Lionel Shriver is a novelist and columnist at The Spectator, and the author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, Mania, and A Better Life among many other books.

Lionel Shriver returns to Thinking Class to discuss mass immigration in the West—not as an abstract moral debate, but as a lived experience reshaping belonging, institutions, and politics.

We start with Lionel’s new novel A Better Life, which tackles immigration through fiction from the host-country’s point of view. We explore why the “native-born” perspective is rarely told, what happens when immigration becomes mass-scale, and why voters increasingly feel unheard as demography, welfare states, and legal frameworks collide.

We also discuss:

the moral complexity of immigration,
why “a better life” can become an argument for open borders,
how asylum systems are gamed,
the sex divide on immigration,
the feminisation of institutions,
the crisis of male purpose,
and whether low birth-rates signal a culture that no longer believes in itself.

Support Lionel Shrivers work:

Books: https://amzn.to/4apdqQF
A Better Life: https://amzn.to/4c3nPCJ
Lionel Shriver at The Spectator: https://spectator.com/writer/lionel-shriver/

About Thinking Class:

Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world.

Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with historians, academics, and independent thinkers.

Thinking Class is concerned with discovering long-term patterns over headlines and hot-takes. Expect historically-grounded analysis on matters of national character, institutions, demography, belief, and political legitimacy.

New episodes every week.

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#116 - Lionel Shriver - A Better Life? Immigration, Demography, and Belonging In The West