Welcome to Episode 29 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Eugyppius, pseudonymous commentator and author of the substack Eugyppius: a plague chronicle, on the election in Germany and JD Vance’s bombshell Munich speech. Professor Eric Kaufmann, Director of the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at the University of Buckingham and the author of books including Whiteshift (2018) and Taboo (2024), on a recent controversy over whether Rishi Sunak is English – and whether the Trump administration can reverse woke culture. And for our premium subscribers, Laurie is joined by Chris Bayliss, independent consultant and writer for publications including the Critic, on what’s behind the shocking recent wave of migrant terror attacks across Europe.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Follow Eugyppius on X. Read Eugyppius’s latest on the Daily Sceptic here. Follow Eric on X. Read his article on the Daily Sceptic here.  Follow Chris on X. Read Chris’s article here. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Last month the grooming gangs scandal broke into the political conversation in Britain in a way it never had before – so much so that after days of headlines, the Labour Government was forced to launch five inquiries into affected areas like Oldham. While many think this still doesn’t go far enough, it’s clear the conversation has changed. Instrumental in that change has been the landmark GB News documentary Grooming Gangs: Britain’s Shame, and its research which found that group-based on-street child grooming had blighted more than 50 towns and cities across the UK. In this Special Episode of the Sceptic, Laurie speaks to one of the duo behind that documentary, Guy Dampier, Senior Researcher at the Prosperity Institute and a writer for publications including the Telegraph, about his experiences making it and what he learnt about the communities where this scandal took place.   NOTE: Due to technical issues, this week’s other two interviews, recorded at this week’s ARC Conference, will be arriving next week. Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Follow Guy on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to Episode 28 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Peter Hitchens, columnist at the Mail on Sunday and author of books including The Abolition of Britain, on the bombshell expert findings about Lucy Letby and why her case must now be heard again. Barrister Adam King, on his client with the Free Speech Union, former Royal Marine Jamie Michael, being found not guilty of stirring up racial hatred – and what it says about the Government’s post-Southport crackdown. And for our premium subscribers, Laurie speaks to pseudonymous commentator Eugyppius, author of the substack Eugyppius: a plague chronicle, on the chaos in German politics after the fall of the German establishment parties’ cordon sanitaire against the AfD.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content.  Follow Laurie on X. Follow Peter on X. Follow Adam on X.  Join the Free Speech Union here. Read Eugyppius’s latest on the Daily Sceptic here.  Follow Eugyppius on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Andrew Orlowski, business columnist at the Telegraph and writer for publications including the Critic, Spiked and UnHerd. Host Laurie Wastell and Andrew discuss Andrew’s work writing on business and technology, AI and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be, the strengths of British innovation and why we fail to commercialise it, why the Left sneers at business, how Net Zero and mass low-skilled immigration are damaging our productivity and the rent-seeking of Amazon and Big Tech. In the premium section, they discuss why the policy-making class needs more engineers, whether the Conservative Party has a future, the impact of Trump 2.0 and Elon Musk’s coming war with Ofcom.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Follow Andrew on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic, with Professor David Starkey CBE, the eminent and acerbic historian, author and broadcaster. In a wide-ranging conversation, host Laurie Wastell and Professor Starkey discuss the grooming gangs scandal, why Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter represents the end of the long 20th Century, Trump’s second term, free speech, state censorship and the “noble lie” of multiculturalism, the parallels between communism and liberalism and why Keir Starmer’s response to the Southport massacre has been “contemptible beyond contempt”. In the premium section, they discuss English individualism and why it gave birth to the modern world, the challenge of imported ethnic tribalism, national identity in an age of immigration and what is to be done. Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Follow Professor Starkey on X. Subscribe to his YouTube Channel. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to Episode 27 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: David Shipley, writer on prison reform for publications including the Spectator, on the Government’s failings over the Southport attack and the serious questions for Keir Starmer and the Government about why we were kept in the dark about it.    Fred de Fossard, Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute (formerly the Legatum Institute) and writer for publications including the Critic, on how the inauguration of Donald Trump is set to blow a hole in woke capitalism – and whether Britain can ever follow suit.    And for our premium subscribers, Laurie is joined by author and historian Ed West, on why the fallout of the grooming gangs scandal could make it Britain’s Chernobyl.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content.  Follow Laurie on X. Read David on the Southport riots here.  Follow David on X. Read Fred’s report on Woke Capitalism here. Follow Fred on X. Subscribe to Ed’s Wrong Side of History substack here. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to Episode 26 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Dr. Freddie Attenborough, Digital Communications Director at the Free Speech Union, on how Labour’s “Islamophobia” definition has stifled discussion of the Pakistani-Muslim rape-gangs scandal – and what that means for local inquiries. David Turver, author of the Eigen Values Substack, on how we narrowly avoided blackouts during the cold snap last week, and what that says about the parlous state of Britain’s energy grid. And for our premium subscribers, Laurie is joined by freelance investigative journalist Charlotte Gill, author of the Woke Waste Substack, on the shady Left-wing funding networks and foreign billionaires influencing our politics.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content.  Follow Laurie on X. Read Freddie’s article here. Follow the Free Speech Union on X. Read David’s articles on the Daily Sceptic here. Follow David on X. Read Charlotte’s latest on the Daily Sceptic here. Follow her on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to episode 25 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Dr. Mike Jones, political scientist and migration expert, on the shameful history of Britain’s grooming gangs scandal. Poppy Coburn, Assistant Comment Editor at the Telegraph, on how activist so-called experts have waged a campaign to deny the racial element to the grooming gangs abuse. And for our premium subscribers, journalist and Sceptic regular Ben Pile, on the dodgy politics of Environmental and Social Governance – ESG – and why a major green finance initiative just collapsed.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content.  Follow Laurie on X. Read Mike on the omerta over Rotherham here.  Follow Mike on X. Read Poppy on grooming gang deniers here. Follow Poppy on X. Read Ben’s article on the Daily Sceptic here. Follow Ben on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to this Special Episode of the Sceptic. Two-tier policing. Two-tier justice. Two-tier Keir. Well, we’ve spoken about all of those things on the Sceptic, especially how they’ve been in evidence in the Government response to the disorder up and down the country after the Southport murders. Much of this was in towns in the Midlands and the North, but it was in London, outside Downing Street, just two days after the attack, that my next guest was part of a peaceful protest against knife crime – when he, along with dozens of others, was arrested, placed in a prison cell and held for nearly 24 hours. Never charged – for there was nothing to charge him with – he’s now suing the Metropolitan Police for false imprisonment and assault.  Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Subscribe to the Daily Sceptic YouTube Channel. Watch Alex on YouTube here. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Welcome to episode 24 of the Sceptic! On the show this week, host Laurie Wastell speaks to the following guests: Toby Young, the Daily Sceptic’s Editor-in-Chief and boss of the Free Speech Union, on a year of free-speech travesties – and the battles to come in the year ahead. Sam Bidwell, Director of the Next Generation Centre at the Adam Smith Institute, on the judge who declined to jail the woman who milkshaked Nigel Farage – and what this says about our justice system. And for our premium subscribers, I’m joined by Niall Gooch, public servant and writer for the Spectator, the Critic and UnHerd, on what it means for conservatives when they can no longer trust their country’s institutions.   Donate to the Daily Sceptic to access our premium content. Follow Laurie on X. Read Laurie’s article on Tan Ikram here. Follow Toby on X. Read more about the Worker Protection Bill here. Follow Sam on X. Read Niall’s article here. Follow Niall on X. Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.