Fire at Will

By The Spectator Australia

Society & Culture

What's Fire at Will about?

A safe space for dangerous conversations, from The Spectator Australia.

The Spectator is the world’s longest-running magazine of news, arts and ideas.

Hosted by Will Kingston.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Fire at Will episodes:

05.08.2024
Fighting cultural socialism, with Eric Kaufmann
Australiana is now Fire at Will - your safe space for dangerous conversations. Across the western world, cosplay protests are ongoing in some of the most elite academic institutions. They point to a deeper malaise in places of higher education. That's...
05.06.2024
Ready... Aim... Fire at Will.
Introducing your safe space for dangerous conversations. Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here [https://linktr.ee/fireatwillpod]. Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here. [https://www.spectator.com.au/join/]
05.01.2024
"Conservatism is gratitude" – Jonah Goldberg
Western liberal democratic capitalism has created more prosperity, and enabled more human flourishing, than any other social system. It is something we should be proud of. And yet, Jonah Goldberg argues it is under attack, both from illiberal progressive identity...
04.24.2024
Debunking Australia's housing crisis myth, with Cameron Murray
There's a common refrain when it comes to housing in Australia today: 'it's never been harder to enter the housing market'. Housing affordability has been labelled by politicians, the media, and aspiring homeowners as a historic crisis. What if that's just...
04.17.2024
In defense of journalism, with Anthony De Ceglie
It's easy to forget that journalists were once invested with immense trust by citizens. This is no longer the case. Journalists are amongst the least trusted members of society, and it has been largely self-inflicted. The rise of activist journalism over...
04.10.2024
"Gen Z is the most conservative generation since WW2" - Isabel Brown
Gen Z has developed quite a reputation. Lazy. Difficult to work with. Technology-addicted. And of course, insufferably woke. What if that reputation is ill-founded? What if, in fact, Gen Z is the most culturally conservative generation since World War Two?...
04.03.2024
The short march through the institutions, with Yascha Mounk
Sometimes it feels like the tidal wave of 'wokeness' (or identity politics) washed over the western world almost overnight. It has captured more or less every societal institution in a remarkably short period of time. However, the intellectual roots of the...
03.27.2024
Tales of a Hollywood dissident, with Matthew Marsden
Politics is downstream from culture. To change politics, one must first change culture. The left intrinsically understands this in a way that the right simply does not. The arts have been captured by a toxic mixture of identity politics, social...
03.20.2024
The real State of the Union, with Charles C.W. Cooke
There are two ways to look at American politics in 2024. There's the prevailing pessimistic view. Many people think democracy is under threat, the economy is structurally vulnerable, the military is stretched, and for many, the looming election represents a...
03.13.2024
In conversation with Douglas Murray
It is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western ones. Many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. It's not just dishonest scholars who benefit from this intellectual fraud but hostile nations and human...
03.06.2024
Lessons for the silenced majority, with Katherine Brodsky
We as a society are self-censoring at record rates. Say the wrong thing at the wrong moment to the wrong person and the consequences can be dire. When the truth is no defense and nuance is seen as an attack, self-censorship...
02.28.2024
"The Teals are an existential threat to the Liberals" - Joe Hildebrand
Australia is facing serious domestic and international challenges, all at a time when the political class has arguably never been so ill-equipped to address them. In fact, perhaps the only thing that nearly all Australians can agree on is that...
02.21.2024
"It's the culture, stupid" - Matt Goodwin
Bill Clinton's strategist James Carville memorably said, "It's the economy, stupid". Times have changed. The great political battles of our time are not waged over economics, but cultural issues. Today, "It's the culture, stupid". No one understands this better than Matt...
02.14.2024
"Reality is now subject to ideology" - Lionel Shriver
Journalist. Contrarian. Iconoclast. Intellectual. Provocateur... And one of the most successful novelists of the 21st century. Lionel Shriver has, in her own words, spent a career courting self-destruction. But she's still standing. In this no-holds barred conversation with Will, Lionel gives her...
02.07.2024
Why you don't have free will, with Brian Klaas
We all comfort ourselves by believing in cause and effect. According to Dr Brian Klaas, we wilfully ignore a bewildering truth: but for a few small changes, our lives and our societies could be profoundly different. When given the choice between...
01.31.2024
How to rig an election, with Nic Cheeseman
2024 is the biggest election year in history. Countries with more than half the world's population – over four billion people – will go to the polls. You'd think the more elections the better, right? Dr Nic Cheeseman would urge caution....
01.24.2024
"Appeasement guarantees war" - Victor Davis Hanson
The most astute social commentators on the present are the people who have the deepest understanding of the past. As Mark Twain famously said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." Historians are best placed to hear the rhymes...
01.17.2024
A real talk, with Zuby
It's perhaps never been harder to speak the truth than it is in the West today. In fact, many people now implicitly question the value of the truth itself. That's why it's so important to recognise and champion people with...
01.10.2024
"If another pandemic hits, we will lockdown again" - Jay Bhattacharya
Few people called for sanity as the world lost its collective mind during the COVID pandemic, but Jay Bhattacharya was certainly one of them. Jay is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford...
01.03.2024
The case for colonialism, with Bruce Gilley
The overwhelming majority of academic articles come and go with little fanfare. There may be the odd admiring nod from a professor, or a few lively debates in university tutorial rooms. But that's normally about it. Unless you are Professor Bruce...
12.27.2023
The sniper bullet of surprise, with Jeffery Deaver
It's that time of the year when many of us will sit down and write. It could be resolutions. It could be reflections. It could be that book that everyone has inside them. There's just one problem. It's really hard. To...
12.20.2023
Draining the swamp, with Sebastian Gorka
It's hard not to see America as a country in decline. Foreign policy attention is stretched, political debate is toxic, the national debt is eye-watering, and the institutions have been ideologically captured. However, America has been written off before. It's geographic,...
12.13.2023
"Isn't politics magical" - Tom Switzer
As we approach the end of 2023, it's easy to become despondent about the fate of the West. War rages in Ukraine and the Middle East, as China eyes off Taiwan. The cost of living crisis is becoming unbearable for...
12.06.2023
"Australia was a lab of tyranny" - Naomi Wolf
For over 30 years, Naomi Wolf was lauded as a feminist icon, a bestselling author and a darling of liberal America. Her investigative journalism during the COVID pandemic led to those labels being replaced overnight with pejoratives like 'conspiracy theorist'...
11.29.2023
The power of satire, with The Babylon Bee's Joel Berry
Satire is one of the most important ingredients of a healthy public discourse. But it is under threat across the west. Comedy, once the most subversive of artforms, has caved to the woke mob. Misinformation laws threaten to curtail free...
11.22.2023
It's Hardcore History, with Dan Carlin
Who was the most influential person in history? Why do empires fall? What is the biggest misconception about WWI? Napoleon or Alexander the Great? And why are men so obsessed with the Roman Empire? All these questions (and more) are answered...
11.15.2023
An honest conversation about colonialism, with Nigel Biggar
Today, colonialism is viewed by many as the original sin of British history. The truth is far more complex. Theologian, ethicist, and author Nigel Biggar is one of the very few public figures with the courage to take a holistic...
11.08.2023
"London has fallen" - Laurence Fox
For the second time in his life, Laurence Fox is engulfed in a cancellation storm. It has taken a heavy toll, but he refuses to be silenced. In this wide-ranging conversation with Will, he discusses cancel culture, GB News, the failure...
11.01.2023
"Why is this lying bastard lying to me?" - Rob Burley
The forensic, long-form political interview remains possibly the best, and certainly the most entertaining, mechanism for political accountability. Can it survive in an age of spin, social media and soundbites? To answer that question, Will is joined by Rob Burley. Rob...
10.25.2023
Un-cancelling Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan created some of the most beloved British sitcoms of all-time, including Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. That counted for little when his life was upended for the 'crime' of advocating for sex-based rights. In this conversation...
10.18.2023
Off to war, with James Holland
What if Hitler was killed in 1923? Was Germany's defeat in WWII inevitable? How should we assess Churchill's legacy? And are the events unfolding in Gaza today a by-product of WWII? All these questions, and more, are answered by arguably the...
10.11.2023
In conversation with Jeffrey Archer
Jeffrey Archer is one of the most successful authors of all time. He has been published in 115 countries and more than 50 languages, with international sales passing 275 million copies. But his life has been just as remarkable as...
10.04.2023
"This is the medical scandal of the 21st century" - Helen Joyce
Helen Joyce is a journalist, author and feminist campaigner. Her first book, 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality', was an immediate bestseller and named by The Times, The Spectator and The Observer as one of their books of 2021. It tells the...
09.27.2023
The Saad Truth about Happiness, with Gad Saad
Has western society ever been more unhappy? Deaths of despair are at historically high levels. Antidepressant use is through the roof. Woke culture is encouraging us to feel guilty about pretty much everything. We are in desperate need of an...
09.20.2023
"The government is the enemy" - Hannah Cox
Capitalism was the driving force behind extraordinary advances in prosperity throughout the 20th century. But isolationist policies, stagnant wages and woke companies have led many to question whether the capitalist system has run its course. To assess the state of capitalism...
09.13.2023
10 questions for Dominic Sandbrook
Who was the greatest-ever military general? What was history's most disastrous party? Is identity politics ruining the study of history? And what on Earth was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth? All these questions and more are answered by the co-host of the smash-hit...
09.06.2023
"It doesn't matter who tells the story, it matters how it's told" - Helen Dale
It may seem odd to describe a book that was published almost 30 years ago as highly topical. But the 1995 Miles Franklin Award winner, 'The Hand That Signed The Paper', is just that. The book's author, Helen Dale, has since...
08.30.2023
"Let's do the best things first" - Bjorn Lomborg
International best-selling author Bjorn Lomborg has spent a career infuriating people by being sensible. He brought much-needed pragmatism to the climate debate, and he's now doing the same for international development. In his latest book, titled 'Best Things First', he presents...
08.23.2023
"We emote so much, and feel so little" - John Anderson
John Anderson AC is a sixth-generation farmer and grazier from New South Wales, who spent 19 years from 1989 in the Australian Parliament, including six years as Leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister. In this wide-ranging conversation with...
08.16.2023
An epistemic avalanche of madness, with Peter Boghossian
One of the most important academic papers of modern times was published in 2017. It was titled, 'The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct'. Thankfully, it wasn't the content of the paper that started a global discussion, but rather the...
08.09.2023
Our world through Roman eyes, with Tom Holland
In some respects, the Romans feel strangely familiar. In the great men (and yes, they were almost always men) of the Roman Empire, we can glimpse human motivations, desires and flaws that we share today. At the same time, the...
08.02.2023
"Trump is a canvas for Americans" - Michael Berry
Drugs in the White House... Presidential court cases... Geriatric party leaders… Eight hour hunger strikes… And the odd attempted 'insurrection.' It's fair to say that we've become desensitised to just how strange American politics has become. To help make sense...
07.26.2023
"Silliness always wins" - Monty Franklin
We live in an age where the lines between entertainment and political activism are so blurred as to be almost non-existent. Barbie is less a movie about a doll than a lecture about the patriarchy. The 'Welcome to Country' at...
07.19.2023
Diagnosing a fragile nation, with Dr Tanveer Ahmed
Society's approach to mental health is, well, healthier than it was in the past. The stiff upper lip, suck it up, 'be a man' mentality has been replaced by a more open and accepting conversation around depression, anxiety and trauma. However,...
07.12.2023
Left is not woke, with Susan Neiman
It isn't hard to find a right-wing critique of woke ideology. It is much more difficult to find left-leaning thinkers coming out in opposition to the woke dogma that has superseded traditional, social democratic principles in most western centre-left political...
07.05.2023
"The west has become more like China" - Adam Creighton
Adam Creighton is an Australian economist and journalist. He is currently the Washington correspondent for The Australian newspaper. In this interview with host Will Kingston, Adam takes us on a whistle-stop tour of the burning economic issues of the day,...
06.28.2023
A heretic's manifesto, with Brendan O'Neill
Brendan O'Neill is the chief political writer for Spiked and a regular contributor to The Spectator. His new book, 'A Heretic's Manifesto', is a rallying cry to stand up against the woke orthodoxy of our age. Follow Australiana on social media...
06.21.2023
"I'll never stop fighting for women" - Sall Grover
Sall Grover was a Hollywood screenwriter for a decade before returning to Australia to start 'Giggle' - a social media app for women. After a barely believable series of events (that could only have happened in the strange times in...
06.14.2023
"I never count America out" - Miranda Devine
Miranda Devine is an Australian journalist and bestselling author. Whilst working in Australia, her opinion pieces for, among others, The Daily Telegraph and The Sydney Morning Herald more often than not made their way to the forefront of the national...
06.07.2023
"People no longer understand satire" - Johannes Leak
Johannes Leak is the Editorial Cartoonist for The Australian. Like his father Bill before him, Johannes' cartoons represent the soul of the newspaper. In this conversation with host Will Kingston, Johannes delivers a masterclass on the craft of political cartoons,...

What's Fire at Will about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Fire at Will episodes:

Fighting cultural socialism, with Eric Kaufmann

Ready... Aim... Fire at Will.

"Conservatism is gratitude" – Jonah Goldberg

Debunking Australia's housing crisis myth, with Cameron Murray

In defense of journalism, with Anthony De Ceglie

"Gen Z is the most conservative generation since WW2" - Isabel Brown

The short march through the institutions, with Yascha Mounk

Tales of a Hollywood dissident, with Matthew Marsden

The real State of the Union, with Charles C.W. Cooke

In conversation with Douglas Murray

Lessons for the silenced majority, with Katherine Brodsky

"The Teals are an existential threat to the Liberals" - Joe Hildebrand

"It's the culture, stupid" - Matt Goodwin

"Reality is now subject to ideology" - Lionel Shriver

Why you don't have free will, with Brian Klaas

How to rig an election, with Nic Cheeseman

"Appeasement guarantees war" - Victor Davis Hanson

A real talk, with Zuby

"If another pandemic hits, we will lockdown again" - Jay Bhattacharya

The case for colonialism, with Bruce Gilley

The sniper bullet of surprise, with Jeffery Deaver

Draining the swamp, with Sebastian Gorka

"Isn't politics magical" - Tom Switzer

"Australia was a lab of tyranny" - Naomi Wolf

The power of satire, with The Babylon Bee's Joel Berry

It's Hardcore History, with Dan Carlin

An honest conversation about colonialism, with Nigel Biggar

"London has fallen" - Laurence Fox

"Why is this lying bastard lying to me?" - Rob Burley

Un-cancelling Graham Linehan

Off to war, with James Holland

In conversation with Jeffrey Archer

"This is the medical scandal of the 21st century" - Helen Joyce

The Saad Truth about Happiness, with Gad Saad

"The government is the enemy" - Hannah Cox

10 questions for Dominic Sandbrook

"It doesn't matter who tells the story, it matters how it's told" - Helen Dale

"Let's do the best things first" - Bjorn Lomborg

"We emote so much, and feel so little" - John Anderson

An epistemic avalanche of madness, with Peter Boghossian

Our world through Roman eyes, with Tom Holland

"Trump is a canvas for Americans" - Michael Berry

"Silliness always wins" - Monty Franklin

Diagnosing a fragile nation, with Dr Tanveer Ahmed

Left is not woke, with Susan Neiman

"The west has become more like China" - Adam Creighton

A heretic's manifesto, with Brendan O'Neill

"I'll never stop fighting for women" - Sall Grover

"I never count America out" - Miranda Devine

"People no longer understand satire" - Johannes Leak