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Thinking Class

John Gillam

Thinking Class is a weekly long-form interview podcast and documentary series exploring the cultural, historical, and civilisational forces shaping Britain, the Anglosphere, and the wider West. Over 15,000 subscribers and 1.4 million plays across all platforms.


Hosted by John Gillam, founder of the Albion Institute (Lord Nigel Biggar CBE serves as Advisory Board Chair) and creator of The Call of England and the forthcoming Call of America documentary series.


Each episode brings together historians, philosophers, theologians, economists, and public intellectuals for conversations that go beyond the news cycle.


Guests have included David Starkey, Lord Jonathan Sumption, Lord Nigel Biggar, Iain McGilchrist, Peter Hitchens, R.R. Reno, Auron MacIntyre, Patrick Deneen, Lionel Shriver, David Goodhart, Carl Trueman, Eric Kaufmann, Carrie Gress, Katharine Birbalsingh, Kathleen Stock, Frank Furedi, Rob Henderson, Robert Tombs, and many more.


If you value serious conversation about England, Britain, the Anglosphere, and the forces shaping our civilisation, this is the show for you.


New episodes every Thursday.


Albion Institute: albioninstitute.org
Substack: thinkingclass.substack.com
YouTube: youtube.com/@ThinkingClass
X: x.com/thinkingclasses


Contact: thinkingclasspod@gmail.com

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  • Thursday · 1 hr 7 min

    #146 - Lola Salem - You Can Win Every Election In The West. If The Whole Of Culture Is Against You Nothing Will Change.

    Dr Lola Salem is a musicologist, cultural critic, and Catholic convert. She is the author of the forthcoming Artless (Polity Press) and writes for The Critic and the Catholic Herald. In this conversation we think out loud about: • The boycott crisis in the arts and how it works in the shadows • Why the right keeps winning elections and losing the civilisation • The left as high-functioning alcoholics of culture • The post-cultural state — institutions remain, the spirit has left • The collapse of the managerial elite • The education pipeline that reproduces institutional capture • Whether the recovery of culture requires the recovery of faith • Verdur_in — small, serious, uncompromising spaces outside the captured institutions Follow Lola's work: - https://x.com/SalemLola - http://salemlola.substack.com Sponsored by Aquinas Tuition: https://aquinastuition.co.uk/ Related: - Pierre d’Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk - The Base — They Were Trained By The Best In British Theatre: https://youtu.be/sNQ6ank7quI] - Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0 Watch The Call of England: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Albion Institute: https://albioninstitute.org Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • September 17 · 1 hr 11 min

    #145 - Oliver Bennett & Morgan Watkins - They Were Trained To Perform The Greatest Works In Western Civilisation And They Say The Whole Thing Has Now Been Captured By Cowards And Liars

    Oliver Bennett and Morgan Watkins are the co-founders of The Base and RADA-trained actors with nearly twenty years of experience in British film, television, and theatre. In this conversation, we think out loud about: What The Base is and why it exists The campification of British theatre and the shame around the Western canon The Edinburgh Fringe as a monument to progressive capture and why the RSC is rehearsing a lesbian Othello set against the climate crisis Meeting Shakespeare on his own terms (the third position beyond progressive deconstruction and conservative nostalgia) The working men’s club with a library, what the working class built and what was taken from them Why not a single pro-Brexit play was produced in a country that voted 52% to leave Why today’s rebels know nothing about the past they claim to be rebelling against Whether counter-institutions like The Base can survive without funding The return of masculinity and the need for men to stand up Find The Base: thebasecreates.com X: @thebasecreates Substack YouTube Related: Pierre d’Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk Carl Trueman — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU Frank Furedi — In Defence of Populism: https://youtu.be/qTdxAR40T4E Watch The Call of England: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Albion Institute: albioninstitute.org Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • September 10 · 55 min

    #144 - Ben Jones - Britain Has Become An Island Of Strangers And You’re Not Allowed To Say So

    Dr Ben Jones is the Director of Case Management at the Free Speech Union and author of Island of Strangers: Diversity, Decline & Free Speech In Crisis In this conversation, we think out loud about: When saying “it’s a free country” died in Britain and what replaced it 6,000 people punished for speaking in five years, and what the Free Speech Union’s caseload reveals about modern Britain How hyperdiversity and the decline of Christianity have destroyed the shared moral universe Why the ethno-nationalist vs civic-nationalist debate is irrelevant — both will be swept away by events Britain’s pre-revolutionary state: the last time this happened, we executed a king Why Islam poses a distinct challenge that cannot be reconciled with Western liberal values The ruling class has seceded from the nation and treats the population as an obstacle The psychological toll of cultural dispossession and why he now has to spell “Ben Jones” The state is sponsoring an invasion inflicted primarily on women and girls, which has created a crisis of legitimacy Why 2029 may be the last chance to turn this around Find Ben Jones: X Island of Strangers Related episodes: Nathan Pinkoski — France Sacrificed Free Speech To Keep The Peace: https://youtu.be/ztpqjZq9h4M?si=DtQxUi4K84cPYapg Auron MacIntyre — The West Has Already Become A Total State: https://youtu.be/GbTU7HrQlU8?si=zg8pwO_MVhPor9qo R.R. Reno — What Happens When The West’s Strong Gods Return: https://youtu.be/U_cXZnkU-JI?si=shQ2C4lKRNP5sBqN Lionel Shriver — Immigration, Demography, And Belonging: https://youtu.be/IWG6zPX0EpE?si=CJ_W1ogZtHbhzCJk Watch The Call of England: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • September 3 · 1 hr

    #143 - Auron MacIntyre - The West Has Already Become A Total State And Most People Inside It Have No Idea

    Auron MacIntyre is the host of The Auron MacIntyre Show on Blaze TV and the author of The Total State. Auron previously taught high school before leaving education to build his media platform, writes the Substack The Total State, and appears across conservative and heterodox media. In this conversation, we think out loud about: Why every Western state is becoming total and why the HR department is the new political commissar How bureaucracies automatically recognise one another as authoritative and create a self-reinforcing system Why it’s not a state-run media but a media-run state and that distinction changes everything Why Britain is further along the path to total control than any country in the West The First Amendment and American federalism as defence mechanisms and whether they will hold Why Texas told the federal government no and the federal government backed down Why the system doesn’t need boxcars it just closes your bank account Why constitutions don’t make people, people make constitutions and what happens when you change the people John Adams at Edgehill: the English foundations of American liberty R.R. Reno’s strong gods: will they return, and whose gods will they be? Why the right cannot govern when it wins and what formation institutions must be built Find Auron MacIntyre: X YouTube Instagram The Total State: https://link.amazon/B0fCMJp6R Sponsored by Aquinas Tuition - bespoke academic tutoring for children who deserve to be stretched, not managed: https://aquinastuition.co.uk/ Related: Nathan Pinkoski - France Sacrificed Free Speech To Keep The Peace R.R. Reno - What Happens When The West’s Strong Gods Return Carl Trueman - The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man Watch The Call of England: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • August 27 · 55 min

    #142 - Nathan Pinkoski - France Sacrificed Free Speech To Keep The Peace, Britain Did The Same And Now Neither Has Either

    Nathan Pinkoski is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, the translator of Eric Zemmour’s The Suicide of France, and author of the forthcoming Silent Revolution: The End of the Liberal West. He writes for First Things and Compact and publishes the Substack Lament for the Nations. In this conversation, we think out loud about: — Why Zemmour’s Suicide of France sold half a million copies and what it tells the English-speaking world — How the 1968 revolution conquered society rather than the state — and nobody noticed the difference — The 10% threshold: when the foreign-born population reaches a certain level, free speech is the price of keeping the peace — How Britain could dismantle its entire progressive legal architecture in a single statute — and why France, Canada, and America cannot — Pierre Trudeau’s constitutional coup: how Canada became the end game of perverted Westminster, and why only Tony Benn and Enoch Powell saw it coming — The three deaths of the father: de Gaulle, paternal authority, and the gold standard — and why the West no longer produces leaders — How Vichy was weaponised to impose collective guilt on the French people and delegitimise national sovereignty — Why the smartphone killed assimilation and the Ellis Island myth is dead — Why the only way to save the West is Christian revival Find Nathan Pinkoski: Substack: lamentforthenations.substack.com X The Suicide of France by Eric Zemmour Related episodes you might enjoy: — France Is Fracturing Along Ethnic And Religious Lines. Britain Is Next — What Happens When The West’s Strong Gods Return — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man — How Ireland Changed Beyond Recognition The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England: Episode 1 Episode 2 Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • August 20 · 1 hr 2 min

    #141 - R.R. Reno - What Happens When The West’s Strong Gods Return And Find Nobody Home

    R.R. Reno is the editor of First Things, the most important journal of religion and public life in America. He is the author of Return of the Strong Gods, In the Ruins of the Church, and a forthcoming rock climbing memoir. He has taught theology at Creighton University and has written for the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Commentary. In this conversation, we think out loud about: — What the strong gods look like when they return to a country that no longer has any gods at all — and whether there is a floor below which even the strong gods cannot reach — Why Christianity remains a contested but robust force in American public life while Britain's established church has been abandoned by its own people — How Blair's open society theology disfigured Britain's understanding of itself — Pierre Manent's argument that the modern West has irreversibly chosen the city of man over the city of God — Why the first duty of the sovereign is to preserve the realm — not because it is conducive to greater utility but because the realm has intrinsic value — Alex Karp's observation that Europeans no longer believe their civilisation will last — Why multiculturalism is a theory designed to explain how disintegration is actually the birth of something new — and why it cannot work — The Parmenidean resurgence: classical schools, elite religious revival, and the young men turning to rigorous Christianity — Why Trump is the Vishnu of early 21st century politics — the great destroyer after whom someone must build Find R.R. Reno and First Things: Website: firstthings.com Subscribe: firstthings.com/subscribe X: x.com/raborenn Related episodes you might enjoy: — Carl Trueman — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now Something Darker Is Coming: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU — Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World And This Is Why: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0 — Pierre d'Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance: Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Watch Episode 2 here: https://youtu.be/jbVZfSR3ZF4 Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • August 13 · 1 hr 2 min

    #140 - Stephen Blackwood - The Universities Forgot What Education Is For So This Man Built One From Scratch & Here Is What He Learned

    Stephen Blackwood is President and Founder of Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia. The Chancellor is Dr Iain McGilchrist. He is on the advisory board for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC). This episode is supported by Aquinas Tuition, which provides bespoke academic tutoring for children who deserve to be stretched, not managed. In this conversation, we think out loud about: — What Blackwood saw inside the Western university system at its highest level that made him believe the existing institutions could not be saved — How Boethius took the seeds of civilisation and cast them into the future from a prison cell — and why that matters now more than ever — Why "the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lit" and why Ralston brings students to Samos, Greece, to light them on fire — The deathbed test: did I live as I should have lived? And why no culture that fails to help its people answer that question deserves to endure — Why the universities are the most upstream influence over the degradation of Western culture — The difference between legal protection of free speech and a culture of genuine truth-seeking — What Tocqueville saw in America that Britain is losing, which is to say self-governance as the precondition for democracy — Why Roger Scruton was right that a culture is just the things we have loved, and transmitting it is just teaching others to love them too — What growing up as the eldest of ten on a Canadian farm taught Blackwood about human nature, duty, and what a human being at full gallop looks like Find Stephen Blackwood and Ralston College: - Website: ralston.ac - Podcast: The Ralston College Podcast - YouTube Related episodes you might enjoy: — Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World And This Is Why — Carl Trueman — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now Something Darker Is Coming — Pierre d'Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers Watch The Call of England, a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance: Watch Episode 1 here Watch Episode 2 here Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube ✍ Substack 🎧 Spotify 🍎 Apple 🐦 X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • August 6 · 1 hr 8 min

    #139 - Tom Ough & Calum Drysdale - How Britain Forgot How To Build And Why The Consequences Are Coming

    Tom Ough is Senior Editor at UnHerd and author of The Anti-Catastrophe League. Calum Drysdale is an engineer and writer. Together they host Anglofuturism — a podcast exploring ambitious, outlandish, and remarkably achievable ideas to revitalise Britain from their thatched space station. Robert Jenrick declared himself an Anglofuturist at a 2025 conference. Curtis Yarvin has appeared on their show. In this conversation, we think out loud about: — What Anglofuturism actually is — and whether the Britain it imagines is one that also knows who built it and why it matters — Whether you can be an Anglofuturist without being a cultural conservative — and whether material renewal without cultural renewal is just efficiency — Whether Britain can become Europe's energy powerhouse — offshore wind, Rolls-Royce SMRs, North Sea oil, battery storage — without paving over the green and pleasant land — Whether population growth is necessary for prosperity — or whether a high-tech, high-skill country can stabilise its population and still thrive — Why the technocratic class that would need to deliver the Anglofuturist future is the same class that produced the decline — and whether it can be removed — The demographic question that Anglofuturism cannot avoid — and what "a future that feels like home" requires — Whether beauty is a non-negotiable — and who decides what beautiful means when the institutions that once knew have been captured — What the ordinary Briton, the CEO, and the Prime Minister should each do on Monday morning Find Anglofuturism: Substack: anglofuturism.substack.com YouTube: youtube.com/@anglofuturism Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0PxQEO62ESL7DYmZHLgQID Related episodes you might enjoy: — Pierre d'Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk — William Clouston — Why British Politics Governs Against The National Interest: https://youtu.be/Rm2Qp-1qnJw — Michael Lind — Why America & Britain Keep Betraying Their Working Class: https://youtu.be/YN212csIsvU — Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg — Lord Tony Sewell — Life At The Bottom In Broken Britain: https://youtu.be/WKf26_Va_yM The Call of England - a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance: Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ Watch Episode 2 here: https://youtu.be/jbVZfSR3ZF4 Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • July 30 · 1 hr 27 min

    #138 - Ricardo Duchesne - The Greatness And Ruin Of Western Civilisation

    Ricardo Duchesne is a Puerto Rican-born Canadian historical sociologist. He studied history at McGill University, received his PhD in Social and Political Thought from York University (awarded the Doctoral Prize for best dissertation of the year), and served as professor of sociology at the University of New Brunswick until his retirement in 2019. His major works include The Uniqueness of Western Civilisation, and Greatness and Ruin. In this conversation, we think out loud about: — What made the West so continuously innovative across thousands of years — from the Indo-Europeans through Greece and Rome to the modern era — Why the Faustian drive — the relentless urge to create, discover, and push beyond every known boundary — appears unique to European civilisation — The discovery of the thinking self in ancient Greece and why self-consciousness and reason developed differently in the West — Why the very qualities that made the West great — rationalism, individualism, universalism — contain the seeds of its own unravelling — How liberal progressivism evolves logically from John Locke through John Stuart Mill to open borders and multiculturalism — Why capitalism and liberalism together have created a system that structurally resists reform — Whether civilisational recovery is possible — or whether we are witnessing an irreversible decline Find Ricardo Duchesne: X: x.com/dr_duchesne Books: https://link.amazon/B00NSP1LA Related episodes you might enjoy: — Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World And This Is Why: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0 — Carl Trueman — The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now Something Darker Is Coming: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU?si=za3CftJjNxgiKXBd — Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=BR4hwL26sdoMS8_4 — Pierre d'Alancaisez — The Custodians Of Beauty Became Its Gravediggers: https://youtu.be/KXn2z3mfCDk?si=AHSHOEcfvNNKYq7G The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance: - Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ?si=T1W7cpepCo-qCwmv - Watch Episode 2 here: https://youtu.be/jbVZfSR3ZF4?si=Sblz4ZW_U2Gh8RWV Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • July 23 · 1 hr 6 min

    #137 - Clement Knox - Why The American Revolution Was Not A Revolution But Englishmen Defending English Rights Against An English King

    Clement Knox is a writer and historian. He is the author of The Scramble for America: How the United States Conquered a Continent (William Collins, 2026), and writes at Past Notes on Substack. Two hundred and fifty years ago, the United States was thirteen coastal colonies clinging to the Atlantic seaboard. Within a single lifetime, it became a continental empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific — and the founding generation openly called it exactly that: an empire. This conversation asks how it happened, and who actually did it, because the people who crossed the Appalachians, fought the wars, and settled the frontier were not a random sample of humanity. They were the descendants of specific English and British folkways, and their story tells us a great deal about the inheritance they carried across the ocean. In this conversation we think out loud about: Why the founding generation openly called their own project an empire — and why that fact became invisible to later Americans Frederick Jackson Turner's argument that America only became culturally distinct once settlers crossed the Appalachians and had to build civilisation anew David Hackett Fischer's four British folkways and which of them actually drove the push westward Why the Scots-Irish Borderers who settled Appalachia resemble the Bedouin of Arabia more than they resemble the East Coast settlements they left behind The recurring tension between liberty and order in the Anglo-American character, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the modern day George Washington as a land speculator and enclosure man who died the richest man in the country — the story behind the myth Why neither the settlers nor the Native Americans held a monopoly on civilisation or savagery, and what a forensic reading of the primary sources actually shows Why Clement changed his mind about universalism — and what that means for how the modern world's institutions were built And if you haven't already, go and watch The Call of England — my documentary series retracing H.V. Morton's 1927 journey to find out what's left of the old country. Episode one and two are live now on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCHptEOmbMRzSV7TQqVMJxAVohAEnvLdA&si=VcpwRhAUmrcrWOTm Find Clement Knox: Substack: https://clementknox.substack.com Related episodes: — Gary Gerstle — The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: https://youtu.be/KbCyaKcj0E8?si=jtY9S8tX493eqUkz — Michael Lind — Why America & Britain Keep Betraying Their Working Class: https://youtu.be/YN212csIsvU?si=a9BsVmo0sqGI-qoy — David Starkey — Britain as a Disaster Since 1945: https://youtu.be/aI3tBbqMmXY?si=SI9B_qVavRQH-EGb — Katharine Birbalsingh — She Told 4,000 People The West Is Committing Suicide: https://youtu.be/L60dtIoALgA?si=yXhD5G8C-4zEueiR Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • July 16 · 1 hr 6 min

    #136 - Katharine Birbalsingh - Why Britain Stopped Believing Children Need Discipline

    Katharine Birbalsingh is the headmistress and founder of Michaela Community School in Wembley, and a former UK Social Mobility Commissioner. She built the most successful school in Britain from nothing — in one of London's poorest boroughs — by insisting on the things the educational establishment now treats as radical: discipline, gratitude, knowledge, and the belief that every child is capable of excellence. Her results are extraordinary. Almost nobody in the profession will copy her. In this conversation, we think out loud about: Why Katharine believes children are born naughty rather than good — and why saying so out loud triggered a national media storm Why the most progressive schools in Britain are often the expensive private ones, not the state schools everyone assumes are failing What actually happens inside a school that treats children as capable of excellence rather than victims of circumstance The ARC speech that caused a stir — on minoritarian victimhood, institutional shame, and why she thinks a certain group of people in Britain need to simply "take a break" Her real disagreement with Connor Tomlinson — whether ancestry or shared values are what actually holds a nation together Why she believes schools now shape children more powerfully than families do — and what that means for the future of the country Find Katharine Birbalsingh: - Strictly Education: https://www.youtube.com/@StrictlyEdPod - Michaela School: https://www.michaela.education/ Related episodes: - Lord Tony Sewell — Life At The Bottom In Broken Britain: https://youtu.be/WKf26_Va_yM?si=AjIKvZdCndHSyTx4 - Frank Furedi — In Defence of Populism: https://youtu.be/qTdxAR40T4E?si=MREy9eLow-XGWoS4 Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=cE6cr_Ypgs6geVyh The Call of England — a documentary series retracing a 1927 journey through England to discover what remains of the national inheritance. Watch Episode 1 here: https://youtu.be/muBQWIP6ZQQ?si=y2zHLbn8juRbQidl Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, the Anglosphere and the wider West. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • July 9 · 1 hr 5 min

    #135 - Pierre d'Alancaisez - 'I Helped Build The Cult Of Contemporary Art And Then I Walked Away'

    Pierre d’Alancaisez is a writer, curator, and researcher working with the multiple politics of the arts. He is the resident art critic for the English magazine The Critic, and his writing has appeared in outlets such as ArtReview, The Spectator, and Compact. *NOTE: If you downloaded this before 11th July, there are sync issues on the audio, therefore please re-download for a better listening experience*. In 2024, he co-founded Verdurin, a space for experimentation in aesthetics, learning, and the difficult conversations which drive today’s culture. Pierre previously directed waterside contemporary, a gallery that tested social and political questions in the art market. He curated exhibitions with artists who included Turner Prize nominee Oreet Ashery and has commissioned works with artists such as Mirza and Butler which traveled to Artes Mundi and Sydney Biennale. Having trained in the sciences before coming to artistic practice, Pierre also worked on cultural exchange and engagement strategies in higher education and the charity sector and has held senior positions in publishing and financial services. Pierre writes for The Critic and runs Verdurin, a London-based salon, publisher, and events series. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms. Find Pierre D'Alancaisez: Personal website: https://petitpoi.net/ Verdurin website: https://verdur.in/ Substack: https://verdurin.substack.com/profile/notes X: https://x.com/verdur_in YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@verdurin Related episodes: — #127 Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=DY2XKBvRopuluvM- — #106 Carl Trueman— The West Killed God. Then It Killed Man. Now Something Darker Is Coming: https://youtu.be/zwhbWVc1PgU?si=xGJ4g5784J9qGcZd — #130 Iain McGilchrist— There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World And This Is Why: https://youtu.be/yrlmkVl86-0?si=k6egq2NGvyo1mnxU Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

    • Transcript
  • July 2 · 1 hr 2 min

    #134 - Frank Furedi - The West Is Crushing Democracy In The Name Of Defending It

    Frank is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent and the author of twenty-eight books on the cultural forces shaping Western societies, including his most recent, In Defence of Populism. Frank is also a Senior Fellow at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Brussels. In this conversation Frank and I think out loud about: the spirit of populism, why the credentialized class fears it how anti-populists restrict democracy while claiming to defend it why fascism and populism are not just different but opposite why nostalgia underpins cultural continuity why 60% of the crisis starts in the schools whether assimilation is possible in a normless society and why to be a real conservative you must be very radical. Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • June 25 · 1 hr 2 min

    #133 - Max Klinger - The British Establishment Re-Racialised Britain And Now It Can't Control What It Created

    Max Klinger is a lawyer and political analyst. He writes at Max Klinger's Newsletter on Substack and his work has appeared in The Spectator. Britain's progressive establishment spent a decade re-racialising public life. It racialised Brexit, policing, and every institution in the name of anti-racism. Now the wider British public has adopted the same lens and applied it in the opposite direction, and the establishment is horrified. In this conversation we think out loud about: In what specific ways the British establishment has gone off at the deep end The real-life impact of anti-racist and DEI policies on the British public How the progressive left re-racialised British public life — and is now horrified that the wider public has adopted the same lens Ash Sarkar, Novara Media, and the hypocrisy of racialising everything until the racialisation turns against you Two-tier policing, two-tier sentencing, and the cases of Valdo Calocane and Henry Novak The Islamisation of Britain — jihadism, blasphemy law by stealth, and the demographic projections The future of British Jews and whether the trajectory is recoverable Whether the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish are allowed an ethnic identity in the same way as every other group The emergence of English national identity and why suppressing it is the most dangerous thing the establishment can do Find Max Klinger: Substack: https://maxthinks.substack.com X: @MaxE2Review Related episodes: — #102 David Betz — What Britain Will Look And Feel Like When Things Get Nasty: https://youtu.be/gUtltMklkcM?si=Hz7qNjqOh-7WaYTz — #106 Driss Ghali — France's Identity Crisis: Violence, Islamism & The Risk Of Social Fracture: https://youtu.be/Y2hS_7WkkDA?si=h1FvChJjhLL20hty — #129 Andrew Hussey — France Is Fracturing: https://youtu.be/U5aKUYgHL8M?si=hph--ETBQjeVpJAW Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • June 18 · 57 min

    #132 - Andrew Hussey - France Is Fracturing Along Ethnic And Religious Lines

    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 the New Statesman. His forthcoming book, The White In-Between Sea, explores the real life of the South of France from Corsica to the Spanish border. In this conversation, Andrew and I think out loud about: Why France is fracturing into fragments that do not speak to each other The three Frances: the citadels, the banlieues, and the forgotten white working-class periphery How French prisons became the engine room of radicalisation The difference between Maliki Islam and Wahhabi puritanism and why it matters Why the French Republic's promise to make everyone a Frenchman is being tested to destruction The RN rallies: Hussey spent time with the supporters and found not fascists but ordinary people Whether the progressive left's grievance politics has made integration permanently impossible The Charlie Hebdo demonstration and the moment Hussey converted to French Republicanism Naboukh la France: what the ancient curse really means and why it matters What all of this tells Britain about what is coming Find Professor Hussey's work: The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs - https://amzn.to/4vOVW84 Fractured France: https://amzn.to/4aG8g2j Related episodes: #077 Driss Ghali — How France Was Colonised: https://youtu.be/NycF1IiVcnQ?si=DbynKwta-eU671iQ #106 Driss Ghali — France's Identity Crisis: Violence, Islamism & The Risk Of Social Fracture: https://youtu.be/Y2hS_7WkkDA?si=AWgwO8VbKnV0U40w #102 David Betz — What Britain Will Look And Feel Like When Things Get Nasty: https://youtu.be/gUtltMklkcM?si=bObsQUD8C1-77RLa Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶️ Subscribe on YouTube 🎧 Follow on Spotify 📰 Read on Substack 🐦 Follow on X New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • June 11 · 58 min

    #131 - Gregory Clark - Why Everything The West Believes About Social Mobility Is Wrong

    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 out loud about: Why some societies became rich while others remained poor — and why it has little to do with institutions Why Indian cotton mills in the 1920s could not match Lancashire despite identical technology What Clark discovered from studying more than 422,000 English people across four centuries Why social mobility appears largely unchanged since the Middle Ages Why Denmark and Britain have almost identical mobility rates despite radically different welfare states Why family size, birth order, and the death of a father have no measurable effect on life outcomes Why the upper classes decline at the same rate the lower classes rise — and what that symmetry means Whether England has been a meritocracy since 1300 Why governments may be attempting to solve problems that are largely resistant to policy Clark's forthcoming book — and why it is proving difficult to publish Find Professor Clark's work: A Farewell to Alms: https://amzn.to/4vak59q The Son Also Rises: https://amzn.to/4okonIx London School of Economics: https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/greg-clark Related episodes: #130 Iain McGilchrist — There Is A Great Deal Of Ruin In The Western World: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/19292333 #034 Garett Jones - Why Migrants Make Countries Like The Ones They Left: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/15347853 #127 Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2277944/episodes/19175544 Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • June 4 · 1 hr 27 min

    #130 - Iain McGilchrist - The Industrialisation Of Man, The Loss Of Faith, And What The Western Mind Has Done To Itself

    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 Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva Press, 2021). He writes at Channel McGilchrist and on Substack. Something has gone wrong with the Western mind. Not recently and not with any particular government or policy but rather at a deep structural level, over centuries. Iain McGilchrist has spent his career as a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and literary scholar trying to make sense of it. In this conversation we think out loud about: The difference between the actions and thoughts produced by the left and right hemispheres of the brain The most visible symptoms of civilisational decay in Britain and the West The key inflection points in history that set the West on a road to ruin, having previously defined the path to greatness What the Romantics were longing for in the industrial era — and why nostalgia is not a bad thing but necessary Why we need more new Romantics to show us how to live more fully human lives in the machine age What the industrialisation of man has done to our souls What the world we have built is doing to our minds and why mental health diagnoses are so prevalent amongst the young The mistake made by the West in becoming post-Christian Why Iain would rather die than sever his relationship with the faith — What Iain has not changed his mind on Find Dr McGilchrist's work: Channel McGilchrist McGilchrist Substack The Master and His Emissary The Matter with Things Ralston College Related episodes: #126 Gary Gerstle — The Iran War Is Ending The Global Economy As We Know It #110 Renaud Camus — The Disaster: The Great Replacement, Elite Failure & The Crisis Of The West #042 Peter Hitchens - How Britain Witnessed A Moral And Cultural Revolution Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • May 28 · 1 hr 8 min

    #129 - William Clouston & Firas Modad - The Iran War Is Breaking The Global Economy And Britain Has No Plan

    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 nearly three months. William Clouston and Firas on what is actually happening, how Britain ended up this exposed, what a sane government would do, and what the crisis reveals about a deeper civilisational loss of will. We think out loud about: - What the Strait closure actually means militarily and whether it will ever reopen - How Britain ended up with no strategic reserve, no energy self-sufficiency, and no industrial base - Why successive governments stopped thinking like custodians of a nation - What a sane government would actually do on energy, manufacturing and borders - The ideological double whammy: free trade purism and net zero combined are lethal doe Britain - How the financial sector was ideologically captured and failed to see the crisis coming - Whether the integrated global economy is finished and what will replace it - How the faith crisis underpins the nation's morale crisis and why power stations alone will not fix it - What ordinary people should actually begin doing differently in their own lives in response Follow their work: - SDP Investment State Green Paper: https://www.sdp.org.uk - Firas Modad Geopolitics: https://modadgeopolitics.com - The Lotus Eaters: https://lotuseaters.com Related episodes: - #126 Gary Gerstle — The Iran War Is Ending The Global Economy: https://youtu.be/KbCyaKcj0E8?si=Hzc1TNvhkuK90Wa- - #109 William Clouston — Why British Politics Governs Against The National Interest: https://youtu.be/Rm2Qp-1qnJw?si=5W0MSjBKe0tyFj1k - #112 Firas Modad — Britain Is Losing Control At Home And Abroad: https://youtu.be/KMOwGx9ZtMI?si=MKl__0WCHBbdRnmu Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast on the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thinking-class/id1717021615 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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  • May 21 · 1 hr 8 min

    #128 - Lord Tony Sewell - Life At The Bottom In Broken Britain - The White Working Class, The Road Man Culture, And The Collapse Of England

    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 STEM careers at top universities. In 2021 he chaired the government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, producing what became known as the Sewell Report. He was awarded a CBE for services to education in 2016 and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sewell of Sanderstead in 2022, where he sits as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. His latest book is Black Success: The Surprising Truth, published by Swift Press. In this conversation, Lord Sewell and I think out loud about: Why white working-class boys are still at the bottom How the numbers were deliberately fudged to hide the problem The three causes behind poor performance: poor schools in post-industrial areas, family breakdown, and no one championing their cause The self-loathing of middle-class white professionals and how their luxury beliefs that harm those below them Anti-white animus in the institutions and class warfare dressed up as progressivism The road man culture cutting across every ethnicity and what John saw on his road trip for his The Call Of England travelogue Why Sewell thinks Netflix' Adolescence missed the point entirely A modern-day dissolution of the monasteries. Can the institutions can be trusted or do they need to be replaced? Individual agency and community-led regeneration and what the state cannot fix The collapse of Christianity as the root cause underneath all of it What Sewell changed his mind on and why he came back to Christianity Find Lord Sewell's work: Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities Centre for Social Justice — White Working Class Boys report: https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/white-working-class-boys-still-at-the-bottom-of-the-class-says-race-report-chief Generating Genius: https://www.generatinggenius.org.uk About Thinking Class: Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with thinkers, historians, and commentators grappling honestly with the condition of our civilisation. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every week.

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  • May 14 · 1 hr 1 min

    #127 - Jonathan Rose - Literacy Is At Record Lows But It Wasn't Always. What The British Working Class Built And How It Was Destroyed

    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 a middle-class gift — it was seized, organically, as a form of human dignity claimed on their own terms. Then we severed it. In this conversation, we think out loud about: What the autodidact tradition looked like at its height — what a working-class reader's intellectual life in 1880 or 1910 actually was Why they chose Shakespeare and Milton rather than what their betters told them to read — and what that tells us about the nature of the impulse How the educated classes responded by creating modernism — deliberately obscure, deliberately difficult — to keep the inheritance out of reach The mechanism by which reading formed people with a high internal locus of control — and whether the loss of that mechanism is what literacy decline is really documenting The Hitchens argument: whether the tradition was destroyed from above by curriculum changes, or voluntarily relinquished from within — and whether those two things can be separated The role of Methodism as the engine of working-class self-improvement — and what its near-collapse means for any prospect of recovery Whether the autodidact tradition is still alive, operating now through podcasts and the internet rather than workmen's institutes What recovery would actually require — and Jonathan Rose's own changed mind on whether the impulse is dying Find Jonathan Rose's work: The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes — Yale University Press: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300098952/the-intellectual-life-of-the-british-working-classes/ The Literary Churchil: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300196535/the-literary-churchill/ Drew University faculty page: https://www.drew.edu About Thinking Class: Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with thinkers, historians, and commentators grappling honestly with the condition of our civilisation. ▶ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass ✍️ Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com 🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH 🐦 X: https://x.com/thinkingclasses New episodes every week.

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