Origin Story

Hello and welcome to season nine of Origin Story. After last season’s history of socialism, we’re returning to our usual format of taking on a completely different topic each time, and we’re starting with a big one. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the UK voting to leave the EU, we’re telling the three-part story of European union itself: not just the 33-year-old organisation — an incredible achievement that is too easily taken for granted — but the much older concept.

We begin by explaining how Europe came to think of itself as an identity as well as a continent. For centuries, Europe was synonymous with something else, whether it be the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church or the values of the Enlightenment. The only efforts to unify its peoples were through imperial domination, from the Pax Romana to Charlemagne to Napoleon. It was the desire to avoid war between nation states that inspired the dream of the United States of Europe, and the cataclysm of the First World War that gave that dream real urgency.

We meet two extraordinary and visionary men who dedicated their lives to bringing Europe together. Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the so-called grandfather of the European Union, was an Austrian-Japanese aristocrat and ardent internationalist whose Pan-European Movement kept the dream alive between the wars, inspiring the likes of Einstein, Freud and Churchill. Jean Monnet was the brandy merchant, diplomat and wartime fixer who came out of the Second World War with a serious plan to realise it: the European Coal and Steel Community.

Churchill, who co-founded the Council of Europe, famously said that Britain should be “with Europe but not of it”. This ambivalence kept Britain outside the European project for more than 20 years but the real story of this period is the psychodrama between France and Germany: eternal enemies who became tense allies. We close part one in 1955, when the political aftermath of the war is finally resolved but the trauma still shapes Europe’s fears and desires.

What did it mean to be European before the twentieth century? Did it always take a war to force nations to consider cooperation? Why was Kalergi such an influential figure and why does he still inspire far-right conspiracy theories? How did Monnet use the shock of the Second World War, and the seemingly mundane issue of coal and steel production, to set Europe on the road to union? And was Britain right to be sceptical or simply deluded? It’s an epic story of how war and peace turned utopian dreams into political reality.

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory 

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Reading list

• Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961)

• Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026)

• Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943)

• W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939)

• House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950)

• Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991)

• Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996)

• Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005)

• Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025)

• Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978)

• George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947)

• Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018)

• Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941)

• Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018)

• Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021)

• Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018)

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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This week’s episode is an edited version of Origin Story Live at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre on Wednesday 15 April 2026. It was a thrill to take the stage in the former terrain of Origin Story regulars such as Jeremy Bentham and John Maynard Keynes. Thanks to everyone who came along or watched the live stream, and to the people who helped make it happen.

In part one, Ian unravels Matt Goodwin’s strange journey from ambitious young academic to GB News host, Reform UK candidate and fellow traveller of Viktor Orbán. Was he radicalised by his professional immersion in the far right, did he just follow the prevailing winds to money and influence, or was he always like this?

Then Dorian breaks down Goodwin’s book Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity, in which Enoch Powell meets ChatGPT, London has fallen and good old Britain is being betrayed by something called “suicidal empathy”. As sloppy as it is unpleasant, it positions Goodwin as the UK’s cut-price answer to Stephen Miller but will his unique charmlessness scupper his political aspirations? Goodwin predicted that the “elites” (ie, anyone who disagrees with him) would hate his book and who are we to disappoint him?

In part two, we take a much-needed mind bath and each select five films that we think illuminate the recurring themes we discuss in Origin Story, from Batman Begins to All the President’s Men. Finally, we take some questions, both political and personal, from our wonderful audience.

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory 

• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube

Reading list

• James Bloodworth – ‘Matthew Goodwin, Reform and the politics of resentment’, Prospect (16 July 2025)

• Daniel Boffey – ‘“It’s about ego’: Matt Goodwin’s journey from far-right expert to firebrand Reform candidate’, Guardian (30 January 2026)

• Josh Glancy – ‘The reinvention of Matt Goodwin, from professor to Reform radical’,

The Times (31 January 2026)

• Matt Goodwin – Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity (2026)

• Sam Leith – ‘The Illusion and Delusion of Matt Goodwin’, Spectator (30 March 2026)

• John Merrick – ‘Matt Goodwin’s intellectual suicide’, New Statesman (24 March 2026)

• Joe Mulhall – ‘The Opportunist Extremist: The Strange Radicalisation of Matt Goodwin’, Hope Not Hate (2025)

• Mark Sellman – ‘Matt Goodwin accused of AI blunders in new book on migration’, The Times (26 March 2026)

• Andy Twelves – ‘Did Matthew Goodwin use AI to write his book?, Spectator (24 March 2026)

• Andy Twelves debates Matt Goodwin, GB News (27 March 2026)

• Julia Carrie Wong – ‘Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy’, Guardian (8 April 2025)

• Cathy Young – ‘The Bizarre Right-Wing War on... Empathy?’, The Bulwark (21 April 2025)

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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Hello and welcome to another bonus episode. It’s the centenary of the General Strike of May 1926, the most important industrial dispute in British history, but what really happened and did it really change Britain?

One strange thing about the General Strike is that it happened when industrial relations, which had reached their fiery nadir before and after the First World War, seemed to be cooling down. But tensions between coal miners and mine owners got so bad that the Trades Union Congress had no choice but to join the fight, even though its leaders did not expect to win. It was a showdown that very few people wanted.

The strike began at one minute to midnight on 3 May. The following nine days were intense, exciting and unprecedented. Future Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and future fascist Oswald Mosley backed the workers, Evelyn Waugh and the Mitford sisters joined the army of volunteers trying to keep Britain moving, and Virginia Woolf just complained. In some places, the strike became a proxy war between communists and fascists. Meanwhile, the BBC faced the first existential crisis of its short life, struggling to maintain impartiality while under the threat of a government takeover.

The cast of characters is a kind of Origin Story all-stars, including prime minister Stanley Baldwin, chancellor and propagandist Winston Churchill, Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, trade union heavyweight Ernest Bevin, BBC chief John Reith and Liberal peace-maker Herbert Samuel.

The strike ended on 12 May because the TUC surrendered, to the dismay of many workers. At the time, it seemed like an unmitigated defeat for the unions, a humiliation for the Labour Party and a vindication for Baldwin’s Tories. But the long-term consequences were unpredictable and the strike’s legacy is still up for debate.

How did the General Strike become inevitable when almost everybody was desperate to avoid it? What were those nine days like for people on both sides of the barricades? How did the BBC survive? Could the unions have won with different leaders or was it an impossible battle from the start? Why did a Tory victory lead so quickly to a Labour government and a stronger TUC? And why was Churchill such a dick about it?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory 

• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube

Reading list

• Stanley Baldwin – Prime Minister’s Statement, Hansard (3 May 1926)

• David Brandon – The General Strike 1926: A New History (2023)

• A. J. Cook – The Nine Days: The Story of the General Strike Told by the Miners’ Secretary (1927)

• David Hendy – The BBC: A People’s History (2022)

• Roy Jenkins – Churchill (2001)

• Keith Laybourn – The General Strike of 1926 (1993)

• Martin Pugh – ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (2005)

• Martin Pugh – Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party (2010)

• Julian Symons – The General Strike (1957)

• David Torrance – The Edge of Revolution: The General Strike That Shook Britain (2026)

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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The terms introvert and extrovert have never been more popular. People seem to increasingly latch onto them as a core element of their personality, clinging to the personal definition they offer with ever-greater enthusiasm. Humans love to categorise things and there is nothing they like categorising more than themselves.

We trace the weird story of these terms back to Vienna, on March 3rd 1907, when the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung first met the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. What follows is a hysterical, combative and sexually charged relationship which left both men in a state of social disarray. But in his efforts to later work out what happened, Jung settled on a personality binary which proved extremely intuitive to the public at large. 

Are these terms meaningful? Do they have scientific validity? And what are the dangers and advantages of defining ourselves in this way? Let's find out, as we delve into the world of personality types, psychoanalysis and what might genuinely be the single most preposterous intellectual dispute in the history of ideas.

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory 

• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube

Reading list

• Peter Geyer – Extraversion – Introversion: what C.G. Jung meant and how contemporaries responded, AusAPT Biennial Conference Melbourne, Australia – October 25–27, 2012

• Carl Gustav Jung – "The Association Method", The American Journal of Psychology 1910-04: Vol 21 Iss 2

• Carl Gustav Jung – Psychological Types, Princeton University Press, 1971

• D. L. Johnson, J. S. Wiebe, S. M. Gold, N. C. Andreasen – Cerebral blood flow and personality: A positron emission tomography study, American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 252–257 (1999).

• Florencio (Jun) Kabigting, Jr - The Discovery and Evolution of the Big Five of Personality, GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Volume 4, Issue 3, June 2021

• Frank McLynn – Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography, St Martin's Press 1996.

• The Invention of 'Introvert', Words Matter podcast, episode 51

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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Welcome to a bonus episode of Origin Story. Sometimes we profile people who are psychologically complex, who have undertaken fascinating intellectual journeys, whose sins and achievements are intertwined in ways that defy simplistic judgements. President Trump’s fiendish chief advisor Stephen Miller is not one of those people. We regret to inform you that it’s Miller Time.

Currently the deputy White House chief of staff, Miller has been Trump’s most influential aide for the past decade, steering him towards ever greater extremes of nativism and authoritarianism. He’s been described as Trump’s prime minister, the shadow president, the intellectual engine behind MAGA fascism, and a real-world version of Tolkien’s Grima Wormtongue. To understand the Trump administration, you need to understand Stephen Miller. But where did he come from and why is he still here?

In this episode, we explain how Miller emerged from the toxic politics of 1990s California to became an abrasive right-wing troll before he’d even graduated from middle school. At high school in Santa Monica and college in North Carolina, it was the same story: no friends but plenty of attention. On the one hand, Miller revelled in provoking the hatred of his peers. On the other, he sincerely believed that immigration was a mortal threat to America, despite being the descendant of Jewish refugees who owed their lives to American hospitality.

After graduation, Miller headed to Washington, winding up as an attack dog for elf-faced xenophobe Senator Jeff Sessions and a conduit between the far right and mainstream conservatism. When Trump entered the political scene in 2015, Miller saw the ideal vehicle for his white nationalist monomania. While most Republicans opposed illegal immigration, Miller demonised legal immigration, too. The most inhumane of Trump’s policies — child separation, the Muslim ban, ICE’s reign of terror — have his fingerprints all over them.

Learning from the setbacks of Trump’s first term, Miller has evolved into Washington’s most ruthless operator and arguably the most powerful unelected official in the world. Look into almost any corner of Trumpland, from January 6 to Project 2025, or Elon Musk’s political donations to Nicolas Maduro’s removal, and you’ll find Stephen Miller.

How did Miller become such an enduringly powerful influence on such a fickle president? Is he, in fact, the real force behind the Trump administration’s fascist impulses? What do his obsessions owe to the long history of American nativism? Could he outlast Trump and expand his mission to transform America or has he already overreached? And does he have any redeeming features whatsoever?

• See Origin Story live at the Bloomsbury Theatre on 15th April 2026: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bloomsbury-theatre/events/2026/apr/origin-story-live

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory 

• Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube

Reading list

Books and articles

• Eitan Arom – ‘From Hebrew school to halls of power: Stephen Miller’s unlikely journey’, Jewish Journal (15 March 2017)

• Jonathan Blitzer – ‘How Stephen Miller Single-Handedly Got the U.S. to Accept Fewer Refugees’, The New Yorker (13 October 2017)

• Jonathan Blitzer – ‘How Stephen Miller Manipulates Donald Trump to Further His Immigration Obsession’, The New Yorker (21 February 2020)

• Sarah Churchwell – Behold America: A History of America First and the American Dream (2018)

• Nancy Cook – ‘Trump’s immigration push is Stephen Miller’s dream come true’, Politico, 31 October 2018

• McKay Coppins – ‘Trump’s Right-Hand Troll’, The Atlantic (28 May 2018)

... reading list continues on Patreon

Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production
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