Academy of Ideas

#PodcastOfIdeas: Richard III, General Election and rejuvenating the economy

#PodcastOfIdeas: Racial equality laws, free speech on campus and tackling childhood obesity

In this week's podcast of Ideas David Bowden talks to Dolan Cummings about whether racial equality laws are now, or ever have been, needed in the UK, Rob Lyons addresses an event held by Policy Exchange on childhood obesity, and spiked's assistant editor Tom Slater comes in to talk about the Down With Campus Censorship! campaign.

#BattleFest2014: Ukraine: Cold War rebooted?

The recent crisis in Ukraine has been widely portrayed in the West as a rerun of the Cold War, with a peaceful pro-EU Ukraine being pulled apart as the result of an aggressive and newly expansionist Russia seeking to re-establish hegemony over its neighbourhood. Russia’s annexing of the Ukrainian region of Crimea has been roundly condemned as violating international law, state sovereignty, democracy and causing the most serious crisis in European security since the end of the Cold War. The situa...

#PodcastOfIdeas: Tax avoidance, plain packs and the sharing economy

In this episode of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons talks to economics journalist and author Daniel Ben-Ami about what tax has become one of the biggest issues in British politics and Rob Killick about whether Uber and AirBnB represent the first shoots of a new economy. Plus, Claire Fox explains why state-regulation of what appears on a cigarette pack is a free-speech issue and Institute of Ideas staff select their stories of the past two weeks.

#PodcastOfIdeas: Copenhagen terror attacks, the history of theatre and the FGM panic

In this episode of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons speaks to Professor Bill Durodié about last week’s terror attacks in Copenhagen and the implications they have for free speech in Europe. Claire Fox talks about how societal change and the emergence of the public has been reflected through theatre down the ages. And Bríd Hehir tells Rob about how the panic stirred up over female genital mutilation has prompted a witch hunt against physicians and parents.

#LondonLegalSalon: Abortion and Protest - Do We Need Buffer Zones?

In late 2014 the Labour party indicated their support for legal ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics to prevent protests from interfering with the provision of services. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain's largest abortion provider, supported the move saying that the pro-life protests outside their clinics cause unwarranted levels of distress to those seeking to access lawful healthcare. Is this an acceptable limitation on the freedom to protest, or an unnecessary expansio...

#BattleFest2013: Do we live in a top-shelf society?

Sexually explicit material has always challenged censors and traditional moralists. From the 1960s, liberal values on sex and sexual relationships became one of the markers of a civilised, modern society. Over the past decade, however, there’s a gnawing unease that sexually explicit material has gradually stepped down from the top shelf and into the mainstream. Whether it was Rihanna’s raunchy display on The X Factor, Jonathan Ross’ lewd chat shows or Katie Perry simulating oral sex in pop video...

#PodcastofIdeas: Charlie Hebdo, Debating Matters and the Greek elections.

In the first podcast in a new series, Rob Lyons speaks to Dave Bowden about the state of press freedom in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Justine Brian fills us in on the latest news from Debating Matters, and Geoff Kidder gives us the lowdown on the upcoming Greek elections.

#BattleFest2014: America - the twilight years?

America’s problems at home and abroad have led many to wonder if the US is in decline. US foreign policy, from Syria to Ukraine, appears rudderless and impotent. The Iraq War is widely seen to have been a failure, while US forces are leaving Afghanistan with the Taliban still active and the country far from being a happy democracy. The US recovery from the recession has been weak, too, while China and India – and even parts of Africa - seem to offer more glittering possibilities for expansion an...

#BattleFest2014: Shopping and fretting - the ethics of buying the right thing

The public outrage that followed the discovery of several ‘forced labour’ labels sewn into clothes stocked by budget clothing shop Primark has brought the issue of the ethics of the supply chain back into the headlines. Just what is the real cost of cheap goods in the West? In April 2013, 1,100 people – including garment workers who had been producing clothes for UK retailers - died when the Rana Plaza commercial block in Bangladesh collapsed. Earlier this year, the Guardian claimed fishmeal use...

#BattleFest2014: To boldly go - what is the point of space exploration?

When Neil Armstrong made his first steps on the moon on 21 July 1969, he was watched by over 500million people. Many stayed up through the night to witness it, and those who were children at the time often recall being woken up to see the momentous occasion. Today, numerous scientists, engineers, writers and others cite witnessing the moon landings as an inspiring moment that influenced their choice of career. While achieved by Americans, the positive reaction was international – there was a sen...

#BattleFest2014: Our morals, their moralism?

The charge of ‘moralism’ or ‘moralising’ is always complicated. Nobody endorses immorality, we all know the difference between moralism and morality. Or do we? The former implies an unattractive self-righteousness; the latter is ‘the real thing’. But without righteousness, does morality have any meaning? The obvious danger with rejecting moralism is that we abandon any attempt to talk about right and wrong. Indeed, contemporary culture seems uncomfortable with the language of morality. Terms lik...

#BattleFest2014: Kindergarten culture - why does government treat us like children?

In the past, government may have intervened frequently in the economy, but our private lives were our own to live as we saw fit. In recent years, however, government has largely given up on being the ‘hand on the tiller’ of the economy and intervenes regularly in once-private aspects of life. Smoking is now banned in most public places, and smoking in cars in the presence of children is about to be banned. Environmental concerns have led to new efficiency standards for domestic appliances, and s...

#BattleFest2014: What makes a great sporting leader?

With the England cricket team experiencing a turbulent tour of Australia, culminating in a humiliating whitewash, and the problems of succession currently engulfing Manchester United, the issue of management and leadership in sport has been thrust into the spotlight. Is a great sporting leader born or made? What are the key factors for creating a football dynasty, whether it be Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United or Bill Shankly at Liverpool? And can a manager really make that much difference...

#BattleFest2014: Cotton-wool campus?

When University College London’s students’ union banned a Nietzsche reading group in March, on the grounds that discussions about right-wing philosophers could encourage fascism and endanger the student body, many saw it as the reductio ad absurdum of student-union bans in recent years. These have included bans on Robin Thicke’s pop hit ‘Blurred Lines’, on the grounds that it might be distressing for victims of sexual assault, as well as everything from the Sun (thanks to Page 3) to ‘offensive’ ...

#BattleFest2014: Immigration: who should control our borders?

Immigration is a fraught political issue. Those opposing immigration – and especially the EU policy of granting freedom of movement to all EU citizens – argue that low-skilled workers from the relatively impoverished East are now driving down wages in the West. Then there is the spectre of the overseas benefits claimant, taking out without ever giving anything in return. The pro-immigration side counters that immigration is actually good for the economy. Migrants in the UK pay more in tax than t...

#BattleFest2014: Should we fear democracy?

After surging forward through the latter part of the twentieth century after the defeat of fascism, decolonisation and the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy appears to be in something of a retreat. According to the Economist, even though 45 per cent of the world’s population live in countries that ‘hold free and fair elections’, there is now widespread recognition that ‘democracy’s global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone into reverse’. After many years of trying to spread demo...

#BattleFest2014: Cultural regeneration or gentrification?

Cultural policy is seen as essential in helping to regenerate previously unfashionable areas of east London and right across the capital. Every neighbourhood seems keen to emphasise its credentials as a creative, artist-friendly hub and no urban space is complete without short-let ‘pop-up’ shops and restaurants, temporary cinemas or urban beaches. Supporters argue that such playful, small-scale interventions can help ‘citizens take ownership of their city’ and engender a community spirit seen as...

#BattleFest2015: From Magna Carta to ECHR - do we need a British Bill of Rights?

Next year marks 800 years since the signing of Magna Carta. While the build-up to its anniversary has been dominated by arguments about whether it should be taught in schools as part of lessons on ‘British values’ aimed at tackling ‘Trojan Horse’ extremism, others have strongly suggested Britain needs a contemporary equivalent. Whilst the coalition’s Commission on a Bill of Rights produced ambivalent conclusions, leading Conservative politicians have pledged that it will be a key part of their g...

#BattleFest2012: To build or not to build?

This podcast was recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London on Sunday 21 October, 2012 From Boris Island to the Dale Farm gypsies, no building project seems too big or small to fall foul of the UK’s notoriously stringent planning laws, which sometimes seem to exist to prevent development rather than manage it. In contrast to China, which delivers new development equivalent to a country the size of Greece every six months, the UK planning system seems to be in a permanent ...

#BattleFest2014: Opera: are we all invited?

Despite the economic crisis, art in Greece is booming. By 2015, new museums and cultural organisations are scheduled to open their doors to the public, many of them privately funded rather than state-run as in the past. As Greek classical orchestras and opera companies find themselves in a bleak financial situation due to government spending cuts, private funding seems to have offered a way out. At the same time, non-traditional venues such as Syntagma Square’s metro station and airplane flights...

#BattleFest2013 Private education - public harm?

Recorded on Saturday 19 October, 2013. as part of the School Fights strand at the Battle of Ideas festival The place of independent schools in Britain’s education landscape has never been so intensely debated. According to Martin Stephen, former high master of St Paul’s School, two of the three main political parties hate independent schools ‘to the core of their being’, while the Conservatives are run by so many public schoolboys that they cannot afford to extend ‘the merest hand of friendship’...

#BattleFest2012: Banning the Brave New World? The ethics of science

Recorded on Sunday 21 October, 2012 For many years, the only hybrid human/animal embryos that could be legally created in the UK were those resulting from fertilising a hamster’s egg with a man’s sperm, as a means of testing male fertility. In 2008, it became legal to create all manner of hybrid human/animal embryos for research purposes, provided that such embryos were destroyed within two weeks of their creation. 2012 saw the establishment of a new £5.8million Centre for Mitochondrial Research...

#BattleFest2013: Building an intellectual legacy – the Battle for which ideas?

Recorded on Sunday 21 October 2013 at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London ‘Ideas are the cogs that drive history, and understanding them is half way to being aboard that powerful juggernaut rather than under its wheels’. AC Grayling Society seems woefully lacking in Big Ideas, and we seem to crave new thinking. In Britain, great hopes rest on the legacy of the Olympics, but however inspiring the sporting excellence we all witnessed, is it realistic that a summer of feel-good s...

#BattleFest2012: Free will: just an illusion?

Free will is at the root of our notions of moral responsibility, choice and judgment. It is at the heart of our conception of the human individual as an autonomous end in himself. Nevertheless, free will is notoriously hard to pin down. Philosophers have denied its existence on the basis that we are determined by the laws of nature, society or history, insisting there is no evidence of free will in the iron chain of cause and effect. Theologians have argued everything happens according to the wi...