Kathleen Stock is a Contributing Editor to UnHerd, a philosopher, author of Material Girls and Do Not Go Gentle, and one of the most forensically precise thinkers in British public life.

A bill is moving through the British Parliament right now that would allow doctors to help their patients die. Its proponents call it assisted dying. Its opponents call it assisted suicide. In Canada, five percent of all deaths now occur through the state-sanctioned equivalent. In Belgium, they have extended it to newborn babies. Canada will allow it for those with mental illness alone from 2027.

The question is not only whether the bill is good policy. It is what it reveals about the kind of society we have become — and what we now believe a human life is worth.

In this episode of Thinking Class, Kathleen Stock examines the case against assisted dying not as a religious argument but as a philosophical one. Stock identifies three types of advocate — the Freedom Lover, the Merciful Helper, and the Utilitarian who sees humans as units — and subjects each position to the kind of rigorous examination its proponents have largely been able to avoid.

We think out lout about: 

• how the word dignity has been captured and inverted by the assisted dying movement, 
• why the safeguards being proposed will not hold, 
• what the Canadian and Belgian trajectories tell us about where this ends, 
• and whether a society that has lost the Christian account of suffering — that it can be meaningful, that it is not simply a problem to be eliminated — has any answer to the question of why a difficult life is worth living.

Kathleen Stock's new book Do Not Go Gentle is available here: https://amzn.to/4bUImaP

Follow Kathleen on X: @Docstockk | Read her at UnHerd

About 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 historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, and public intellectuals. Expect to hear discussion of long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes.

If you value serious conversations about Britain, the West, and the forces shaping our future, why not subscribe:
▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

New episodes every week. 

For decades, the British Empire in India has been reduced to a simple moral claim: that it was an extractive, exploitative system which left only damage behind.

But is that really the full story?

In this episode of Thinking Class, John Gillam is joined by Lord Nigel Biggar and Professor Tirthankar Roy to examine what the British Empire — and the East India Company before it — actually did in India, and how that history continues to shape the present.

One of India's leading economic historians, Professor Tirthankar Roy challenges the dominant narrative from within — and his conclusions may surprise you.

Together, they discuss the main charges levelled against British rule in India, including famine, violence, extraction, and the denial of self-government. They also explore why some of those claims may be justified, why others may be overstated, and how both British and Indian historians are rethinking the role of empire, markets, law, trade, migration, and state power.

This conversation goes beyond the usual moral shorthand. It asks how Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras became engines of commerce; how British rule helped create the conditions for law, investment, and global integration; how liberal and constitutional ideas were transmitted; and why India’s rise today makes this history newly relevant.

India is now one of the world’s most important rising powers. Its capital, people, and influence increasingly shape life in Britain and across the West. So the question is not simply what happened in the past — but what we think happened, and how that shapes the future relationship between Britain and India.

Lord Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford and the author of major works on empire, ethics, and public life.

• The New Dark Age:: https://amzn.to/4kT9NWC
• Lord Biggar’s books: https://amzn.to/4cfUPaZ
• The Biggar Picture: https://www.nigelbiggar.co.uk/

Professor Tirthankar Roy is one of India’s leading economic historians and the author of The East India Company: The World’s Most Powerful Corporation.

Professor Roy's books: https://amzn.to/41tWCCF 

If you enjoy Thinking Class, subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack.

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Will Tanner is a writer and commentator on history, politics, and the late imperial world, whose work explores the realities of decolonisation and what followed in its wake. Will is the Co-Founder of the American Tribune and he is the host of the podcast The Old World with Will Tanner.

What happens after empire ends and what should the West learn from it?

In this episode of Thinking Class, Will Tanner discusses decolonisation not as an abstract academic slogan, but as a historical process with real political, social, and civilisational consequences.

We explore why the end of empire remains so contested, what happened in places like Rhodesia and elsewhere in the post-imperial world, and why questions of governance, legitimacy, migration, identity, and elite responsibility have returned so forcefully to public life in Britain, America, and the wider West.

This is a conversation about:

• decolonisation in practice
• governance and state capacity
• foreign aid and its failures
• migration and political order
• elite rule versus technocratic rule
• the moral language of empire, equality, and decline

This episode examines historical and political arguments about decolonisation and its aftermath. The views expressed are those of the guest and are discussed in the context of broader debates about governance, migration, and institutional change in Britain, America, and the West.

If you enjoy serious long-form conversations on the political, cultural, and civilisational questions shaping Britain and the West, subscribe to Thinking Class on YouTube, Spotify, and Substack.

Follow Will Tanner

• The Old World Show: https://podcasts.apple.com/ie/podcast/the-old-world-with-will-tanner/id1816253309
• X: https://x.com/Will_Tanner_1
• American Tribune: https://substack.com/@theamericantribune

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

John Waters is an Irish journalist, author, and columnist known for his work with Hot Press, The Irish Times, and The Irish Independent. He has written on social and political issues, specialising in father's rights and cultural critiques. 

Ireland changed faster than almost any country in the West. The question now is whether the Irish still recognise the nation they live in. In this episode of Thinking Class, we discuss the moral, cultural and demographic transformation of Ireland over the course of John Waters' lifetime.

We explore the Ireland of his youth — ethnically and culturally homogeneous, Catholic, rule-bound, often austere, but also warm, coherent and recognisable — and contrast it with the globalised, post-Catholic, media-managed Ireland of today.

We think out loud about:

• the collapse of the old moral order
• the rise of a new elite class
• the decline of journalism and honest public speech
• the Enoch Burke case and the Irish judiciary
• immigration, demographic change and public silence
• Ireland as an economic zone rather than a nation
• the relationship between Ireland, Britain and the wider West

John Waters is one of Ireland’s most distinctive dissident voices. A former mainstream journalist, he has spent decades chronicling the moral and institutional transformation of Ireland and reflecting on what that change means for ordinary people, national identity and the future of democracy.

This is a conversation about Ireland and about what happens when a country forgets how to tell the truth about itself.

Links

• Visit John Waters website: https://www.johnwaters.ie/
• Read John Waters Unchained: https://johnwaters.substack.com/

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Michael Reiners is a writer, lawyer, and architectural historian. Michael is the founder of the Reiners Project, which publishes essays, draft legislation and commentary on English constitutional law and the art and architectural landscape. 

Britain’s constitutional settlement has changed more in the last few decades than most people realise — and the consequences now reach into identity, speech, governance, and the question of who the country is for.

This episode forms part of Thinking Class’ ongoing inquiry: The Question of the West — examining the political, cultural, and civilisational foundations of our common life.

We discuss the “Yookayification” idea, the logic (and risks) of a Great Repeal approach to post-1997 constitutional reforms, and why any serious reform programme would need to confront the reality of the permanent state — the administrative machinery and quasi-independent bodies that can constrain elected power.

Topics we explore:

• England vs Britain vs the UK — what the words actually mean (and how they changed)
• Why “UK” is a very recent political identity
• Identity, citizenship, and why law doesn’t always reflect reality
• “Yookay-ification”, naming, and the politics of place
• Devolution, Human Rights, Equality frameworks — and unintended consequences
• What a serious constitutional “reset” would require (and what could go wrong)
• The “permanent state” problem: how reform attempts get contained or neutralised
• What cultural restoration could look like beyond slogans

Links

• Follow Michael Reiners on X: https://x.com/MCRReiners
• Visit the Reiners Project: https://reiners.org.uk/

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Lord Nigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, theologian, and moral philosopher, a member of the House of Lords, and Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford.  His most recent books are The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture War, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights?, In Defence of War, and Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation. In the press he has written articles for the Financial Times, the (London) Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the (Glasgow} Herald, the Irish Times, Standpoint, The Critic, The Article, UnHerd and Quillette.  

Britain’s institutions are drifting toward a “new dark age” — where truth-seeking is replaced by intimidation and ideological enforcement.

This episode forms part of Thinking Class’ ongoing inquiry: The Question of the West — examining the political, cultural, and civilisational foundations of our common life.

Lord Nigel Biggar explains what’s happening inside universities, how liberal argument breaks down, and what citizens can do to push back

In this conversation we discuss: free speech as a civic necessity, why institutions reward intellectual vice, how debate collapses into smears, and why Biggar warns a “new dark age” is possible unless liberal habits of mind are defended.

Links

• The New Dark Age:: https://amzn.to/4kT9NWC
• Lord Biggar's books: https://amzn.to/4cfUPaZ
• The Biggar Picture: https://www.nigelbiggar.co.uk/

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is an independent forum for long-form inquiry examining the political, cultural and civilisational questions shaping England, Britain and the West.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, legal scholars, economists, theologians, politicians, and public intellectuals.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, democracy, identity, inheritance, institutional continuity and social change.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Lionel Shriver is a novelist and columnist at The Spectator, and the author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, Mania, and A Better Life among many other books.

Lionel Shriver returns to Thinking Class to discuss mass immigration in the West—not as an abstract moral debate, but as a lived experience reshaping belonging, institutions, and politics.

We start with Lionel’s new novel A Better Life, which tackles immigration through fiction from the host-country’s point of view. We explore why the “native-born” perspective is rarely told, what happens when immigration becomes mass-scale, and why voters increasingly feel unheard as demography, welfare states, and legal frameworks collide.

We also discuss: 

• the moral complexity of immigration, 
• why “a better life” can become an argument for open borders, 
• how asylum systems are gamed, 
• the sex divide on immigration, 
• the feminisation of institutions, 
• the crisis of male purpose, 
• and whether low birth-rates signal a culture that no longer believes in itself.

Support Lionel Shrivers work: 

• Books: https://amzn.to/4apdqQF
• A Better Life: https://amzn.to/4c3nPCJ
• Lionel Shriver at The Spectator: https://spectator.com/writer/lionel-shriver/

About 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 historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Lord Jonathan Sumption is a British judge and historian, who served as a Supreme Court Justice from 2012 – 2018. He is the author of The Challenges of Democracy And The Rule Of Law, the Sunday Times bestseller Trials of the State, Law in a Time of Crisis, and Divided Houses, which won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize.

Across Britain and the wider West democratic decision-making is increasingly being hollowed out by courts, by bureaucracies, by delayed elections, by restrictions on speech, and by a political class that often appears unwilling to govern according to the public will.

In this episode of Thinking Class, Lord Jonathan Sumption examines whether democracy and the rule of law can survive the conditions we are now creating.

We explore:

• What democracy and the rule of law actually are, and how historically fragile they’ve always been
• Britain’s legal inheritance and the health of the Rule of Law
• Whether freedom of expression is a precondition for democratic legitimacy
• The effects of mass immigration, sectarian politics, and demographic change on democratic consent
• Whether universal suffrage can function without a shared political community
• And whether the greatest threat to democracy comes from our institutions or from ourselves

This is a sober, historically grounded conversation about law, legitimacy, and the future of self-government in Britain and the West.

About 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 historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Dr Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and is the editor at the online women’s magazine Theology of Home. Carrie’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, Daily Wire, First Things, Newsweek, The American Spectator, The Catholic Thing, The Federalist, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Examiner. She is a frequent radio and podcast guest and has appeared on Fox, BBC, CBC, EWTN, OAN, and Russia Times television. She is the best-selling author of eleven books including The Marian Option, and The Anti-Mary Exposed, The End of Woman: How Smashing The Patriarchy Destroyed Us, Theology of Home and, her latest book, Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can't Be Fused With Christianity. She co-authored City of Saints; A Pilgrim’s Guide to John Paul II’s Krakow with George Weigel.  Carrie has lived and worked professionally in Washington, D.C. and Rome, Italy and her work has been translated into nine languages.

In this episode of Thinking Class, Carrie  and I examine how feminism has transformed the understanding of womanhood, relationships between men and women, and the moral foundations of Western society.

We explore why motherhood has been devalued, how the promise of liberation has coincided with rising anxiety and loneliness among women, and why feminism increasingly positions men and women as competitors rather than complementary partners. Carrie explains how feminism has come to function as a shadow church while displacing older sources of dignity, obligation, and community.

Drawing on history, theology, psychology, and culture, we discuss the connection between feminism and Marxist thought, the emotional mobilisation of women for political ends, the neglect of men’s roles and gifts, and why a renewal of local relationships, family life, and moral seriousness is essential if the West is to recover a more humane vision of flourishing.

If you value serious, historically grounded conversations about Britain, the West, and the civilisational forces shaping our lives, please subscribe to Thinking Class, like the episode, and share it with others who want to think more deeply about what we have inherited, and what we owe the future.

• Buy Dr Carrie Gress' books: https://amzn.to/4qgVa0g
• Visit her website: https://www.carriegress.com/about
• Subscribe to the Theology of Home Substack: https://theologyofhome.substack.com/

About 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 historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X

Dr. Bijan Omrani is a classicist, historian, and Oxford-educated barrister. His research explores questions of religious history and cultural identity, spanning from ancient Roman Greece to Afghanistan and the Silk Road. He has taught Classics at Eton College and Westminster School, is a former editor of Asian Affairs, and currently serves as a Research Fellow at the University of Exeter. He is also a churchwarden.

Dr. Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert is the director of the organisation Don't Divide Us. She is an educator, academic, author, and campaigner who believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality. 

What does it mean to steward a civilisation?

For centuries, England’s institutions — churches, schools, charities, civic bodies, even industries — were shaped by a Christian understanding of stewardship: the belief that what we inherit is held in trust, not owned outright; that culture, faith, and place impose obligations as well as rights.

In this episode of Thinking Class, Bijan and Alka and I examine how far Britain has drifted from that inheritance, and what the consequences have been for its institutions, culture, and public life.

We begin with the Christian idea of stewardship itself, before exploring:

• The disappearance of cultural knowledge once taken for granted — scripture, song, manners, dress, and shared moral reference points
• How stewardship historically shaped the governance of England’s public institutions
• Where those institutions are now breaking with that inheritance
• The Church of England’s Project Spire and the logic behind its reparations agenda
• How today’s political and cultural elites compare with earlier generations of stewards
• The decline of civic responsibility and the erosion of the “little platoons” of society
• Why fewer people now see themselves as custodians of what they have inherited
• And what, if anything, might be done to recover a culture of stewardship

This is a conversation about inheritance, obligation, and continuity — and about what is lost when a civilisation forgets that it is something to be kept, not endlessly reinvented.

Guest work:

• Buy God is an Englishman by Bijan Omrani
• Follow Bijan Omrani on X
• Read Bijan Omrani's writing in The Telegraph and The Critic
• Visit Alka Sehgal Cuthbert's website
• Follow Alka Sehgal-Cuthbert on X
• Visit the Don’t Divide Us website

About 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 historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

▶️ Subscribe on YouTube
🎧 Follow on Spotify
📰 Read on Substack
🐦 Follow on X