Hello everyone, welcome to this very special live recording of my podcast with me Brendan O'Neill and my special guest, Matt Ridley.

Matt, welcome to the show.

Brendan, it's great to be back on your show. I hugely admire everything you do and everything

spike does.

Well, we're huge fans of yours. I'm delighted to have you on, especially for the live recording

so that the audience can also get to ask you some questions as well.

I've got a million questions I want to ask you.

I'll try to squeeze them into the hour we have.

Of course I want to start with something you've been writing about over the past couple of years

brilliantly in your book viral the origins of COVID-19 and also in numerous articles and

essays including for spite.

I want to ask you about the Lab Leak theory.

The possibility that this virus, COVID-19,

that brought the entire world to a standstill

for a period of time, the possibility that it came from a laboratory.

It's such a fascinating theory. Every time I read about it, I feel like, I think to myself, am I being a conspiracy theorist?

All these ideas are washing over me.

It's starting to sound really convincing.

And I do find myself increasingly intrigued

by the possibility that that's where this

this virus came from.

So I want to start off by asking you

...