Why police ignored the grooming gangs, with Maggie Oliver

The UK economy is structurally buggered (to use a technical term). Decades of economic mismanagement has caused growth to grind to a halt. To discuss if, and how, it can be turned around, Will chats to Jon Moynihan.Jon has had an esteemed career in business and venture capital, including as CEO and Executive Chairman of PA Consulting Group, efforts which earned him a seat in the House of Lords. He has recently released a powerful two-volume manifesto for economic change, titled ‘Return to Growth: How to Fix the Economy'.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Buy 'Return to Growth' here.

In the last month, the grooming gangs scandal has gone from being the UK’s worst-kept secret to its greatest source of national shame. From at least the 1990s, and likely long before then, criminal networks comprised almost entirely of Pakistani Muslim men prostituted, raped and tortured thousands of young girls in towns and cities across the UK. And the authorities, despite being aware of what was happening, did very little to intervene. UK citizens, and indeed the world, quite rightly want to know why.To help Will understand, he is joined by Maggie Oliver. Maggie is a former detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012 and blew the whistle on the failure to tackle grooming gangs in Rochdale. She wrote about her battle to expose the gangs, and seek justice for the victims, in her book ‘Survivors’, which was adapted for the screen in the BBC drama ‘Three Girls’. The Maggie Oliver Foundation supports survivors and those at risk of childhood sexual abuse and exploitation.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Support The Maggie Oliver Foundation here.Buy Maggie's book here.

After a merry festive season, this is the time of the year when some of us decide to cut back on the booze. Dry January is a peculiar concept. Anyone who does it will tell you they feel great at the end of the month, but most of them can’t wait to get back to the pub.In many ways, drinking doesn’t make sense. It often takes more than it gives. And yet we keep drinking, just like we have for tens of thousands of years. The question is, why?To help Will with an answer, he is joined by Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, and author of ‘Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization’, Edward Slingerland.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

Regular listeners may remember that last year Will interviewed the wonderful documentarian, podcaster and YouTuber Andrew Gold. Andrew recently returned the favour and invited Will onto his wildly successful YouTube show, Heretics. Will and Andrew discussed how the woke mind virus has infiltrated Australia, the parallels between the grooming gangs scandal and child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities, the problems of mass migration in Australia, and the corruption of Australia's educational institutions.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Watch Heretics here.

Music used to be about "sticking it to the man." It's now the most conformist industry there is. Hayley Mary has seen the transformation firsthand. Hayley was the lead singer of Australian indie rock band The Jezabels, before launching a successful solo career. She has recently experienced the wrath of the music establishment, after a controversial Instagram post (complete with a MAGA hat) sparked a cancellation storm (see the post here). In this special conversation with Will, she speaks out about why she took a stand for free speech, subversion, and the counter-cultural instincts that once made music great.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

As friend of the show Charles C.W. Cooke has said, “To the honest eye, Joe Biden was a mid-wit career politician from Delaware who had the chance to appear normal enough to unseat Trump from office. To the authors of our roiling morality play, he was Earth’s Last Honest Man. After he won the White House, this second characterization was foisted upon us with abandon.” It was never true, as was finally and irrefutably hammered home with the pardon of his son, Hunter.No one has done more to expose Biden for the man he really is than Miranda Devine. Australian listeners will remember Miranda from her successful career in Australian journalism, before she moved to the US to take up a role with The New York Post. She has gone on to release two of the most influential books on American politics this decade, 'Laptop from Hell' and 'The Big Guy: How a President and His Son Sold out America.'Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

In recent years, Western society has conducted a perverse experiment. We have indulged the grievances of almost every identity group, exalting victimhood status and self-flagellating over the sins of the past. There is one glaring exception in the identity politics game. Men (and particularly white men).A generation of boys have grown up being told that they are toxically masculine and that they must atone for their male privilege. The consequences have been disastrous, and we now have a generation of boys and young men across the West who are genuinely and seriously disadvantaged, and living without hope.Few are brave enough to discuss this uncomfortable truth. Fortunately Miriam Cates is. Miriam is a former Conservative member of the UK Parliament, and is now a GB News Host and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social Justice, where she is spearheading the ‘Lost Boys’ initiative, a major new research project that seeks to understand what is going wrong for boys and men, and how to fix it.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Learn more about the Lost Boys project here.

As Western values continue to come under assault, it is hard not to feel like there is a courage deficit in society today. We are often too afraid too question and confront dangerous ideologies, and often too complacent to defend the history and the culture upon which the Western world was built.Someone who has never been accused of lacking for courage is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan is a human rights activist, author, and, as of recently, the founder of Courage Media, a platform committed to challenging the dominant narratives that suppress truth and intellectual debate.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.Visit Courage.Media here.

The American President remains the most powerful person in the world. The collective choice made by a relatively small group of voters in a handful of American swing states will change the lives of people everywhere from Ukraine to Taiwan, from Israel to Iran, and from the UK to Australia. The question is, how will the world change during a second Trump term? Few people are better placed to answer that question than former Treasurer of Australia, former Ambassador of Australia to the US, and now Founding Partner and President of Bondi Partners, Joe Hockey.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.

London’s famously gloomy weather reflects the national mood. Farmers are marching on Westminster to protest crippling changes to inheritance tax laws. They are one of countless segments of the population that the new Starmer government has alienated in its early days in power. Illegal migrants continue to cross the channel in unprecedented numbers. Journalists are being investigated for thought crimes. And the long-term economic outlook is anemic. At the same time, the new Trump administration may provide a blueprint for how to shake up a country in decline. The question is, how can we make Britain great again? To help Will with an answer, he is joined by comedian, podcaster and GB News host, Leo Kearse.Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.Read The Spectator Australia here.