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UnHerd

Freddie Sayers from online magazine UnHerd seeks out top scientists, writers, politicians and thinkers for in-depth interviews to try and help us work out what’s really going on. What started as an inquiry into the pandemic has broadened into a fascinating look at free speech, science, meaning and the ideas shaping our world.

Due to popular demand here is a podcast version of our YouTube — available to watch, for free here or by searching ‘LockdownTV’.

Enjoy! And don't forget to rate, like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UnHerd with Freddie Sayers

Freddie Sayers talks to UnHerd columnist and co-host of The Econoclasts Wolfgang Munchau about the political earthquake triggered by the hard-Right Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) historic election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, examining why young voters and non-voters are turning away from the centrist consensus, the total failure of Germany’s political ‘firewall’ strategy, the collapse of Friedrich Merz’s leadership within the CDU, and how a rising wave of hard-Right governments across France, Italy, and Germany could ultimately paralyse the European Union.
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Wolfgang Munchau: The AfD momentum is unstoppable

Jason Arday, the wunderkind sociologist and youngest ever black professor at Cambridge, has an almost unbelievable backstory. Overcoming illiteracy and autism, he became the jewel in the crown of the university’s pivot towards diversity post-2021. He has been lauded by celebrities, raised millions for charity, suffered abuse from detractors and found time to run hundreds of miles. Or has he? Kathleen Stock, former professor at Sussex University, speaks to UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers about her viral investigation into academia’s ‘DEI darling’ and the plagiarism scandal that shocked Britain.
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Kathleen Stock: The scandal of Jason Arday

Freddie Sayers is joined by UnHerd columnist and author Ross Barkan - a former campaign colleague of Zohran Mamdani - to discuss the New York Mayor’s rapid political rise and the controversies defining his tenure. They unpack Mamdani's anti-capitalist economic policies, his radical stance on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and assess what his brand of democratic socialism signals for the future trajectory of the Democratic Party and American politics as a whole.
 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ross Barkan: Zohran Mamdani is just the beginning

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt about the global momentum toward banning under-16s from social media, exploring the tension between protecting children from addictive platforms and safeguarding free speech from state censorship, while outlining how device-based age checks offer a viable solution where traditional parental controls fail.
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Jonathan Haidt: Why Big Tech wants your children

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to American political scientist, author, and prominent scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Norman Finkelstein, about the fracturing of the historically ironclad alliance between the political Right and Israel. They explore how a mixture of 'America First' anti-war sentiment and the financial incentives of the podcast economy have made criticising Israel a lucrative tool for Right-wing influencers, from Tucker Carlson to Candace Owens.
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Norman Finkelstein: How Israel lost the Right

In this exclusive UnHerd interview Freddie Sayers meets Jake Sullivan, former National Security Advisor under Joe Biden and chief negotiator during the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Jake Sullivan co-hosts the weekly national security podcast ‘The Long Game’ with Jon Finer, former deputy national security advisor under Sullivan.

Freddie and Jake analyse the geopolitical and financial implications of the Trump administration's memorandum of understanding with Iran. Could the concessions of the agreement that suspended the conflict to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for an unprecedented financial windfall of unfrozen assets, waived oil sanctions, and a controversial $300 billion reconstruction fund mark a significant diplomatic surrender? Or is this another example of the 'art of the deal'? Watch the full conversation now.

You can listen to Jake's podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-long-game-with-jake-sullivan-and-jon-finer/id1850526014

 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jake Sullivan: Trump has handed Iran victory

Freddie Sayers talks to The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles and UnHerd US editor Sohrab Ahmari to explore how Pope Leo XIV’s landmark AI encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is exposing deep philosophical and political fractures within the American populist Right over global technology regulation, transnational governance, and the Trump administration's relationship with the Vatican.
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Will Pope Leo divide the Right?

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks to John Burn-Murdoch, the chief data reporter for the Financial Times, as well as Hernan Moscoso-Boedo and Nathan Hudson from the University of Cincinnati, to investigate a controversial new study suggesting that the global proliferation of smartphones and social media since 2007 has drastically altered young people's behaviour, halved face-to-face socialisation, and accelerated a worldwide collapse in fertility rates that cannot simply be explained by the global financial crisis.
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John Burn-Murdoch: What's causing the fertility crisis?

UnHerd's Freddie Sayers talks with journalist, author, and historian Adrian Wooldridge about the systemic leadership crisis facing the UK, exploring how the rapid decline of Keir Starmer's Labour government mirrors the previous Conservative downfall and reflects a broader decay of liberalism that necessitates a radical reinvigoration of the centrist tradition.
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Adrian Wooldridge: Why Labour should keep Starmer

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks with Odd Arne Westad – Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University – about his new book The Coming Storm, which argues that rather than entering a new Cold War, we are actually reliving the high-tension multipolarity of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a dangerous era where rapid technological shifts, the collapse of globalisation, and the friction between a rising China and a nervous United States mirror the exact structural conditions that caused the world to sleepwalk into the catastrophe of World War 1.
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The stage is set for a new WWI

Journalist and author Peter Hitchens joins Freddie Sayers to reflect on the world 5 years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As society grapples with the lasting impact of lockdowns, Hitchens questions whether those who advocated for severe restrictions should be forgiven.

Hitchens explores whether the fervour surrounding the pandemic has been replaced by a new wave of political and media hysteria, particularly with the war in Ukraine.

Is society moving from one crisis mentality to another? Are we learning from past mistakes, or doomed to repeat them?

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Peter Hitchens: Lockdowns, 5 years on

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