Rob Bates on the great student visa scam, the trouble with Labour’s immigration reforms and the desperate smears of Hope Not Hate.

In Episode 70 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Rob Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration Control, on Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms and whether they go far enough, the scandal of migrants using student visas to claim asylum and what Reform should do next on migration policy. Plus: Hope Not Hate’s bizarre attempt to smear Laurie in its ‘State of Hate’ report.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Fred de Fossard on how the Equality Act fosters discrimination against white males, and Tilak Doshi on Germany’s chemicals industry bloodbath.

In Episode 69 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Fred de Fossard, Director of Strategy at the Prosperity Institute, on the scourge of Labour’s Equality Act 2010, why Reform is right to repeal it and whether Restore Britain is a threat to Farage.

And Dr Tilak Doshi, the Daily Sceptic’s Energy Editor, on how Net Zero is sending Germany’s chemicals industry down the drain, and why sceptics are the real climate scientists.

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Read his latest articles on the Daily Sceptic here and here.

Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Andrew Orlowski on AI and why it’s overhyped, and Ben Pile on the green zealots’ failed temperature predictions.

In Episode 68 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Andrew Orlowski, Telegraph Business and Technology Columnist, on why AI is a bubble waiting to burst and why we won’t be seeing datacentres in space.

And Ben Pile, journalist and Daily Sceptic regular, on the green delusions of the Telegraph’s resident solar evangelist, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, and why Tony Blair is criticising Ed Miliband over Net Zero.

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Read his latest articles on the Daily Sceptic here and here.

Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

The downfall of Mandelson and McSweeney, the scourge of Westminster ‘comms’ brain and why Blue Labour was always fake.

In Episode 67 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Felix Hardinge, a writer and cultural critic who works in financial services.

Laurie and Felix discuss the defenestration of Peter Mandelson and what his elevation to US ambassador in the first place says about Keir Starmer; his departed chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and whether his ‘Blue Labour’ politics really existed; why Starmer’s crackdown on the riots is what killed it off; why the PM is so uniquely hated – and why the Right would be worse off if he resigned; plus The Thick of It and how it convinced a generation of politicos that politics is really just media management, and why what the country really needs is ‘reheated Thatcherism’.

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Read his latest on the Daily Sceptic here.

Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

On this Special Episode of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Kathryn Porter, energy consultant, commentator and the founder of Watt-Logic, on the suicidal delusions of our green elites’ electrification crusade.

As we are told to use electricity more and more and gas less and less, while relying ever more heavily on costly and intermittent renewables, will the grid be able to cope?  

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Produced by Richard Eldred. Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Tom Jones on Reform, the Tories and the future of the Right, and Tilak Doshi on Trump’s America vs the global blue team.

In Episode 66 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Tom Jones, Deputy Online Editor at the Critic and Conservative councillor, about what the string of Right-wing Tory defections to Reform means for the future of the British Right.

And Dr Tilak Doshi, the Daily Sceptic’s Energy Editor, on the Trump administration’s battles against the EU’s censorship agenda and Net Zero ideology worldwide – and within the liberal-globalist establishment at home.

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Read his articles on the Daily Sceptic here and here.

Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

David Frost on the never-ending scourge of New Labour’s “stakeholder” revolution – and why Britain must reclaim free-market thinking.

In Episode 65 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to David Frost. David Frost, Lord Frost of Allenton, is a former diplomat and was the chief Brexit negotiator under Boris Johnson. He is a columnist at the Daily Telegraph and is now a non-aligned peer and the Director-General of the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Laurie and David discuss David’s plans at the IEA and why the case for free-market thinking is more important than ever; the “Stakeholder State” and why it stops governments from doing anything; why it didn’t come about by accident but rather was built by New Labour; why those complaining about “division” and “populism” really just hate democracy; why the claim that free markets are bad for “communities” is nonsense; the tyranny of “independent” experts; why consensus isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and why sometimes, the best thing is for the state to just get out of way.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Theodore Dalrymple, on the 25th anniversary of his acclaimed Life at the Bottom, on crime, the underclass and liberal hypocrisy.

In Episode 64 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Anthony Daniels. Better known under his pen name, Theodore Dalrymple, the former prison doctor and psychiatrist turned writer and cultural critic has featured in the Spectator, City Journal, the Telegraph and the Wall Street Journal among many others, and is the author of numerous books and essay collections, including the acclaimed Life at the Bottom, of which the 25th anniversary edition is out this spring. Laurie and Tony discuss the violence and nihilism Tony observed as a prison doctor in the 1990s, why he started writing about it and why Life at the Bottom was so well received and had such a lasting impact. They also discuss how liberal ideology causes crime, not poverty, the hypocrisies of the “caring classes”, the unforeseen consequences of the therapeutic mindset, what has changed since the book came out, modern anarcho-tyranny and his awkward encounter at the New Statesman.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

Harrison Pitt on Alaa Abd El-Fattah and British citizenship, Islamism and West Midlands Police and the fightback against anarcho-tyranny.

In Episode 63 of the Sceptic, host Laurie Wastell speaks to Harrison Pitt, Senior Policy Fellow at Restore Britain, Fellow at the New Culture Forum and Contributing Editor at the European Conservative. They discuss the Alaa Abd El-Fattah debacle and why the Egyptian activist is at best only “administratively British”, the latest in the Maccabi Tel Aviv fan ban row and how West Midlands Police is carrying the can for the failures of multiculturalism. And for premium subscribers, they discuss Harrison’s policy papers at Restore Britain, the scourge of anarcho-tyranny, plus: what the late Peter Whittle meant to him – and conservatism.

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Read his Restore Britain policy paper here.

Read his obituary of Peter Whittle on the Daily Sceptic here.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.

In this Special Episode of the Sceptic, we bring you highlights from our five most popular episodes of 2025.

Deputy Comment Editor at the Telegraph Poppy Coburn on race and the rape gangs; author and comedian Andrew Doyle on Labour's shameful denialism about it; historian David Starkey on the lies of the multiculturalists; and former UKIP MP Douglas Carswell on how to reclaim Englishness from the Blairite ascendancy.

Plus: the Mail on Sunday’s Peter Hitchens makes the case for Lucy Letby to have a retrial.

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Produced by Richard Eldred.

Filmed at the Westminster Podcast Studio.