Don’t forget to sign up for November’s Anglofuturism meet-up in London. Check the blog for more information.

Tom and Calum visit Space Solar at Harwell to meet co-founder and co-CEO Sam Adlen, who’s attempting to solve Britain’s energy crisis by putting massive solar arrays in geostationary orbit and beaming the power down as microwaves. No new physics required—just the unglamorous work of becoming the Toyota of space infrastructure.

In the episode:

* Why space-based solar delivers 13 times more energy than ground panels and provides baseload power 24/7, making it economically competitive with terrestrial solar even at today’s launch costs,

* The technical solution: kilometere-scale satellites made of hundreds of thousands of coffee table-sized modules that beam power down using phase conjugation, with no moving parts and power density a quarter of midday sun (safe enough that birds won’t cook),

* How Space Solar’s system works like a “giant interconnector in space”—instantly switching beams between countries to balance grids, support renewables when wind dies, and redirect power where it’s needed, potentially saving over a billion pounds annually in UK energy system costs,

* Why they’re not trying to invent new physics but rather optimise industrial process—the challenge is manufacturing a million modules, perfecting logistics, and automating assembly in space using robotics that construct truss structures in orbit,

* Britain’s fatal flaw: brilliant at innovation, terrible at scaling, with orders of magnitude less investment going into space than AI or fusion despite space being “bigger than AI” and strategically critical as the new waterways for global power,

* The regulatory reality: UK space regulators have been “superb” and energised, even on grid connections that normally take 15 years—the real bottleneck is financing early-stage infrastructure rather than venture capital’s preference for low-capex software,

* Sam’s vision for 2075: Britain as a leader in space infrastructure, power no longer a constraint, and a generation with genuine abundance ahead—but only if we move now, because “there’s no second mover role” when barriers to entry spike after first movers climb the cost curve,

* Why Starship’s success is the step change moment for space: 24 launches in 24 hours transforms everything from orbital data centers to asteroid mining, and Britain needs to commit two orders of magnitude more investment immediately or watch others colonise the economic high ground.

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After being featured in a Hope Not Hate report linking Robert Jenrick to Anglofuturism, Tom and Calum reflect on their newfound infamy while developing their theory that Pingu represents English settler colonialism, discussing plans to rebuild Britain’s castles, and making the case for British domination of space.

Tom and Calum on:

* Their appearance in a Hope Not Hate exposé as “the most intellectual vision” of Anglofuturism, despite the organisation’s history of libel cases and treating any immigration scepticism as fascism,

* The Straussian reading of Pingu: why the show is clearly about English settlement of Antarctica, with Pingu as a third-generation settler family complete with nuclear family structure and grandparents—”indomitable, curious, restless, resourceful,”

* The Pendragon Foundation’s plan to rebuild Britain’s crumbling castles as living cultural centres rather than preserved ruins, learning from French château restoration and Japanese craft traditions that maintain skills through continuous building,

* Why buildings must evolve rather than be frozen in amber—the challenge isn’t preservation but having the confidence that new additions enhance rather than damage, avoiding both museum-ification and CBeebies-style vandalism,

* Boris Johnson’s continued defence of mass immigration despite acknowledging integration has failed, and why his generation of Tories remains traumatised by the “nasty party” narrative and temperamentally incapable of restriction,

* How cultural narratives around immigration and integration have shifted over generations, and why the smartphone age presents challenges for assimilation,

* Why no financial incentive can solve Britain’s birth rate crisis when market logic has made children economically irrational, and the grim possibility that medical technology is amplifying fertility problems,

* Britain’s new orbital defence sensors against Russian laser attacks, and why now is the moment for some bloody-minded figure to champion British domination of space warfare before the opportunity passes—defending satellites today, commanding the high ground tomorrow.

With additional audio from Calum’s appearance on Hugo Rifkind’s Times Radio show and an excellent YouTube clip.

Curtis Yarvin steps aboard the KC-3 to argue that Britain should exploit America’s imperial exhaustion to become the new leader of the West, starting with dismantling the cathedral of unaccountable bureaucrats that has replaced genuine sovereignty. It’s a path that runs through Oxbridge, extraterritorial Chinese Oakland, and possibly some Ayahuasca for Elon Musk.

Tom, Calum, and Curtis on:

* Why the Deliveroo economy is more dehumanizing than Victorian servitude - with social distance replacing the personal bonds that once connected masters and servants,

* How Elizabeth I’s delegation to the Cecils created Britain’s first “deep state” of Platonic guardians, leading directly to today’s unaccountable oligarchy of Sir Humphrey Applebys,

* The pornography of democratic power: why voting makes you feel sovereign when you’re actually just a consumer demanding better customer service from an autocracy that pretends to care about your opinions,

* Why gain-of-function research is like coming home to find your ten-year-old setting fire to the kitchen curtains “for science” - and how experts’ conflict of interest makes them create the crises they’re paid to solve,

* Napoleon’s maxim that “the crown of the Western world is in the gutter” - why Britain can simply pick it up with its sword now that American imperial energy has dissipated and the State Department can’t stop you,

* The case for neo-colonialism as win-win: reverse extraterritoriality in West Oakland with Chinese police in white gloves, reclaiming Jamaica and Ceylon’s tropical highlands, and why Africa needs to be “regoverned” before it can thrive.

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Tom and Calum explore "dark abundance": a more muscular approach to progress that combines deregulation with decisive state action against disorder and dysfunction.

* Why Trump's state visit was peak "museum Britain" - bringing out the fine china for foreign guests while using enamelware the rest of the time,

* The taxonomy of abundance politics: from Ezra Klein's soft progressivism to "dark abundance", which posits that some people need locking up until their frontal lobes develop,

* How special interests capture reform - from civil servants empire-building through risk assessments to public sector workers voting Labour to preserve their comfortable sinecures,

* The eternal tension between Manchester Liberal free trade and the need for order: why you can't have abundance without deterring bus fare dodgers and ensuring violent criminals actually face consequences,

* Victorian-style pacification of the country through decisive punishment, inspired by Britain executing 16 times more people per capita than Prussia in the 19th century,

* Their architectural philosophy for the coming new towns boom: why Poundbury succeeds despite its mongrel-like mixing of styles, and the case for illiberal design codes that ban modernist innovation in city centres until we figure out what the hell is going on in architectural schools.

Industrial policy researcher Rian Chad Whitton makes his second appearance to dissect Britain's manufacturing decline, arguing that energy costs and economic orthodoxy have systematically dismantled what was once the world's fourth-largest industrial base.

Tom, Calum, and Rian on:

* Why 1999 represented a high-water mark for British industry - the fourth-largest manufacturing base globally with functioning steel, chemicals, and automotive sectors, before China's rise blindsided everyone including FT columnists,

* How Britain's "tolerance for lower margins" problem means we exit markets entirely while Germany and Japan fight to stay competitive - illustrated by ICI's dismantling versus Jim Ratcliffe's successful INEOS empire built from the wreckage,

* The devastating impact of energy costs on heavy industry: 20% of gross value added for energy-intensive sectors, 80% for steel production, while competitors enjoy massive state subsidies that Britain refuses to match,

* Why the government's £51 billion energy support budget (the size of the defence budget) still isn't enough to paper over the fundamental problem of expensive electricity and misguided net-zero policies,

* Ryan's fantasy 50-year plan for industrial revival: import substitution for steel and cement, building the world's largest 200,000-ton forge press, and learning from Chinese entrepreneurs who consider profit margins above 5% "economic inefficiency,"

* The irony that Britain followed American economic orthodoxy perfectly - green energy, liberal immigration, foreign direct investment - only to be mocked by Americans for becoming a "vassal state" that sucks at everything.

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Space policy expert Peter Hague joins from his emergency shuttle to discuss Labour's decision to fold the UK Space Agency into a larger department, effectively ending Britain's independent space ambitions just as the new space age begins.

In this episode:

* Why the UK Space Agency's absorption into DSIT represents Britain "quitting before it started" - losing budget autonomy and direct ministerial access just when space is becoming strategically crucial,

* The historical pattern of British space failures: from abandoning the successful Blue Streak rocket (which could have rivaled Atlas) to the disastrous Europa program where continental partners kept sabotaging British components,

* Why the Apollo program wasn't popular at the time but became mythic afterward - and how political leadership means doing unpopular things that future generations will thank you for,

* Peter's "Penny for Space" campaign: spending just 1% of government budget on space (compared to 33% on welfare) as a "civilizational pension" for Britain's future in the 22nd century,

* The coming space revolution that will make 2029 politically embarrassing: private space stations, Indian human spaceflight, and potentially Chinese or American boots on Mars while Britain has no space program at all,

* Why we need a new UK space agency focused on building rotating space habitats in Earth orbit - stepping into the gap as America abandons permanent orbital presence for lunar missions.

Peter asked us to higlight the recent work of Progress in building a technology-forward Britain. We recommend trying out the excellent Nick, 30 ans simulator.

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Tom and Calum reflect on 25 episodes of the podcast that allegedly influenced Robert Jenrick to declare himself an Anglofuturist, while grappling with accusations of dangerous nostalgia from Southampton academics.

Tom and Calum on:

* How Robert Jenrick's declaration that he's “what you would call an Anglo-futurist” at a Westminster nationalism conference proves their growing influence

* Defending themselves against Francesca Melhuish's academic paper attacking the “nostalgic politics of Anglofuturism”

* Why talk of British civil war misses the point - the real question is whether there's a genuine constituency for radical change beyond angry WhatsApp groups and hotel protests,

* Tom's new book, and his journey from effective altruist malaria-net maximizer to someone worried about civilizational collapse,

* The thrilling prospect of geoengineering our way out of climate change through stratospheric aerosol injection and iron ocean fertilization

The Anti-Catastrophe League: The pioneers and visionaries on a quest to save the world

A new Elizabethan age: The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) and the nostalgic politics of Anglofuturism

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A bonus episode diving deeper into Alex Burghart's experience creating Britain's first government AI unit, from spotting benefit fraud to the bureaucratic battles that nearly killed innovation.

Calum and Tom with Alex on:

* The surprisingly mundane reality of government AI–not solving cancer, but automating correspondence, flagging outdated NHS prescriptions, and spotting benefit fraud patterns that human analysts miss,

* How departments hoard data "like family silver" to maintain leverage over each other–and why even Dominic Cummings couldn't force the sharing needed for his famous "situation room" dashboards,

* The shocking gaps in basic government knowledge: we don't know how many people live in Britain, can't get real-time data for PMQs, and the best population estimates come from supermarket footfall,

* Why hiring top AI talent required stepping outside normal civil service pay bands–and how £150k salaries (still massive pay cuts for tech workers) bought world-class engineers motivated by mission over money,

* The perverse incentives of civil service culture: brilliant specialists forced into management to advance, departments refusing to share data that could eliminate their jobs, and a system that selects for risk-averse mediocrity,

* Alex's vision for the future of government: ruthlessly cutting non-priorities, automating everything possible, and building a "smaller, better qualified, better paid" civil service–plus AI judges for instant legal settlements.

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Conservative MP Alex Burghart and AI expert Dr Laura Gilbert argue that Britain's mediaeval past holds the key to mastering its technological future–from Alfred's burghs to sovereign data centres.

Calum, Tom, Alex, and Laura explore:

* How Alfred the Great's response to Viking invasion mirrors today's AI challenge–using crisis as the moment to forge new order when "the metal is hot," creating institutions that lasted centuries,

* Why the collapse of Roman Britain offers hope for our post-imperial moment: just as Alfred built something more durable than Rome from chaos, we can create lasting prosperity from current decline,

* Laura's insider account of building i.ai within government–attracting world-class talent with the mission to save lives and money, while navigating civil service "antibodies against change" and demands for "Whitehall Sherpas,"

* The case for sovereign compute power and data ownership as national security imperatives–why relying on foreign AI models could leave Britain vulnerable to future Donald Trump Jrs turning off access,

* Alex's vision for technological Anglo-Saxonism: virtual reality mead halls where the nation's "Witan" assembles annually, plus genetically enhanced oaks growing fast enough to maintain our aesthetic inheritance,

* Why the next government needs to break the bureaucratic paradigm that's paralysed Britain since 1990–and why Conservative experience of governmental frustration makes them uniquely positioned to "seize the liquid moment."

Sovereignty, Security, Scale: A UK Strategy for AI Infrastructure

Professor James Campbell (historian)

Clip from “Harold Godwinson” used with permission from The Skaldic Bard.

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Political theorist Philip Cunliffe argues that globalism is dying and Britain has a rare chance to lead the world into whatever comes next - but only if it rediscovers what sovereignty actually means.

Philip Cunliffe on:

* Why we're witnessing the collapse of globalist political structures that layered transnational governance over democratic nation states,

* How ruling elites from the 1980s onwards deliberately fragmented political power to escape working-class demands, creating the regulatory "blob" that can't build railways or defend territory but excels at shuffling PowerPoint decks,

* The failure of populists like Trump and Meloni to break free from globalist institutions, despite their rhetoric - and why even "America First" gets sucked back into Middle Eastern quagmires,

* Why Brexit was a precocious early move in this global transition, giving Britain unique advantages as other nations will "inevitably have to follow us down as globalism continues to decay,"

* The case for "new nations" - not territorial breakups but politically renewed nation-states that can actually defend their interests, requiring proportional representation, ending devolution, and forcing politicians to think in terms of national interest rather than international virtue signaling,

* How a revitalised Britain could seize unprecedented opportunities in a multipolar world without a single hegemon - if it's willing to focus on what sovereignty actually means.

The National Interest: Politics After Globalization

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