Matthew Crawford about the creeping tyranny of the "Smart City"—a vision of the future where urban life is optimised by data, and human unpredictability is treated as a "bug" to be fixed. But what is the spiritual cost of a "frictionless" existence? As tech giants begin to govern like nation-states and cars become subscription services that can be throttled from afar, Crawford asks the question: are we building paradise, or a "glorious, c...
Nov 19, 2025•40 min
UnHerd's Freddie Sayers dives into the legal and political firestorm surrounding President Trump's threatened lawsuit against the BBC. He is joined by three expert guests to unpack the case from every angle: Professor Burt Neuborne, founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, analyses the US legal arguments and whether Trump can actually win; Joshua Rozenberg, legal journalist and the BBC's former legal correspondent, discusses the internal crisis at the BBC a...
Nov 15, 2025•38 min
UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, Sir Dieter Helm, about the great climate "self-delusion." As global leaders, royals, and celebrities jet into Rio for the 30th UN Climate Summit (COP 30), Helm - one of the world's most respected climate economists - argues the entire Net Zero project, championed by the very elites at the summit, is built on smoke and mirrors, and reveals: why 30 years of COPs have been ineffective; the core deceit polit...
Nov 09, 2025•48 min
In the wake of the Huntingdon train stabbing and ensuing online reaction, UnHerd's Freddie Sayers sits down with journalist for The Times Fraser Nelson to analyse the growing perception of a violent, migrant-driven crimewave in the UK. Responding to disputed data from the Ministry of Justice that foreigners are convicted of up to 23% of sex crimes, as well the rise in low-level crime and isolated atrocities, Nelson argues against the narrative and details how violent crime, including knife attac...
Nov 05, 2025•50 min
If the polls are to be believed, Zohran Mamdani—a self-described democratic socialist—is poised to become the next mayor of New York City. His history as a police abolitionist, calls for wealth redistribution, and fierce criticisms of Israel have rankled the Big Apple’s old guard, while galvanizing many young Gothamites, including a majority of young Jews. So: should we fear Mayor Mamdani? Join UnHerd for an exclusive in-person debate at our Manhattan headquarters, featuring our columnist Ross B...
Nov 03, 2025•1 hr 13 min
In this first episode of The Econoclasts, Yanis Varoufakis and Wolfgang Munchau debunk two failed economic orthodoxies shaping our world. First, they dismantle the narrative that Europe is helping Ukraine - and striking a powerful blow against Russia - by raiding Russia’s frozen assets. More than this being legally questionable, is it also economically and geopolitically self-defeating? Next, they expose the "battle" between central banks and anti-establishment crypto rebels as a false choice, r...
Oct 29, 2025•47 min
UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks with Helen Andrews, former senior editor at The American Conservative and author of Boomers, to discuss her provocative and widely-debated article in Compact Magazine " The Great Feminization ". They discuss: why female group dynamics (consensus-seeking, covert undermining, social ostracism) are the engine behind cancel culture; the threat a "feminised" legal system poses to the objective "rule of law," replacing evidence with emotional sympathy; and why this shift...
Oct 23, 2025•35 min
In the age of reason and rationality, what room is there for the transcendent? Authors of the bestselling book God, the Science, the Evidence, Michel-Yves Bollore and Olivier Bonnassies, challenge the materialist consensus and argue that the origins of the universe could still be the work of a creator. They join UnHerd's Freddie Sayers to discuss their research and what it might reveal... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 21, 2025•44 min
On what would have been her 100th birthday, Freddie Sayers chairs a spirited debate on Thatcherism and the Iron Lady’s place in Britain’s story. How should we understand her legacy in 2025? Did she transform the country for the better — or does she bear responsibility for many of today’s problems? In this all-star debate, journalists Peter Hitchens and Suzanne Moore go head-to-head with former Conservative politician and Spectator editor Michael Gove, and political analyst Reem Ibrahim, in a liv...
Oct 17, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Freddie Sayers sits down with Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham, Eric Kaufmann, to discuss his latest report on “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans”, which reveals a significant and surprising shift in the landscape of gender and sexual identity among Generation Z. Professor Kaufmann explains his findings, which show a sharp drop in both trans and queer identification since 2023. Drawing on data from large-scale surveys of US undergraduates, he deta...
Oct 15, 2025•37 min
Freddie Sayers sits down with renowned cognitive psychologist, author, and Harvard Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker to discuss his latest book, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... and explore how common knowledge shapes our social, political, and economic worlds. Their conversation delves into the power and pitfalls of collective thinking, the dynamics of cancel culture and censorship, and the Trump administration’s clashes with academic institutions like Harvard. They also consider ...
Oct 06, 2025•44 min
UnHerd’s Contributing Editor Jonny Ball (aka Despotic Inroad ) sits down with Lord Maurice Glasman, the Labour peer and political theorist behind Blue Labour , at Labour party conference 2025 in Liverpool. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is under fire and polling as the least popular on record — Glasman argues that the party faces a battle for its very soul. In this conversation, he traces the history of the movement he founded, Blue Labour, and its critique of the Labour party’s transformation i...
Oct 02, 2025•1 hr 4 min
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers welcomes Paul Kingsnorth to the UnHerd Club an exclusive interview about his new book Against the Machine. Kingsnorth has spent decades charting the alienation and upheaval brought about by modernity. In this wide-ranging interview he sets out why he sees today’s technological order as inhuman, why AI may be the 'Antichrist', and why he believes the West must be allowed to die. What does it mean to live as a dissident inside the Machine? And what lines must we draw if we ...
Sep 29, 2025•1 hr 23 min
Has the political Right become what it once despised? In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, a wave of firings and online campaigns has many asking if a "woke right" has finally arrived, adopting the very tactics of cancel culture it used to condemn. Freddie Sayers sits down with author and commentator James Lindsay for a conversation about this dangerous new chapter in the culture wars. As calls for "retribution" grow louder, what is the line between legitimate accountability for tho...
Sep 17, 2025•40 min
Freddie Sayers speaks with Dr. Martin Kulldorff — co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration and newly appointed chair of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — to discuss his and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views on vaccines, the recent turmoil at the CDC that has seen senior officials resign or be removed, and his reflections on the global pandemic response, from Sweden’s no-lockdown strategy to the United States’ vaccine mandates. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy...
Sep 15, 2025•29 min
In the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing, what does this precarious moment mean for American politics? UnHerd's Freddie Sayers speaks to Thomas Chatterton Williams, author of 'Summer of Our Discontent: The Age of Certainty and the Demise of Discourse' about the eerie parallels between 2020 and 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 12, 2025•46 min
Freddie Sayers is joined by Undercurrents host Emily Jashinsky, reporting from the White House, and UnHerd's US Editor Sohrab Ahmari to discuss the immediate aftermath of the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. On the somber anniversary of September 11th, they analyse the profound and frightening fallout, including the sense that a "seal has been broken" in American politics, the potential for a J. Edgar Hoover-style crackdown on left-wing groups by an angered Trump administr...
Sep 11, 2025•32 min
Try High Flavanol Cocoa (Stem Cells & Nitric Oxide): (40% OFF PROMO FOR 48HR) https://blackforestsupplements.com/UNHERD UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers speaks with journalist and author Matt Taibbi. A former Rolling Stone reporter and now publisher of Racket News, Taibbi was chosen by Elon Musk to help release the “Twitter Files,” exposing political and government influence on online speech. In this conversation, he reflects on Musk’s promise to turn Twitter into a “digital town square,” the re-plat...
Sep 04, 2025•45 min
UnHerd’s US Editor Sohrab Ahmari interviews former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. As head of the Biden FTC, Khan shook up decades of corporate deference — suing Big Tech, targeting drug middlemen, and reviving antitrust enforcement. In this conversation, she reflects on the collapse of the brief “post-neoliberal” consensus, warning that corporations now use both woke and anti-woke rhetoric to shield their power, while Trump’s return has revived old patterns of lobbyist capture and gre...
Aug 30, 2025•33 min
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers brings together two leading voices on the decline of reading and the future of literacy: Times columnist and cultural critic, James Marriott, and YouTuber and philosopher, Jared Henderson. Marriott has written extensively about what he calls the dawn of a “post-literate society.” For him, the slow death of English literature and the retreat from serious reading mark a cultural crisis, with far-reaching consequences for politics, education, and civic life. He argues that w...
Aug 27, 2025•35 min
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers brings together two starkly opposed voices on the Ukraine war and the future of world order: John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago professor and leading realist, and Matthew Syed, Sunday Times columnist, broadcaster and author. Mearsheimer has long argued that NATO expansion and Western policy blunders set the stage for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. From a realist standpoint, he warns that Russia’s position is essentially non-negotiable and that Ukraine must cut a deal n...
Aug 19, 2025•1 hr 16 min
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers speaks with journalist and author of new book Apple in China, Patrick McGee – who was the Financial Times’s principal Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023 – about the man at the centre of Apple’s China story: CEO Tim Cook. On August 1st, Cook quietly became Apple’s longest-serving leader, overtaking Steve Jobs — a milestone that came days before a high-profile White House appearance in which he warmly praised Donald Trump. The move was widely seen as a calculated bid to secur...
Aug 12, 2025•42 min
UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers interviews renowned evolutionary biologist Professor Richard Dawkins about the enduring biological differences between men and women — and why recognising them remains essential in the face of growing ideological pressure. Dawkins lays out the evolutionary and genetic foundations that distinguish the sexes. He addresses the growing influence of gender ideology and the way it has infiltrated scientific institutions, education, and public discourse. From the redefinition of...
Aug 07, 2025•26 min
Journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon and UnHerd US Editor Sohrab Ahmari discuss the MAGA pivot against Israel in recent weeks and the reasons for waning support for Netanyahu's war from the American Right. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 05, 2025•44 min
Philosopher and UnHerd writer Kathleen Stock joins Freddie Sayers to discuss one of the strangest and most revealing cultural moments of the year: the rise of Bonnie Blue, the OnlyFans pornstar at the heart of a new documentary that's turning heads and raising questions about sexuality, morality, and the future of sex. Stock — a former professor of philosophy, a leading critic of gender ideology, and a regular UnHerd contributor — agreed to watch the Bonnie Blue documentary at a screening and re...
Jul 31, 2025•32 min
Freddie Sayers interviews renowned physicist and author Lawrence Krauss to explore how culture wars and ideological issues threaten science and his new book The War on Science—an anthology of essays from leading scientific thinkers including Jordan Peterson, Richard Dawkins, and Peter Boghossian, examining how academia and scientific institutions are increasingly under siege from within. Krauss lays out how “woke” ideology, DEI policies, and campus cancel culture are eroding the foundations of o...
Jul 29, 2025•47 min
Freddie Sayers, UnHerd’s Editor-in-Chief, sits down with Patrick Christys, GB News journalist, fresh from his reporting on the ground in the Calais migrant camps, to probe their volatile dynamics and the escalating UK migration crisis. Christys recounts his experience posing as a migrant to expose how, reportedly, easy it is to contact people smugglers orchestrating illegal Channel crossings, revealing a hostile environment rife with confrontations, a charity he says is allegedly facilitating cr...
Jul 25, 2025•43 min
UnHerd’s Florence Read sits down with Todd McGowan – philosopher, film theorist, and author of Pure Excess, Capitalism and the Commodity – to dissect the new Superman film and its deeper political, philosophical, and psychoanalytic currents. As Hollywood leans heavily on superhero franchises, and remakes and adaptations of all sorts, they question whether Superman embodies a "stuck culture," where studios’ risk-averse, profit-driven strategies stifle cinematic innovation. Todd probes whether thi...
Jul 18, 2025•38 min
Freddie Sayers, UnHerd’s Editor-in-Chief, sits down with Helen Thompson – Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University and author of Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century – to dive into the high-stakes geopolitics of rare earth elements. As China tightens its grip on the global supply of these critical minerals—vital for everything from electric vehicles to military tech—the West scrambles to catch up. Helen unpacks how China’s dominance, built through strategic foresight and contro...
Jul 17, 2025•40 min
