Dissent, scandal, and uncomfortable arguments.
heretics. brings long-form, confrontational conversations to the edge of British politics, crime, and belief. Its episodes favor guests with hard stories or unpopular claims, then press them through fast, skeptical back-and-forth.
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heretics. is built around arguments that polite public life often tries to contain. Its recent run is heavy on Britain, institutions, ideology, crime, and the cost of dissent. The show’s conversations move quickly from provocation into detail. They do not linger in neutral framing for long. Guests are asked to defend sharp claims about immigration, Islamism, citizenship, anti-racism, international aid, grooming gangs, psychedelics, royal scandal, and political power. That gives the show a hard-edged rhythm: a charged clip, a direct challenge, then a longer attempt to test the claim. Some episodes are policy arguments. Others are survivor testimony or scandal breakdowns. The Emma Trimble episode focuses on British identity, citizenship, Islam, immigration, and demographic anxiety. Emily Brearley’s appearance centers on World Bank projects, schools, indoctrination claims, and anger at institutions that present themselves as moral. Fiona Goddard’s episode is darker, describing abuse, trafficking, police failure, social-service failure, and multiculturalism as a disputed public taboo. The Dom Joly conversation is looser and more comic, but still turns on Lebanon, Islamism, Europe, and the possibility of changing one’s mind. Professor David Nutt brings a different texture, connecting psychedelics, government drug policy, MK Ultra, ESP, and the history of scientific heresy. Shaun Attwood appears in a live breakdown about Prince Andrew, Epstein, and related scandals. Stephen Barrett’s Daily Heretic episode turns toward the Fabian Society, Tony Blair, juries, tyranny, and English constitutional memory. Across these episodes, heretics. treats consensus as something to be interrogated, not politely admired. It is abrasive by design. The show is best suited to listeners comfortable with bleak subject matter, political confrontation, and arguments that test the boundary between skepticism and alarm.
Made for: For listeners drawn to combative long-form interviews about British politics, taboo social questions, institutional failure, and public scandal. It suits people who want friction, not gentle consensus.
What sets it apart: The show combines scandal-driven subject matter with direct ideological challenge, moving from survivor accounts and claims to history, drugs, royalty, and constitutional politics. Its edge comes from sustained confrontation rather than detached panel chatter.
What makes you a heretic? Journalist Andrew Gold talks to everyone from cult defectors and politicians to mainstream celebrities—people who’ve challenged the expected script and lived with the consequences. Guests include Robbie Williams, Chris Packham, David Baddiel, Richard Dawkins, Bonnie Blue, and former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Hollywood coercion meets Wall Street psychopathy, and you get the follow-up question polite interviews duck.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A wide-ranging episode where MK Ultra opens into psychedelic history, consciousness, and scientific uncertainty.
MK Ultra sits inside a larger, stranger history of LSD here, with the guest following the drug from Hoffman's boss, a German chemist with Nazi allegiances, into American military experiments with psychedelics and indoctrination.
A sharp argument that anti-racism can create real harm when institutions stop questioning their own assumptions.
It frames anti-racism as an ideology with real-world costs, moving from policing and public safety into the NHS, schools, and the judiciary. Its central claim is that fear of racism accusations can bend judgment in damaging ways, and it makes that case concrete through examples…
A grim tour story that opens into the uglier machinery around it.
Josh Friend's account keeps the attention on what people around a band could sense before the wider story fully caught up: six weeks on the road, a strange atmosphere from the first soundcheck, and the later realization of how severe and gross things were.
Apple details, software habits, and everyday technical friction.
Records worth hearing, reasons worth arguing over.
Celebrity, clothes and chaos, talked through at full speed.
Andrew Gold interviews journalist Michael Murphy on how anti-racism policies are causing harm.
This episode features an interview with Andy Woodward discussing his childhood abuse by a predator in sports, the subsequent scandal he broke in 2016, and his traumatic experience with the BBC while trying to make a film about it.
This episode features Shaun Attwood breaking down the arrest of Prince Andrew in connection with the Epstein scandal, focusing on charges of misconduct of public office and the broader implications for the royal family.
Andrew Gold interviews his childhood friend Josh Friend, a musician from Modestep, about touring with Lostprophets and the dark behavior of singer Ian Watkins, who was later convicted of heinous child sex offences.
Frankie Muniz describes becoming Malcolm in Malcolm in the Middle after rushing through an audition he expected to lose to a pizza commercial.
heretics.
On heretics., Evan Rachel Wood describes her relationship with Marilyn Manson, including alleged surveillance, coercive control, and a 19-year-old music-video shoot she later identified as rape.
On heretics., Evan Rachel Wood describes her relationship with Marilyn Manson, including alleged coercive control, threats, surveillance, and a 19-year-old music-video shoot she says involved non-consensual nudity and penetration.
Mark Williams-Thomas recounts how a BBC Newsnight producer, Meirion Jones, first asked him in a plane whether he had heard Jimmy Savile was an offender, and how Newsnight dropped the story.
Andrew Gold argues that a UK government green paper, "A new strategic direction for UK media," could require social platforms to make "trustworthy news providers" "easily discoverable." He pairs this with Andy Burnham's reported push to ban VPNs, saying it would put the UK alongside North Korea among the few countries with such a ban.
This episode discusses controversial predictions about Britain potentially becoming a Muslim-majority country within 30 years, exploring issues of immigration, citizenship policies, cultural identity, and safety concerns.
Whistleblower Emily Brearley exposes systemic corruption and abuse in World Bank-funded education projects, where teachers allegedly coerced girls into sex in exchange for marking them present.
This episode discusses how anti-racism policies in the UK and America are allegedly causing harm and deaths by creating institutional reluctance in police, NHS, schools, and judiciary due to fear of racism accusations.
Fiona Goddard shares her harrowing experience of being sexually abused and trafficked for five years while police and social services failed to intervene, despite knowing about the situation.
Dom Joly discusses his evolving views on Islamism, Lebanon's history, and concerns about institutional changes in Britain, emphasizing the importance of listening and adapting to new facts.
Heretics host interviews Professor David Nutt, an Imperial College psychopharmacologist and former government drug czar dismissed after challenging the Blair-Brown Labour government’s drug policy.
This episode features an interview with Shaun Attwood discussing the arrest of Prince Andrew in connection with the Epstein scandal, focusing on trade-related crimes and its historical significance.
This episode discusses the Fabian Society's historical influence on British politics, particularly through Tony Blair, and critiques government overreach and erosion of civil liberties like trial by jury.
A Cambridge student debates the labeling of figures like Tommy Robinson and Charlie Kirk as far-right, discussing nationalism, culture, and immigration.