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.

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.

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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.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThinkingClass?sub_confirmation=1
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/37vvzrlxpo8eORDoTDRtbH
Substack: https://thinkingclass.substack.com
X (Twitter): https://x.com/thinkingclasses

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