
Hosted by John Gillam · EN
Thinking Class is a weekly long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and civilisational forces shaping England, Britain, and the Western world.
Hosted by John Gillam, the show brings together historians, philosophers, theologians, economists, and public intellectuals for conversations that go beyond the news cycle by examining the deep roots of the West's present predicament and asking what genuine recovery might require.
Guests have included David Starkey, Lord Jonathan Sumption, Lord Nigel Biggar, Robert Tombs, Peter Hitchens, Lionel Shriver, Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Stock, Carl Trueman, and many others.
If you value serious conversation about Britain, the West, and the forces shaping our future, then this is the show for you.
New episodes every week.

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 AmericansFrederick Jackson Turner's argument that America only became culturally distinct once settlers crossed the Appalachians and had to build civilisation anewDavid Hackett Fischer's four British folkways and which of them actually drove the push westwardWhy the Scots-Irish Borderers who settled Appalachia resemble the Bedouin of Arabia more than they resemble the East Coast settlements they left behindThe recurring tension between liberty and order in the Anglo-American character, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the modern dayGeorge Washington as a land speculator and enclosure man who died the richest man in the country — the story behind the mythWhy neither the settlers nor the Native Americans held a monopoly on civilisation or savagery, and what a forensic reading of the primary sources actually showsWhy Clement changed his mind about universalism — and what that means for how the modern world's institutions were builtAnd 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=VcpwRhAUmrcrWOTmFind Clement Knox:Substack: https://clementknox.substack.comRelated 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-4zEueiRThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 stormWhy the most progressive schools in Britain are often the expensive private ones, not the state schools everyone assumes are failingWhat actually happens inside a school that treats children as capable of excellence rather than victims of circumstanceThe 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 togetherWhy she believes schools now shape children more powerfully than families do — and what that means for the future of the countryFind 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-XGWoS4Jonathan Rose — What The British Working Class Lost And Who Is Responsible: https://youtu.be/OKHcEo2QrJg?si=cE6cr_Ypgs6geVyhThe 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=y2zHLbn8juRbQidlThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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/notesX: https://x.com/verdur_inYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@verdurinRelated 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=k6egq2NGvyo1mnxUThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 ithow anti-populists restrict democracy while claiming to defend itwhy fascism and populism are not just different but oppositewhy nostalgia underpins cultural continuitywhy 60% of the crisis starts in the schoolswhether assimilation is possible in a normless societyand 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 endThe real-life impact of anti-racist and DEI policies on the British publicHow the progressive left re-racialised British public life — and is now horrified that the wider public has adopted the same lensAsh Sarkar, Novara Media, and the hypocrisy of racialising everything until the racialisation turns against youTwo-tier policing, two-tier sentencing, and the cases of Valdo Calocane and Henry NovakThe Islamisation of Britain — jihadism, blasphemy law by stealth, and the demographic projectionsThe future of British Jews and whether the trajectory is recoverableWhether the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish are allowed an ethnic identity in the same way as every other groupThe emergence of English national identity and why suppressing it is the most dangerous thing the establishment can doFind Max Klinger:Substack: https://maxthinks.substack.comX: @MaxE2ReviewRelated 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--ETBQjeVpJAWThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 otherThe three Frances: the citadels, the banlieues, and the forgotten white working-class peripheryHow French prisons became the engine room of radicalisationThe difference between Maliki Islam and Wahhabi puritanism and why it mattersWhy the French Republic's promise to make everyone a Frenchman is being tested to destructionThe RN rallies: Hussey spent time with the supporters and found not fascists but ordinary peopleWhether the progressive left's grievance politics has made integration permanently impossibleThe Charlie Hebdo demonstration and the moment Hussey converted to French RepublicanismNaboukh la France: what the ancient curse really means and why it mattersWhat all of this tells Britain about what is comingFind Professor Hussey's work:The French Intifada: The Long War Between France and Its Arabs - https://amzn.to/4vOVW84Fractured France: https://amzn.to/4aG8g2jRelated 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=bObsQUD8C1-77RLaThinking 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 XNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 institutionsWhy Indian cotton mills in the 1920s could not match Lancashire despite identical technologyWhat Clark discovered from studying more than 422,000 English people across four centuriesWhy social mobility appears largely unchanged since the Middle AgesWhy Denmark and Britain have almost identical mobility rates despite radically different welfare statesWhy family size, birth order, and the death of a father have no measurable effect on life outcomesWhy the upper classes decline at the same rate the lower classes rise — and what that symmetry meansWhether England has been a meritocracy since 1300Why governments may be attempting to solve problems that are largely resistant to policyClark's forthcoming book — and why it is proving difficult to publishFind Professor Clark's work:A Farewell to Alms: https://amzn.to/4vak59qThe Son Also Rises: https://amzn.to/4okonIxLondon School of Economics: https://www.lse.ac.uk/people/greg-clarkRelated 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/19175544Thinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 WestThe key inflection points in history that set the West on a road to ruin, having previously defined the path to greatnessWhat the Romantics were longing for in the industrial era — and why nostalgia is not a bad thing but necessaryWhy we need more new Romantics to show us how to live more fully human lives in the machine ageWhat the industrialisation of man has done to our soulsWhat the world we have built is doing to our minds and why mental health diagnoses are so prevalent amongst the youngThe mistake made by the West in becoming post-ChristianWhy Iain would rather die than sever his relationship with the faith — What Iain has not changed his mind onFind Dr McGilchrist's work:Channel McGilchristMcGilchrist SubstackThe Master and His EmissaryThe Matter with ThingsRalston CollegeRelated 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 RevolutionThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 responseFollow their work:- SDP Investment State Green Paper: https://www.sdp.org.uk- Firas Modad Geopolitics: https://modadgeopolitics.com- The Lotus Eaters: https://lotuseaters.comRelated 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__0WCHBbdRnmuThinking 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every Thursday at 3pm.

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 travelogueWhy 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 itWhat Sewell changed his mind on and why he came back to ChristianityFind 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.ukAbout 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/thinkingclassesNew episodes every week.