Apr 27, 2026
Meghan's guest this week is British journalist and author
Brendan O'Neill, chief political writer at Spiked and author of
Vibe Shift: The Revolt Against Wokeness, Greenism and Technocracy.
Brendan talks about what he sees as a growing “vibe shift” away
from elite consensus and toward something like common sense—though
not without its own distortions. He and Meghan discuss the UK’s
role in pushing back on gender ideology (aka “TERF Island”), the
uneasy state of free speech on both sides of the Atlantic, and why
ordinary people seemed to tolerate cultural excesses until they
suddenly didn’t. They also touch on the rise of unserious,
meme-driven politics, the infantilization of public discourse (with
Greta Thunberg as an emblematic if also profoundly dysfunctional
figure), and the strange convergence of hectoring moralism on one
side and gleeful nihilism on the other. Finally, Brendan reflects
on his own journey from revolutionary communist to free speech
absolutist, and why he thinks we may be inching slowly back toward
a politics grounded less in identity and more in reality.
Guest Bio;
Brendan O'Neill is the chief political writer at Spiked and host of
The Brendan O'Neill Show. He's also the author of several books,
including Anti-Woke, A Duty to
Offend, A Heretic's Manifesto, and most recently, Vibe Shift: The
Revolt Against Wokeness, Greenism and Technocracy.