Fire at Will

Across the Anglosphere, governments on both sides of politics have never been more interested in the personal lives of their citizens. The nanny state thrives from Australia to the United Kingdom, and even in that traditional bastion of freedom, the USA.Christopher Snowdon is the UK’s leading warrior against the excesses of the nanny state. He is the Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the author of six books, the editor of the Nanny State Index, and the co-host of the brilliant “Last Orders” podcast from Spiked.Please leave Fire at Will a rating and a review in your favourite podcast app!Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Visit Christopher's website here.

What the mainstream media calls a “conspiracy theory” is often nothing more than an amalgam of incentives hiding in plain sight. Once you see that, the rest becomes pretty obvious. Misaligned incentives are everywhere, and are the root cause of some of our thorniest global challenges. So how can we fix them? There is no one better qualified to answer that question than Liv Boeree. Liv has one of the world’s most interesting CVs. She has a First Class degree in Astrophysics, she has won European Poker Tour and World Series of Poker championship titles, she is a Ted Talk phenomenon, and a successful YouTuber and podcaster. Her podcast 'Win Win', encourages us to understand the good, bad and ugly parts of competition, and find ways to harness the power of game theory to build a more positive-sum world.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

When it comes to conflict in the Middle East, there’s the war, and then there’s the war about the war. Of course, this isn’t new. Caesar was penning war reports in Gaul and sending them back to Rome to win hearts and minds over 2000 years ago. But, back then Caesar could control the narrative. Today that is almost impossible. Social media, an activist mainstream media, and more sophisticated disinformation techniques have combined with millennia-old prejudices, and made it exceedingly difficult for Israel to communicate why they are fighting, how they are doing, and what still needs to be done. Eylon Levy has been on the frontline of the war about the war. Eylon is a former Israeli government spokesperson, and International Media Advisor to the President of Israel. He is now co-founder of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office and host of the State of a Nation podcast. Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

The American experiment is failing. Division, mistrust and misinformation are now the country's defining characteristics. The storming of the Capitol, the prosecution of Donald Trump and battles over gun rights and abortion raise the spectre of further political violence.We often hear that these events are unprecedented. On the contrary, author and journalist Nick Bryant suggests that the hate, divisiveness and paranoia we see today are in fact a core part of America's story. His remarkable new book is titled 'The Forever War: America's Unending Conflict with Itself'.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

Sir Niall Ferguson, a leading historian renowned for his insight into geopolitical conflicts, delves into the alarming parallels between modern America and the Soviet Union. He discusses the potential for the U.S. to assume a Soviet-like role in a new Cold War against China. The conversation touches on the political chaos following a near-assassination attempt on Trump, the despair facing marginalized Americans, and the establishment of the University of Austin to promote academic freedom. Ferguson also highlights historical lessons from the Cuban Missile Crisis and the critical stakes of Taiwan's position.

Education was once the search for truth. Sadly, this is no longer the case in many universities across the Western world. Instead of promoting debate, disagreement, and viewpoint diversity, too many institutions peddle a series of ideological narratives that seek to engrain a black armband view of history, an assertion of the importance of identity over merit, and a subjective definition of truth.That’s why there is no more urgent priority in the world today for sensible conservatives than to fight back against the radical left’s colonisation of education. Wilfred Reilly has accepted the challenge. Wilfred is a political science professor at Kentucky State University, and the author of the wonderful new book, “Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me: Debunking the False Narratives Defining America's School Curricula”.NOTE: We had some very minor issues with Will's sound. Rest assured the tech team have been severely reprimanded.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

It wasn’t so long ago that one phrase sat above any other in the hierarchy of endorsements for a British or Australian male: “He’s a good bloke.” You don’t hear it as much in 2024 because blokehood is under attack across the Western world. Historically positive masculine virtues are now shamed as toxically masculine. At a minimum, blokeishness is derided as boorishness by our social betters in the media, politics, business, and culture. The first step to reclaiming blokehood is understanding it, which is what Geoff Norcott has done. As a rare right-winger, Geoff is a unique voice in British comedy, and has been hugely successful on the stand up circuit, with his podcast, and on TV. His latest book has made him the official expert on British blokes. It is titled, "The British Bloke: Decoded – From Banter to Man Flu, Everything Finally Explained."Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Visit Geoff's website here.

It feels like AI can now write anything for us and create anything for us. In some respects it’s exciting, but it’s also scary, and it raises a depressing question: will technology kill creativity?There are few people better placed to answer that question than Polish-American artist Agnieszka Pilat. Agnieszka is the Silicon Valley elite’s favourite artist. Intelligencer magazine has called her the court painter of the potentate’s of Silicon Valley, including Elon Musk, who has twice invited her onsite for an artist residency at SpaceX. She is best known for her work with Spots: dog-like robots designed by Boston Dynamics, which are more usually used by mining companies or militaries than by artists. In her own words, “Machines are humanity’s children. I am just giving them a page in a family album.”Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

There has long been a curious sub-genre in liberal journalism. It can best be described as “examining working class Americans in their natural habitat.” It goes something like this. Journalists from New York or California will bravely venture into a red state, observe the local inhabitants from afar, and come back with a series of superficial insights that reinforce the existing prejudices of coastal elites. Partly as a result of this lack of journalistic curiosity, liberal America is no closer to truly understanding the underlying forces that swept Donald Trump into the White House, and may yet do so again.Batya Ungar-Sargon did something novel. She wanted to understand the American working class, so she actually spoke to them, all over the country, for over a year. Lessons learnt were captured in ‘Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women.’ It is the best book to read if you want to understand the political and cultural forces at play in America in 2024.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

The most peculiar aspect of 'Pride' is how it has lumped together the gay population, with the most extreme proponents of gender ideology, when the latter have arguably done more than any other group to harm the former. Gareth Roberts has witnessed this firsthand. Gareth has fallen into commentary on gender ideology, but like previous guests of the show such as Graham Linehan and Helen Joyce, he was marvellously successful before wading into such treacherous waters. Gareth is a screenwriter and novelist, best known for his work on the iconic British series Doctor Who. His latest book is titled 'Gay Shame: The Rise of Gender Ideology and the New Homophobia.'Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.