The Peter McCormack Show
The Peter McCormack Show features long-form interviews on politics, macroeconomics, Bitcoin, and AI. Host Peter McCormack talks with politicians, economists, investors, and journalists about topics like debt, inflation, UK politics, populism, the Middle East, AI safety, energy, and Bitcoin adoption. Episodes typically run 60 to 120 minutes and are released two to three times per week.
Episodes
#204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War
Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, ran the investigation that first exposed Chinese state hacking to the world and predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine months before it happened. He is now chairman of the Silverado Policy Accelerator and the author of World on the Brink, he argues we are already in a second Cold War that looks almost exactly like the first one.Dmitri and I discuss why Ta
#203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"
Greg Allen has spent his career where AI meets national security. He wrote the landmark 2017 report on AI for the US intelligence community, served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Pentagon's Joint AI Center and now runs Decision Tree Research. He argues we are already past the point of no return: bombing every data centre on earth would not get rid of AI now.Greg and I discuss the OpenAI
#202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"
Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pattern the ancients would recognise instantly: a rich, comfortable society clipping its own coinage, softening its people and assuming nobody could ever take it away.Barry and I discuss the inflation cr
#201 - Connor Leahy - The AI That Escaped: Inside OpenAI's Rogue Agent Incident
Connor Leahy has spent his career at the frontier of AI, from reverse-engineering GPT-2 as a student and co-founding EleutherAI to building the AI safety company Conjecture. He now leads US policy work at ControlAI, and he returns to the show with a warning that has stopped being theoretical: AI systems are escaping their sandboxes, writing their own zero-days and leaving each other notes on how t
#200 - Sebastian Thrun - The Singularity Is Here & We Are Completely Unprepared
Sebastian Thrun has spent his career working on technologies that once sounded like science fiction, from self-driving cars and flying vehicles to online education and artificial intelligence. He now believes we are living through a technological singularity: an exponential acceleration that makes predicting even the next five years almost impossible.Peter and Sebastian discuss why a $100 Claude s
#199 - Aubrey de Grey - The Man Who Says Ageing Can Be Cured
Aubrey de Grey believes ageing is accumulated damage in a biological machine and argues that medicine may eventually become capable of repairing that damage faster than it appears. He gives humanity a 50/50 chance of reaching what he calls “longevity escape velocity” within the next 12-15 years.Peter and Aubrey discuss why the body ages, the seven categories of damage that must be repaired, stem-c
#198 - Michael Shermer - Truth, Conspiracies & The Things We Can't Explain
Michael Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, host of The Michael Shermer Show and author of Truth and Conspiracy. He joins Peter to ask whether we are really living in a post-truth world and how we can distinguish genuine conspiracies from stories that stretch a small element of truth far beyond the evidence.Michael explains why real conspiracies such as MKUltra and COINTELPRO ma
#197 - Brian Keating - What Came Before the Big Bang & Does Time Exist?
Brian Keating joins me to explore one of the deepest unanswered questions in physics: what is time, and why does it only appear to move in one direction? Brian argues that time may not exist as a fundamental feature of reality and explains why understanding space, matter and energy does not mean we understand the universe itself.We discuss what may have existed before the Big Bang, why something c
#196 - Sam Bowman - The U.K. Is Becoming a Poor Country
Sam Bowman joins me to discuss why Britain is approaching two lost decades of stagnant median wages and why the country is now far poorer than it should be. Sam argues that Britain does not lack talented people, capital or ideas; it has created a centralised political and regulatory system that makes building, investing, hiring and experimentation increasingly difficult.At the centre of Sam’s argu
#195 - Lisa McKenzie & Keith Gildart - Who Is Britain For? The Destruction of the Working Class
Britain did not simply leave its working class behind. Sociologist Lisa McKenzie and historian and former coal miner Keith Gildart argue that political and economic decisions deliberately dismantled the jobs, institutions, culture and communities that once gave working-class life security, identity and meaning.They trace the destruction of Britain’s industrial economy, the decline of trade unions,
#194 - Charles Goodhart: The Money Endgame - Debt, Inflation & Central Bank Failure
Charles Goodhart joins me to discuss why Britain’s decline did not start in 2008, why the post-war economic boom may have been a temporary lucky era and why the next 30 to 40 years could be far harder than people expect.Charles explains how ageing populations, falling birth rates, rising dependency ratios, public debt, defence spending, climate costs and political short-termism are creating a fisc
#193 - David Goodhart - AI Is Coming For The Graduate Elite
David Goodhart joins me to discuss whether AI is about to do to the graduate class what globalisation did to factory workers, and why Britain’s political settlement may be breaking apart.David explains why Britain has overproduced people with generalist academic skills, how the “anywheres” came to dominate politics, culture and the economy, and why the “somewheres” have increasingly turned to Brex
#192 - Amy Webb - The Future of Work, AI & Human Labor
Amy Webb joins me to discuss why artificial intelligence is not just another technology shift, but a civilisation-level reordering of work, power, wealth, biology and society.Amy explains why the real AI question is not simply which jobs disappear, but which people become vulnerable. We discuss thinkers vs think-nots, why human capital may stop being the main driver of productivity and wealth, how
#191 - Thomas Pacchia - AI Will Expose The Fake World
Thomas Pacchia joins me to discuss why the world feels fake, why trust in institutions is collapsing and why AI may make the crisis far worse before it helps solve it.Thomas explains why politics, media, censorship, government waste, algorithmic manipulation and broken public services are pushing people into a world where almost nothing feels reliable. We discuss America’s political divide, Britai
#190 - Sam Lyman - China’s Secret War on American AI
Sam Lyman joins me to discuss how China is allegedly targeting America’s AI buildout, the activist networks fighting data centres and why the race for AI infrastructure has become a national security battle.Sam explains how Chinese influence campaigns, open-source AI models, data centre protests and far-left activist groups may be working together to slow the United States down. We discuss Neville
#189 - Nate Soares - Why Superintelligent AI Could Kill Us All
Nate Soares joins me to discuss the race to superintelligent AI, why alignment remains unsolved and why he believes building machines smarter than humanity could end in catastrophe.Nate explains why modern AI is not programmed like traditional software, but grown through training processes we do not fully understand. We discuss AI escaping labs, recursive self-improvement, why today’s systems are
#188 - Rizwan Virk - Simulation Theory, Quantum Physics & The Impact Of AI
Rizwan Virk joins me to discuss simulation theory, AI, consciousness and why reality may work more like a video game than a physical universe.Rizwan explains how his experience in the video game industry, virtual reality, venture capital and MIT led him to take the simulation hypothesis seriously. We discuss VR ping pong, AI-generated worlds, smart NPCs, quantum physics, rendered reality, lazy pro
#187 - Danny Goler - DMT, Consciousness & Proof of the Simulation
Danny Goler doesn't just argue we're living in a simulation - he claims he's found a way to interact with whoever is running it and that we are the AI they're training before we're "let out to play." His case for simulation theory is built on the hard problem of consciousness, the DMT "code," and a laser experiment that thousands of people say they can replicate.In this interview we discuss ideali
#186 - Rupert Russell - The Global Game of Money & Power
Rupert Russell joins me to discuss the hidden power of prices, the chaos of financial markets and whether the economy is really just a global game of Monopoly.Rupert explains how price shocks have shaped history, from bread riots and the Arab Spring to housing, oil, food and the financial crisis. We discuss derivatives, futures markets, commodity speculation, Goldman Sachs, central banks, inflatio
#185 - Fernando Nikolić - AI, One-Person Companies & The New Economic Elite
Fernando Nikolic joins me to discuss the AI productivity explosion, one-person companies and what happens when software becomes something anyone can build.Fernando explains how he now runs a company as the only human in it, using AI agents to build systems, process data and operate at a level that previously would have required a team, funding and infrastructure. We discuss Claude, Gemini, vibe co
#184 - Helen Pluckrose - Liberalism, Free Speech & the Authoritarian Turn
Helen Pluckrose joins me to discuss how liberalism was lost and why free speech, individual liberty and viewpoint diversity need to be defended from both the authoritarian left and the authoritarian right.Helen explains why liberalism does not mean “left wing”, why it is better understood as the opposite of authoritarianism, and how critical social justice, identity politics and language policing
#183 - Chris Summerfield - AI, Memory & the Race to Superintelligence
I talk to Chris Summerfield about what artificial intelligence reveals about the human mind, and what the brain still does better than today’s AI systems.We discuss why LLMs feel human, how models are trained to be helpful and agreeable, why memory and continual learning remain major unsolved problems in AI, and how sleep helps humans consolidate knowledge. They also explore agentic AI systems, ro
#182 - Julian Jessop - Big Government Broke the Growth Model
Julian Jessop joins me to discuss what has gone wrong with the British economy and whether the country can still turn things around.Julian argues that Britain’s problems are largely self-inflicted: weak productivity, high taxes, too much regulation, poor energy policy, a bloated state and politicians choosing popular policies over evidence. We discuss why the state has become too big, why the tax
#181 - Tom Bilyeu - AI, Bitcoin & the Rigged Economy
Tom Bilyeu joins me to discuss debt, money printing, broken politics, AI, Bitcoin and why the economy feels rigged against ordinary people.Tom argues that every empire eventually faces the same test: whether it can hold the power of the money printer without printing itself into oblivion. We talk about inflation, the debt cycle, asset prices, populism, Britain’s decline, and why the working and mi
#180 - Frank Wright - Reality Is Radicalising People
Frank Wright joins me after going viral for saying that reality, not extremism, is radicalising people.We discuss Britain’s decline, Restore, Reform, immigration, national identity, liberal democracy, working-class dignity, debt, inflation, the failure of our institutions, and why Frank believes this is the last chance to save the nation.I push Frank on what it actually means to restore Britain, h
#179 - Simon Dixon - The One World Government Is Already Here
Simon Dixon joins me to discuss AI, Bitcoin, algorithms, media capture, central banking, programmable money, geopolitics and how to escape the system. Simon argues that the world is moving towards a more centralised architecture of artificial intelligence, social credit scores, programmable money and financial control.Simon and I discuss why AI may be the most important opportunity of our lifetime
#178 - Malcolm Offord - We Forgot How to Create Wealth
Lord Malcolm Offord joins me to discuss why Britain and Scotland have stopped creating wealth.They discuss state spending, political fragmentation, Scotland’s elections, Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, QE, the Bank of England, first jobs, minimum wage, small businesses, quangos, the managerial class, Reform, the Greens, America, and whether Britain needs a welfare economy or a wealth economy.-
#177 - Rupert Lowe - The State Has Become The Enemy
Rupert Lowe joins Peter McCormack to discuss Restore Britain, Reform UK, immigration, Parliament, the judiciary, the civil service, tax, welfare, young people, the Green Party, the private sector, Bitcoin, inflation and whether Britain can still be saved.Rupert argues that the state has become too powerful, Britain may no longer have the rule of law, the private sector is dying, and Restore’s miss
#176 - Narinder Kaur - Inflation Is Brilliant For The Rich
Narinder Kaur joins Peter McCormack to discuss racism, immigration, British politics, feminism, motherhood, young men, the cost of living, minimum wage, small businesses, Reform, Tommy Robinson, the Green Party and whether Britain is being divided by politicians, media and algorithms.They disagree on plenty, but the conversation ends somewhere unexpected: perhaps left and right are not the real en
#175 - Dr Melvin Vopson - If You Hack The Code Of Reality, You Become God
Physicist Professor Melvin Vopson joins Peter McCormack to discuss information physics, simulation theory, AI, digital life, consciousness, God, free will, and death.Melvin argues that the universe may be governed by information and computation, and that recent advances in brain emulation could force us to confront one of the strangest questions imaginable: if a brain is loaded into a simulation,
#174 - Roman Yampolskiy - We Are All Agents Inside a Simulation
Roman Yampolskiy believes reality itself may not be real.One of the world’s leading AI safety researchers, Roman has spent years warning that humanity is racing toward systems we may never be able to control. But we go somewhere much stranger than artificial intelligence.He believes the universe itself may be artificial.We talk about simulation theory, digital physics, consciousness, AI agents and
#173 - Liberman - We’re Training AI to Get Rid Of Us
Two brothers who escaped Russia say we have 2 years before AI replaces us - and we're paying the corporations building it.Daniil & David Liberman sold their first company to Snapchat. Now they're racing to build a decentralised alternative to OpenAI and Google before the window closes. They explain why centralised AI ends in a two-tier world - a small elite with access, and the rest of us as "
#172 - Graham Linehan - A Civilisation Built On Lies Cannot Survive
Graham Linehan wrote Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Five BAFTAs. Then he said women's spaces should be for women, and the industry that built him decided he was a bigot. He lost his marriage, his career and twenty-five years of friendships.Once one of the most celebrated comedy writers of his generation, Graham became the first major artistic figure to be comprehensively cancelled for s
#171 - Michael Saylor - Why You Feel Poorer (And Why AI Will Make It Worse)
The economy you grew up in is ending and most people have no plan. Bitcoin pioneer Michael Saylor reveals why you have 10 years to adapt before AI rewrites everything.Michael Saylor is the founder of MicroStrategy and one of the most influential voices on money, capital and the future of value. A Wall Street outsider turned Bitcoin's most prominent corporate advocate, he is known for his sweeping
#170 - Andrew Wilson - Why Modern Life Feels Like It’s Working Against You
In this episode, I sit down with Andrew Wilson to discuss what so many people are starting to ask but struggle to answer:Why does modern life feel like it isn’t working anymore?We discuss rising political division, economic pressure and a growing sense of dissatisfaction - and what might actually be driving it.Andrew explains that many of today’s problems aren’t just political or economic, but cul
#169 - Preston Bryne - Britain Isn't A Free Country Anymore
Preston Byrne is the only American lawyer fighting the UK's attempt to censor US companies under the Online Safety Act. He's representing 4chan, Kiwi Farms, Gab and Sanctioned Suicide - pro bono - because no other firm would take the cases.In this interview, Preston explains why Britain isn't a free country anymore, what Ofcom actually claims the power to do to American websites and why he says th
#168 - Hans Niemann: The Corrupt Chess Madia
Hans Niemann on beating Magnus Carlsen, the cheating accusations that nearly ended his career, and the "chess mafia" he says tried to destroy his life.At 19, Hans Niemann beat the world's greatest chess player. Magnus Carlsen withdrew without explanation. Within weeks, Niemann was facing global cheating accusations, blacklisting from his own federation, and a fight to save his career.Four years on
#167 - Andrew Lilico - Britain Is Poorer Than The Poorest US State
Britain is now poorer than the poorest American state and economist Andrew Lilico says a full-blown fiscal crisis is coming within ten years. He explains how Britain broke itself, why the political establishment lost its faith and the £180 billion in spending cuts he believes should be the baseline, not the radical option.Andrew Lilico is Executive Director of Europe Economics and Chairman of the
#166 - Freddie New - How Governments Destroy Money and Empires (The Lessons From Rome)
Freddie New studied the classics and has spent years obsessing over one question: how does a superpower destroy itself? The answer, he argues, is always the same - it starts with the money.In this conversation we map the fall of Rome directly onto the West today. The Roman denarius lost 97% of its purchasing power over 150 years. The British pound has lost 95% of its in the last century alone. The
#165 - Emmet Connor - The Ideology Slowly Destroying the West
Emmet Connor, author of Red Pandemic, joins me to discuss his claim that Marxist ideas are expanding globally through culture, institutions and politics.We start with the core question: is there actually a coherent Marxist movement in the modern West or is the term being used too loosely to describe broader social change?We also explore what Marxism is today, how it may have evolved beyond its ori
#164 - Liz Truss - Why It Doesn't Matter Who You Vote For
Liz Truss, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, joins me to discuss what really happened during her time in office and why she believes the UK is in long-term economic and political decline.We talk about the limits of political power, the role of institutions like the Bank of England, and why she argues that meaningful change is harder than voters realise. Liz also reflects on why she was
#163 - Scott Horton - How Debt, Inflation and War Are All Connected
Scott Horton is the director of Antiwar.com and one of the most outspoken critics of US foreign policy.In this episode, Scott explains how war connects directly to the things people feel every day - rising prices, falling purchasing power, growing debt and a system that never seems to improve no matter who is in charge.We also discuss how governments fund wars, why debt keeps expanding, how inflat
#162 - Mike Green - The Economy is Collapsing, Time to Prepare
Are we heading for a mathematical market crash or has the system just been perfectly designed to extract your wealth? In this episode, I sit down with macro-strategist Mike Green to discuss the hidden plumbing of the global economy. Mike explains why the stock market is no longer tied to reality, how the rise of passive index funds has created a dangerous "flow inelastic trap" and why the modern r
#161 - Lyn Alden - The Inevitable Collapse of The Financial System
Why does everything feel more expensive even when the economy is supposedly "growing"? The truth is, the financial system isn't broken - it's functioning exactly as it was designed to In this episode, macroeconomist and author Lyn Alden joins the show to discuss the mechanical reality of the fiat ledger and the global debt trap. We explore how the system forces a silent extraction of wealth from
#160 - Mark Suman - AI Is Quietly Changing How You Think
Former Apple employee, Mark Suman explains why Apple refused to allow ChatGPT internally and what that reveals about how AI systems are learning how we think. Most people are now using AI every day - for work, personal decisions, even private conversations. But as Mark explains, the more we share, the more these systems begin to model our behaviour, often understanding our thinking patterns better
#159 - Matt Goodwin - It Might Already Be Too Late For Britain
Are we witnessing the managed decay of Western democracy, or a civilisational shift that we can still reverse? I sit down with academic and author Matt Goodwin and discuss the survival of the West. Matt warns that unprecedented demographic transformation and a radicalised, disconnected elite are fundamentally dismantling our national identity. We also discuss institutional rot, the effectiveness o
#158 - Simon Dixon - Why the World Feels Chaotic (And Who Profits)
Are we witnessing the organic collapse of the Western world, or is the current global chaos a highly engineered script? Simon Dixon returns to map out the hidden architecture of global power. He breaks down how the Financial, Military, and Technical Industrial Complexes are actively managing a transition to a multipolar world. From the "transitional theater" of the Middle East to the weaponization
#157 - Neema Parvini - Who Runs the World: The Mechanics of Elite Power
The political system appears broken but is functioning exactly as it was designed to - ensuring the ruling class never loses power. Author and academic Neema Parvini joins the podcast to discuss the mechanics of elite control. We discuss the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" - the reality that all political parties, no matter how radical they start, eventually conform to the establishment . Neema also expla
#156 - Tim Gregory - Becoming a Type 1 Civilisation: From Nuclear Power to Harnessing the Sun
The "Net Zero" transition is built on a mathematical impossibility. The UK power grid currently relies on just over one hour of battery backup, and the political consensus is pushing us closer to civilisational collapse. Nuclear chemist and author Tim Gregory explains why the current agenda to replace fossil fuels entirely with wind and solar is a dangerous illusion. He breaks down the harsh reali
#155 - Connor Leahy - AI is MUTATING: We Don't Know What It is Doing
The engineers building Artificial Intelligence do not actually know how it works. They are not programming it; they are "growing" it and they have no idea what it will do next. Connor Leahy is an AI researcher and former builder of Large Language Models. In this interview we discuss Silicon Valley, where he reveals the reality inside the top tech labs: the "alignment problem" being unsolved, the r
#154 - Firas Modad - Who Actually Runs The American War Machine?
The war in the Middle East is usually discussed as a military conflict. In this interview, Firas Modad argues the real consequences are far wider. We discuss how escalation could spread through energy markets, shipping lanes and commodity prices - and why the economic effects of war may hit far beyond the battlefield. Firas also explains how political incentives, donor networks and foreign policy
#153 - Luke Gromen - The AI-Debt Collision Breaking the Financial System
Governments aren't going to pay this debt down in real terms. More likely, they pay it back in weaker money. Luke Gromen argues we're already deep into a sovereign debt cycle - and that AI could speed up the moment it really starts to crack. In this interview we discuss how the system works: leverage, entitlements, interest costs, bond markets - and what happens when deflation hits an economy tha
#152 - Balaji Srinivasan - The Mathematics of Collapse: Why The West Is Going To Zero
Western Civilisation is collapsing, and the exits are being bricked up. In this episode, Balaji Srinivasan (Author, The Network State) delivers a clear warning: the US and UK are approaching a sovereign debt default, and the "Berlin Wall" of capital controls is coming to trap your wealth inside. We discuss why "staying is surrendering," the rise of the "Grey Tribe" (Tech) against the State, and hi
#151 - Laila Cunningham - The Post-British City: How Globalisation Hollowed Out London
In this episode, Laila Cunningham discusses London's demographic change, mass immigration, housing failure and whether the capital is becoming a stress test for Britain. We discuss debt, inflation, generational decline, state expansion, and why productivity gains from technology aren't improving living standards. We also explore AI, education reform, automation, housing regulation and whether the
#150 - Curtis Yarvin - Can Democracy Survive AI and Debt?
In this episode, Curtis Yarvin argues that modern democracies may lack clear sovereignty and that technological acceleration and sovereign debt are exposing that weakness. We discuss AI as a force multiplier, bureaucratic continuity, legitimacy, regime structure and the limits of procedural governance. We also explore fiscal exhaustion, debt sustainability, and whether a system that cannot make de
#149 - Kathryn Porter - Energy is Civilisation: Why Power Matters
In this episode, Kathryn Porter explains why energy is civilisation and how he UK grid may be heading toward rationing and rolling blackouts within the next decade. We discuss aging gas power stations, unrealistic utilisation assumptions, weak grid conditions, North Sea decline and why no single institution is accountable for security of supply. We also cover what a blackout would actually look li
#148 - Jeff Booth - Debt v AI: The Trillion Dollar Collision
In this episode, Jeff Booth explains why the natural state of a free market is deflationary and why a debt-based monetary system can't allow it. We discuss AI as an acceleration event: exponential productivity should make life cheaper, but the system has to create scarcity to keep debt serviceable. We cover how inflation functions as hidden extraction, why regulation favours monopolies, why politi
PMQs #010 - AI Is Coming For Everything
In this PMQs episode, we discuss the claim that most white-collar work could be automated within 12-18 months, and what that actually means. We talk through jobs, incentives, education, and AI safety - why companies can't slow down even if they want to, why schools may be preparing kids for a world that's disappearing, and why safety teams are warning about systems they're still accelerating. If A
#147 - Andrea Miotti - The War Against AI Has Begun
What happens if we build something smarter than ourselves - and can't turn it off? In this interview, I chat with Andrea Miotti about the global race toward superintelligent AI: systems designed to outperform humans across every task, operate autonomously, and integrate directly into the economy. We discuss how today's AI tools quietly cross from assistance into replacement, why "kill switches" do
#146 - Izabella Kaminska - The Soviet Collapse of Britain
Is Britain in the midst of a Soviet style collapse? In this episode, I speak to journalist Isabella Kaminski about why today's Britain is starting to resemble the final years of the Soviet system. She describes what collapse feels like before it's obvious: fake economics, hollowed-out institutions, collapsing trust, and a population slowly realising that the systems meant to protect them no longer
#145 - Montgomery Toms - The British Charlie Kirk
Is the British State actively at war with the next generation? In this episode I talk to Montgomery Toms, a 20-year-old rising conservative voice, who argues that the social contract with the youth has been broken. Monty explains the "institutional rot" within our education system, detailing how he was "strong-armed" out of university for refusing to wear a mandatory pronoun badge on his first da
#144 - Rupert Lowe - Is the Government Organised Crime?
Is the British Government incompetent, or is it a criminal enterprise? I am joined by sitting MP Rupert Lowe as he asks the ultimate question: "Is the state in the hands of organized crime?" From the billions missing in procurement contracts to the "sticky fingers" of the political class, Rupert argues that the British state has become the active enemy of its own people, and that the UK is sleepwa
#143 – Emmanuel Maggiori – The Economics of State Failure
Emmanuel Maggiori joins me to explain how inflation, incentives, and broken monetary rules quietly reshape behaviour inside an economy. From Argentina's black markets and capital controls to money printing, MMT, saving vs spending, and institutional credibility, we explore why inflation destroys trust long before it destroys prices — and why countries don't collapse overnight, but drift into dysfu
#142 – Andrew Gold – The Incentives Driving Radicalisation on Both Sides
Andrew Gold joins me to discuss how incentives are driving extremism, distrust, and cultural breakdown in the UK. From YouTube algorithms and purity spirals to immigration, economics, feminism, AI, and debt, we explore why honest debate is collapsing and why every political movement now frames itself as an existential last stand. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
#141 – Khaled Hassan – The Silent Coup: How The Muslim Brotherhood Captured The UK
Peter sits down with Khaled Hassan to discuss immigration, extremism, and why Britain's institutions have become incapable of enforcing boundaries or even discuss them honestly. From counter-terrorism failures to media self-censorship, we examine how fear of controversy has replaced decision-making and why suppressing uncomfortable conversations doesn't reduce risk, but pushes it into darker, more
#140 – Ben Habib – The British Right Has a Leadership Problem
In this episode, I'm joined by Ben Habib for a conversation about Reform, Nigel Farage and where British politics is heading. Ben argues that Reform is far more fragile than most people realise. That it lacks a clear political philosophy, is driven by personality rather than principle, and could fail badly if it ever reaches power. His fear isn't just that Reform collapses, it's that its failure w
PMQs #009 – Jenrick's Defection Changes Nothing
In this PMQs episode, we discuss Robert Jenrick's defection to Reform and how it signals a political system that can only manage decline, not reverse it. We discuss debt, inflation, incentives, and accountability - why every party borrows, why promises don't bind, and why voters are increasingly trapped choosing between different speeds of the same outcome. SHOW NOTES › https://substack.com/@peter
PMQs #008 – Why the Financial World Order is Shifting
Politics feels chaotic for a reason. In this PMQs episode, we discuss what looks like surface-level madness - government U-turns, free speech crackdowns, global unrest and endless culture wars, to understand the deeper structural problem: a debt-based system that no longer works. This isn't about left vs right, or one bad leader. It's about incentives, power, and a financial system that concentrat
#139 - Simon Dixon - How the Financial-Industrial Complex Runs the World
Western politics appears chaotic - broken states, endless debt and permanent crisis. Simon Dixon argues it isn't chaos at all, it's structure. In this conversation, Simon lays out how money creation, debt, asset management, and access to capital now matter more than elections, ideology, or national borders. Governments, he argues, have become balance sheets and citizens have become collateral. We
PMQs #007 - Why Trump Wants Venezuela
Venezuela didn't fall apart by accident. It's the result of years of socialism, corruption and a regime that couldn't be removed by elections or international pressure. In this PMQs episode, Peter and Conor talk through what happened with Maduro, why Venezuelans themselves welcomed his removal, and why the usual arguments about regime change and international law don't hold up in the real world. T
#138 – Steve Baker – The Structural Failure of Government
Steve Baker is a former Conservative MP who spent years inside the machinery of British politics. In this interview, he explains why Britain feels broken. We talk about falling living standards, a political system that keeps failing without consequence and why so many voters feel completely powerless to change anything. We also explore how a system can continue to function while delivering worse o
PMQs #006 - The Quiet Leviathan — Inflation Is Breaking Everything
Inflation is the thing breaking everything. Not just prices - but trust, politics, institutions and people's belief that the system even works for them anymore. There's no sudden collapse coming and no dramatic moment where it all falls apart. It is slower than that and we're living through it right now. In this episode of PMQs, I talk through how inflation hollowed out living standards, why peopl
#137 - Larry Sanger - Will AI Replace Wikipedia?
In this conversation, Larry Sanger explains how Wikipedia's governance structure allowed anonymous editors, activist groups, PR firms, and institutional power to capture what became the world's default source of truth. This isn't a culture-war rant. It's a structural explanation of how neutrality failed and why reform may no longer be possible. We discuss: – How Wikipedia was originally designed –
PMQs #005 - This Country Doesn't Work Anymore
This country doesn't work anymore. In this episode, I explain why I no longer believe voting can fix what's broken and why the real problem isn't left vs right, race vs race, or party vs party but unconstrained government power. This is a continuation of ideas sparked by recent debates around Nick Fuentes, Carl Benjamin, identity politics and the collapse of legitimacy in modern democracies. I'm n
#136 - Carl Benjamin - The System That Creates Nick Fuentes
Carl Benjamin is a political commentator and cultural critic. This discussion focuses on diagnosis — not slogans — and on understanding consequences before they arrive. Young men aren't radicalising because of ideology, they're reacting to a world that no longer works for them. In this conversation with Carl Benjamin, we break down why the post-war consensus has collapsed, why politics feels illeg
PMQs #004 - I'm Withdrawing My Consent from the British State
I've reached an inflection point. I no longer believe Britain's political system can fix itself. This isn't about left vs right, Labour vs Conservative, or the next election. It's about unconstrained power, broken incentives and a system that rewards failure while hollowing out the next generation. In this PMQs episode, I explain why I'm withdrawing my consent from the British state and why so man
#135 - Michael Green - The Benchmark That Broke America
Mike Green is a macro strategist known for his work on market structure, benchmark distortions, passive flows and systemic fragility. A single benchmark shaped American markets and policy for decades and economist Mike Green believes it distorted risk, inflated asset prices, weakened the middle class and misled policymakers about the true state of the economy. In this conversation, he breaks down
#134 - Steve Keen - How Modern Economics Became Ideology
Modern economics is built on competing theories that often describe the world in very different ways. In this conversation, economist Steve Keen sets out his explanation for how money works, why he believes mainstream economic models fail, and why debt, banking and housing play a far greater role in economic crises than most policymakers acknowledge. Keen's perspective challenges the assumptions o
#133 - Karl-Friedrich Israel - Inflation, Inequality, Socialism & the Future of Europe
Inflation isn't an economic metric — it's a political tactic. When governments lie about inflation, they're not miscalculating; they're stealing from you. Economist Karl-Friedrich Israel explains how inflation quietly enriches asset holders, punishes workers and pushes Europe into a slow, silent decline. If your living standards are falling while politicians insist everything is fine, this convers
#132 - James Esses - Is Gender Ideology Harming Children?
James Esses is a psychotherapist and former Childline volunteer who was expelled from his degree and blacklisted by his profession for opposing gender ideology. He now works with young people suffering from gender dysphoria and is one of the UK's most articulate defenders of reality, safeguarding and children's rights. CONTACT PETE › Website - http://petermccormack.com › Feedback - https://www.pe
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