British Thought Leaders

Exiled activist Simon Cheng talks about his Hong Kong pro-democracy work & his run in with the CCP

Simon Cheng is an exiled Hong Kong activist and founder of the UK-wide diaspora group Hongkongers in Britain. Simon made the news in 2021 after he was detained and allegedly tortured in China.
In this episode of British Thought Leaders, Simon talks about his experience with the CCP and the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement.
Simon also discussed the incident where protestors were attacked at the Chinese consulate in Manchester in 2022.
@SimonChengUK / @HongkongersUK

Writer and educator Will Knowland discusses masculinity, morality and being sacked from Eton College

Will Knowland is an educator, writer & cultural commentator. He is outspoken on topics such as masculinity, morality and the role of men in modern society.
Will was sacked from his role at Eton College for refusing to take down YouTube lecture questioning 'toxic masculinity' but was subsiquently cleared of professional misconduct. In this video he talks about this experience.
@KnowlandKnows

Lord Alton discusses his work in Human Rights, the CCP, his journey to the House of Lords & Chivalry

Lord Alton is a former Liberal Party Member of Parliament for a Liverpool constituency and Chief Whip – who has sat as an Independent Crossbench member of the House of Lords since 1997 when he was made a life peer. He is a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University and author of several books.
Alton is known for his human rights work including the co-founding Jubilee Campaign and Jubilee Action, and serves as chair, patron, or trustee, of several charities and voluntary organisations. He is a member of the House of Lords Select Committee on International Relations and Defence.
https://www.davidalton.net/

Andy Shaw, co-founder and organiser of Comedy Unleashed, speaks to Lee Hall on Free Speech & Cancel Culture in British Comedy

Andy Shaw is the co-founder and organiser of London’s free-speech comedy club, Comedy Unleashed. The Times described it as ‘the comedy night that takes the PC out of the stand-up elite’.
The club has hosted 100s of comedians who challenge conventional thinking and it has gained a reputation for hosting comics that have been cancelled or banned.
Andy also writes spoofs for the Spectator magazine, including ‘A Handy Guide to Vaccine Passports’ and ‘The new CofE: Church of Extinction’. He hosts the occasional Spectator podcast, ‘That’s Life'.
Follow Andy on Twitter: @AndyShaw1

David Kurten, Heritage Party, gives an overview of Cultural Marxism & its impact in modern Britain

David Kurten is the Leader and one of the founding members of the Heritage Party. The Heritage Party stands for free speech and liberty, traditional family values, national sovereignty, and financial responsibility. ​
David was a member of the London Assembly from May 2016 to May 2021, and sat on the Education, Environment, Fire & Emergency, Housing and Transport committees at City Hall.

Ben Pile, an independent climate researcher, speaks to Lee Hall about the reality of the green agenda.

Ben Pile is an independent climate researcher, commentator and blogger. He runs the Climate Resistance website, which challenges mainstream views on environmentalism. He also writes for publications such as Spiked Online.
@ClimateDebateUK | http://benpile.substack.com | http://youtube.com/@ClimateResistance | UKclimatedebate.co.uk

Giles Udy, an expert in Soviet Communism, speaks to Lee Hall about Marxism and the UK Political Left

Giles William Udy is an English writer and historian of the Soviet Gulag system, Soviet influence on British politics 1917-56 & how history repeats itself.
He is a member of the council of the Keston Institute and holds an MBA from the Cass Business School. He is a regular contributor to The Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the i, UnHerd and the magazine Standpoint.
Udy has made a long-term study of the history of the gulag camps of Norilsk, his collection of photographs of which is in the Hoover Institution Archives. His book 'Labour and the Gulag' (2017) examines the response of the British labour movement to conditions under Stalinism and developed from his earlier Gulag studies after he discovered that the British labour movement had suppressed criticism of conditions in the camps.

Rahima Mahmut talks to us about how the Uyghurs in China are facing genocide and organ harvesting.

Rahima Mahmut is a Uyghur singer, human rights activist, and award-winning translator of the poignant prison memoir The Land Drenched in Tears by Soyungul Chanishe.
Currently, she is the U.K. Director for the World Uyghur Congress and Executive Director at Stop Uyghur Genocide. @MahmutRahima | @uyghurcongress | @UyghurStop

Professor Dennis Hayes on the attack on free speech in British Universities

Dennis Hayes is professor of education at the University of Derby in England. He is the founder and director of the campaign group Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF).
AFAF was founded in late 2006, initially to promote its Statement of Academic Freedom but has subsequently undertaken the defence of many academics who have been threatened with disciplinary action or censored for their beliefs or ideas (see AFAF's The Banned List).
Hayes is an author (with Kathryn Ecclestone) of the best-selling and controversial book The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education. A defender of knowledge-based education he is an advocate of the teaching of Latin and Greek in British state schools.

Dr Alka Seghal Cuthbert talks about British School Education and the increasing influence of Critical Race Theory

Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is an educator, academic, author and campaigner who believes passionately in the essential importance of impartiality both in education and as a prerequisite for the civilised conversations necessary for democracy to flourish. Alka became director of Don’t Divide Us following two years as its founder lead on education, a campaign which she felt impelled to join as a counter to the fractious and one-sided discussions about race relations in the UK which have dominated since 2020.
Alka began her career teaching English Literature in inner-city London and went on to become a member of the Ofsted Advisory Panel on English. Until recently, she was still practising on the front line as an English teacher with the Civitas Education Charity supplementary schools project. She is a prolific author of specialist texts on education including the 2017 What Should Schools Teach? Disciplines, Subjects and the Pursuit of Truth (IoE UCL Press). She has spoken at numerous prestigious conferences and gave evidence to the 2016 All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry (APPGI) on Knowledge and Skills in Education.
Alka made a characteristically bold entrance into politics in 2017, standing for the Brexit Party as a protest against the potential democratic deficit that would have followed had the popular vote not been enacted. Alka is a wife and mother of two adult children. She enjoys cooking, opera and travelling to visit family in India, when time allows.
Follow Alka on Twitter: @ASCphiled