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Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Marketing with purpose, rather than solely for profit, hit the mainstream 20 years ago with the launch by Unilever of the ‘Campaign for Real Beauty' for Dove. This was a well-meaning attempt to link selling soap with a broader social theme: female body positivity. With the rise of CSR (corporate social responsibility) and EDI in business, more brands dived into so-called ‘purpose-led' marketing in their communications, advertising and logo design. The rush was on, not just to flog stuff to consumers, but also to take a stance on social issues and portray the brand as an actor on the societal stage. It didn't always go to plan. People have an affection and loyalty for their favourite brands. So, for some marketing directors' moves to align the car, beer or food they sell with the social cause du jour, there is a backlash waiting to happen. A quiet but loyal user base who were happy with the brand's previous non-politicised approach may object to a new direction and make their feelings known – with social media pile-ons and boycotts, sometimes to devastating effect. The solution is for the brand to only make moves that are well-researched, authentic and heartfelt, where the external marketing supports the reality of the product and realistic consumer tolerance. It's the quick-win superficial attempts to get down with the kids (for example, Bud Light beer's financially disastrous ‘partnership' with a transgender influencer in 2023) that can turn to a quick loss. And even removing a familiar symbol can be as infuriating to the base as creating a diverse new campaign. The Cracker Barrel restaurant chain in the US found this recently when they announced the removal of the (apparently) much-loved ‘Uncle Herschel' character from their logo and tried to go all plain and bland. And when Donald Trump weighed in, sensing an attack on the traditional values of his MAGA base, the company was caught in the headlights. This session will ask if we are past ‘peak purpose'. Should brands with big marketing, advertising and design budgets persist in using their leverage to become political or social evangelists and risk the backlash from those who disagree… or just dodge the issue and stick to selling stuff? What is the purpose of ‘marketing with purpose'? SPEAKERS Suzanne Evans director, Political Insight Martin Loat communications expert, business mentor, social campaigner Kevin McCullagh founder, Plan; innovation strategist and writer CHAIR Dr Michael Owens urban planning researcher and lecturer; author, Play the Game
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION The past 20 years have seen astonishing advances in science, technology and medicine. Building upon the completion of the Human Genome Project at the turn of the century, scientists have developed ever more powerful ways to sequence and study DNA, enabling us to better understand genetic diseases and develop pioneering treatments. Now, AI tools such as the AlphaFold program developed by Google DeepMind are also providing unprecedented understanding of the human proteome – the complete set of proteins made from instructions in our DNA. As well as acquiring powerful ways to study DNA, we have also acquired powerful ways to change it. CRISPR genome editing, which enables us to make precise changes to the DNA of humans and other organisms, is now widely used in laboratories across the world and has been used in life-saving treatments for devastating diseases. Meanwhile, stem-cell research has advanced to the point where it is now possible to create structures resembling early human embryos entirely from stem cells, instead of having to begin by fertilising an egg cell with a sperm cell. There is even speculation about one day being able to bypass pregnancy altogether. Some are thrilled about the new possibilities opened up by these developments, while others worry about human life being mechanised in ways that seem distasteful. Genetics, genomics, neuroscience and psychology can be (mis)used to seek to reduce human beings to brain circuits and physiological mechanisms, which can then be managed via modification, drugs or nudge-based policy. Who gets to decide what counts as progress, and who gets a say in how science is governed? What happens when the (in)famous Silicon Valley dictum ‘Move fast and break things' meets biology? What can be learned from incidents such as the He Jiankui scandal of 2018, in which a Chinese scientist who worked on human embryos in secret breached scientific and ethical standards, resulting in the birth of three children with edited genomes? How can oversight and rules be imposed, when the science is so complex and fast-moving, and when the world is made up of diverse (and in some cases warring) nation states? Over the past two decades, Sandy Starr of the Progress Educational Trust and Dr Stuart Derbyshire of the National University of Singapore have been involved in numerous national and international deliberations on science, ethics, policy and law in these areas. At this breakfast banter, they will compare their experiences, exchange insights and invite questions. DISCUSSANTS Dr Stuart Derbyshire associate professor, deputy head of psychology, National University of Singapore Sandy Starr deputy director, Progress Educational Trust; author, AI: Separating Man from Machine
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION TERF Island is the story of the brave and determined women who led the charge against demands that undermined their rights and jeopardised the physical and mental health of children. They dragged shadowy campaigns into the daylight, exposing the harm that would result – and the harm that had already been done. They forced policy change, set legal precedents and transformed public opinion. Fiona McAnena has been right there campaigning alongside them. Her unique insight and personal involvement bring to life the intimate human stories behind the movement to Keep Britain Terfy. This extraordinary, inspiring, furious and sometimes funny account shows how a few women, acting on their convictions, turned back a tide which threatened to sweep away the rights their foremothers fought for. McAnena's book offers rare insight into the strategy, setbacks, and successes of years of grassroots activism and reveals the key figures behind the resistance to gender ideology. It also critically examines the claims of transgender ideology and explores the impact of gender identity policies on law, language, sport, prisons and children's health, arguing why sex matters in public life. Should trans rights be prioritised over childhood and the protection of women? How have trans lobbyists unpicked past medical and scientific standards – undermining solid trials and ethical approval? Is there a way to move forward, to safeguard women's sports and maintain vigorous scientific standards? What enabled the UK to be ‘TERF Island' when so many other jurisdictions have fallen to trans ideology? SPEAKERS Sonya Douglas artist, poet and campaigner Fiona McAnena director of campaigns, Sex Matters; author, Terf Island: How the UK resisted trans ideology Connie Shaw external affairs officer, The Free Speech Union; contributor, GB News CHAIR Ceri Dingle director, WORLDwrite and WORLDbytes
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Plato wrote The Republic around 375 BC, making it 2,400 years old. Yet it has continued to reverberate throughout the entire subsequent history of Western philosophy. Any serious philosopher since has had to reference their ideas to the framework Plato originally set down in ancient Greece. The Republic is the best known of Plato's Socratic dialogues. In one sense, it can be thought of as a diatribe against Athenian democracy. It was this democracy that Plato blamed for the death of his friend and mentor Socrates. But it was also this same city, Athens, that allowed Plato to prosper. What does Plato's philosophy still have to say to us about the questions we face today? Have we yet managed to find our way out of Plato's ‘cave' or are we still flailing about in ignorance in the dark? SPEAKERS Dennis Hayes founder and director, Academics For Academic Freedom (AFAF); author, The Death of Academic Freedom? Free speech and censorship David Perks retired head teacher CHAIR Gareth Sturdy education and science writer; co-organiser, AoI Education Forum
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Tinder, Grindr, Bumble, Hinge, Feeld – whatever your dating preference, there's an app for it. Gone are the days of hitting the town in the hopes of catching someone's eye in a busy bar. People moan about their problems, and some want to leave digital dating behind, but for today's generation, the first spark often happens over a keypad. Should we be worried about the prevalence of online dating? For some, the game-like approach to virtual romance, with love thwarted or given a chance with a swipe of the thumb, is degrading. Novara Media's Aaron Bastani recently called for a ban on dating apps, as they ‘encourage the worst possible behaviour towards other people'. Others argue that the addictive nature of online dating, where multiple partners can be found at the touch of a button, has fed the addictive and attention-deficit qualities of an already fidgety generation. When love is always just a click away, why would anyone stick with just one partner? On the other hand, without online dating many argue that finding love would be near impossible. Pub closures, lockdown-hangover regulation on social spaces and less intergenerational mixing means it can be hard out there to meet someone the old-fashioned way. Many argue that panics about online dating foget that the app is just a tool to facilitate what people continue to do – meet up in person and carry on as normal. Building a profile online is no different to a lonely-hearts advert in the paper, or wearing your best dress and standing by the bar. Is love only worthwhile if it's found in the flesh? Is the boom in hook-up apps merely the straight world catching up with what gays have been enjoying for some time? Should we loosen up about online dating? Or is there something lost when it comes to romance if the story we tell our kids of how we first met starts with a ‘swipe right'? SPEAKERS Elliot Bewick host, The Next Generation; former producer, TRIGGERnometry Ella Dorn journalist, New Statesman; creator, Fairyland! Substack; project assistant, Academy of Ideas Ralph Leonard author, Unshackling Intimacy: Letters on Liberty; contributor, UnHerd, Quillette, New Statesman and Sublation Magazine CHAIR Beverley Marshall AoI Parents Forum; working mum of three young adults
Join us this Sunday for an online service from Church House in Westminster, led by Rev Beverley Ejimofo, with music from St Martin's Voices.In this week's service, we'll reflect on the concepts of waiting and hope. We're thinking about climate change and natural disasters, and how we respond as Christians.“Creation growns in labour, not despair.”Whether you're exploring faith, returning to church, or looking for spiritual encouragement, you are warmly invited to worship with our growing online community across England and beyond.
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION After Labour's election last year, the new defence secretary, John Healey, wrote a memo to Cabinet colleagues in relation to the scandalous Afghan data leak and the subsequent cover-up of relocations. Healey stressed the need to ‘maintain control of the narrative', particularly in the wake of that summer's riots. The riots themselves were arguably fuelled by suppression of information about the Southport murderer, in an attempt to contain public reactions. The desire to control the narrative by curtailing public information has implications for the media's idealised role of telling ‘truth to power'. Beyond super-injunctions, governments seem preoccupied with muting the widespread availability of counter-narratives on social media. Countries across Europe are introducing measures such as the UK's Online Safety Act or the EU's Digital Services Act, which are partly designed to deal with threats to the establishment narrative via suppressing what has been dubbed ‘misinformation'. This mirrors governments' pressure on online and offline media during the Lockdown period to suppress any challenges to official, ‘consensus' health advice. However, the media stands accused of having taken it upon itself to have become more partisan in its reporting of our rapidly changing political landscape – championing a single, biased point of view, with little insight or empathy into what is driving new, popular concerns. Two recent events in America – the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the brutal stabbing of a young Ukrainian woman, Iryna Zarutska on the subway – have catalysed this sense that the mainstream media is more concerned with shaping narratives rather than reporting on them. In the case of Kirk, reaction from the mainstream media seemed to focus less on the appalling nature of the political violence or why he was so popular with millions of young people, than in communicating that Kirk was a ‘MAGA troll'. With Zarutska, whose murder by a black repeat felon was captured on CCTV, the media ignored the story for 18 days, despite its dominance on social media. Eventually, the New York Times reported only how the case had ‘ignited a firestorm on the right', a culture-war framing echoed widely in the mainstream. In the UK, media narrative-shaping is a familiar accusation on everything from the coverage of the unexpectedly large ‘Unite the Kingdom' march to the Southport riots. Populist anger has for some time focused on the supposed bias, arrogance and aloof nature of what is dismissed as the ‘MSM'. There is fury at the way protests and movements are often described as ‘far', ‘hard', ‘extreme' or ‘ultra' right – with media outlets almost running out of adjectives to communicate the idea that these movements are thinly disguised racists. No wonder journalists have been shunned or abused when they turn up to report on events. Trust is declining. All this touches on an older debate: does the media shape or reflect reality? Anti-populist commentators regularly accuse media outlets of amplifying populist talking points, contributing to moral panics about the small boats or ‘whipping up' hate about asylum hotels. Nigel Farage's frequent appearances on BBC Question Time are seen as a key explanation for Reform's credibility, indeed for the size of the 2016 Brexit vote. Has the role of the media changed, or have different outlets always be partisan? What drives governments to control the narrative for public consumption? Is mainstream media ill-equipped to deal with the pace of political change or has it abandoned even the ideal of impartiality? Can anyone, new or old media, credibly claim to merely report events rather than try to shape them? SPEAKERS Colin Brazier journalist; farmer Andrew Gold YouTuber; host, Heretics Dr Pamela Paresky academic dissident, Harvard; founder, Free Mind Foundation Tom Slater editor, spiked; co-host, spiked podcast and Last Orders Baroness Stowell former chair, Communications & Digital Select Committee CHAIR Jacob Reynolds head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas
Interview with Don Cento ! Halfway to Mellowtown is the debut album from Austin-based Cento Threeo, a Jazz / Americana trio led by guitarist and composer Don Cento. The album was recorded by Stuart Sikes (White Stripes, Cat Power, Loretta Lynn) at Church House in the band's hometown with Cento producing. Halfway to Mellowtown is being released June 19 June by SecondBridge Records on 12” LP vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming services. The album was cut live in two days with Don on guitar, drummer Norm Bergeron and Phil Spencer on bass. All eleven numbers – mainly Cento originals – are rooted in composition but make ample room for improvisation. The trio's sound merges the sophistication of late-'90s jazz guitar records and classic '60s post-bop with the textural sensibilities of Americana and indie rock - a unique fusion born from Cento's diverse musical background. “The Judy Valve” opens the album with a steady ramp up, shifting focus around the band. “It Takes What It Takes” began as a vocal song but finds a new life as an instrumental while retaining it's pop-tune structure. “Dennis Muren” is an homage to the FX wizard from Industrial Light & Magic, that hits the laughing gas and give nods to composer and conductor, Jack Elliott. The eerie blues-waltz “Make the Silence Louder” opens Side B with a crack. "Filibuster in E Minor" is all noir ostinato, that plays a game of cat-and-mouse at the intersection of Henry Mancini and David Lynch. The album's final track is the Rosanne Cash song, “Seven Year Ache,” the album's only cover tune, whose melody Cento toys with like it's made of Silly Putty. Don Cento's three-decade career spans jazz, indie rock, and Americana. He has toured and recorded with numerous award-winning artists including Sarah Jaffe, Ume, Little Jack Melody, and Chomsky. His production work extends across genres from metal to classical with artists like Matt Kivel, Jerry David DeCicca, and Vitskär Süden on labels like Drag City, Bloodshot, Ripple Music, Worried Songs, Idol Records and Tompkins Square. His contributions to these projects have been admiringly noted in features on NPR's Weekend Edition, Uncut, SPIN, The New Yorker, and Aquarium Drunkard. As a solo artist, Centohas released music under the moniker El Cento and with instrumental group Shibboleth, scoring placements with both on FOX, MTV and Discovery. Cento Threeo marks Don's return to Jazz and represents his most personal artistic statement to date. The project began as a casual outlet for reimagining '60s and '70s FM classics through an atmospheric, jazz-adjacent lens. What started as a covers project quickly evolved as Cento reconnected with his love for jazz and began writing original compositions in earnest. Following the recording of Halfway to Mellowtown, the drum seat in CentoThreeo was taken over by Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley, Rufus Wainright, St. Vincent). https://www.instagram.com/elcento/. https://centothreeo.com. https://centothreeo.bandcamp.com. https://open.spotify.com/artist/0w6l3kea2PeCYvfixOFiox. https://music.apple.com/us/artist/cento-threeo/1875616656.
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION In February 2025, the then deputy prime minister and communities secretary, Angela Rayner, established an independent government working group, chaired by former Conservative MP and Attorney General Dominic Grieve KC, to advise on a definition of ‘anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia'. The demand for such a definition comes after an official definition of anti-Semitism was adopted in 2016. Critics have argued since that, for the sake of fairness, something similar must be done for Muslims. The formation of this group, as well as its objectives, has incurred criticism from many quarters and sparked intense public debate. Questions have been raised over the transparency of the group's proceedings, the independence of its members, the marginalisation of certain Muslim communities' voices and the chilling effect that such a definition could have on free speech. The fear of being accused of Islamophobia is, some have argued, part of the reason for the lack of action on grooming gangs. Critics argue that a non-statutory definition of Islamophobia will inevitably be highly subjective and perception-based in its application by public bodies. This will limit freedom of speech by confusing criticism of the religion of Islam with prejudice against Muslim individuals, something which is already addressed through existing legislation. The freedom to interrogate and ridicule the tenets of all faiths is fundamental in a modern society and restricting this freedom for one faith risks quelling not only criticism of that religion from non-believers, but also criticism of it from within, amongst fellow believers who disagree over interpretations of texts and controversial practices, such as face coverings. This is why the working group's approach has led to criticism from Muslim groups, some of whom also make the point that through attempting to define what Islamophobia is, the government is neglecting the importance of addressing actual cases of anti-Muslim hate crimes. They also fear that at a time when many see the UK as a state that is on the road towards the application of ‘two-tier' justice, singling out Islam for special protection and threatening its critics with speech-restricting measures, such as non-crime hate incidents, will only increase tensions. This Free Speech Union discussion will give voice to leading opponents of defining Islamophobia who all have their unique and legitimate concerns over the wider and deeper consequences of this policy. The panel features voices from within Parliament, the Muslim community, the legal profession and campaigners. SPEAKERS Professor Khalid Mahmood former member of Parliament; visiting professor, Birmingham City University; director, KN Strategic Solutions Ltd Baroness Amanda Spielman conservative peer, former chief inspector; Ofsted Nick Timothy MP member of parliament, West Suffolk; former special advisor, Home Office; author and comment writer Toby Young general secretary, Free Speech Union; associate editor, Spectator; editor-in-chief, Daily Sceptic CHAIR Dr Jan Macvarish education and events director, Free Speech Union
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION There is no doubt that far too many of our children and young people are not thriving mentally or emotionally in the way that they should be. In 2024, almost 20 per cent of school-aged children in the UK had been diagnosed with a mental-health condition, up from 10 per cent 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the line between ‘learning disabilities' and ‘mental-health issues' has also become increasingly blurred. According to the charity ADHD UK, a diagnosis of ADHD is listed as a ‘mental-health disability' under the Mental Health Act 1990. Over 1.6million pupils in England have been identified as having special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), up 24.9 per cent since 2016, while the number of children with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) has risen by an astonishing 83.4 per cent – up 11.6 per cent in the past year alone. The care minister, Stephen Kinnock, has confirmed that the government is committed to its manifesto pledge to put a ‘mental-health practitioner' into ‘every school in the country'. The idea has widespread support, with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives offering similar commitments. Already, there have never been so many staff and volunteers working within schools with a specific responsibility for the emotional wellbeing of pupils: senior mental-health leads, educational psychologists, mental-health support teams and more. Access to counselling is available in many schools. Despite this booming school-based ‘mental-health industrial complex', the wellbeing of pupils continues to deteriorate and rates of ‘mental illness' continue to rise. However, a recent Family Education Trust report by Lucy Beney, a qualified counsellor, asks if such interventions are not only ineffective, but perhaps harmful. She discusses everything from ‘diagnostic inflation' and ‘social contagion' to definitions of ‘mental health' and ‘neurodiversity', from the impact of schools encouraging young people to look at life through the subjective filter of their own feelings to the capture of mental-health professional bodies by critical social justice theory. If one fifth of children are suffering so much that they are deemed as having a ‘disorder', should our focus be on where we as parents and teachers are going wrong rather than what's wrong with children? Is school the best place to address such mental distress, however it's categorised? And what are the opportunity costs if classroom time and resources are taken away from academic pursuits that could potentially be more conducive to better mental health? SPEAKERS Lucy Beney counsellor; children's correspondent, Save Mental Health Baroness Joanne Cash life peer and radical Dave Clements writer and policy advisor; contributing co-editor The Future of Community Dr Ashley Frawley sociologist; author, Significant Emotions and Semiotics of Happiness CHAIR Professor Ellie Lee professor of family and parenting research, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION When US Vice President JD Vance warned in a Fox News interview this summer that Europe risked ‘committing civilisational suicide', he was chiefly concerned with Germany, which he says is in danger of bringing about its own demise. While Vance's fire was directed primarily at Germany's failure to control its borders and the destabilising effects of rising immigration, Europe's longstanding economic powerhouse faces challenges on many fronts. That famed economy is sputtering, partly reflecting a green agenda that has caused soaring energy costs and created fears of deindustrialisation. Attempts to restructure around defence and infrastructure haven't allayed fears over the failure to tackle structural problems. Reforms have stalled, such as on welfare, and a managerial overclass has created administrative bloat. Meanwhile, the pivot to foreign policy as a show of international dynamism now collides with rising tensions within the EU, such as over trade, rearmament and energy security. The refusal or inability to shift course – especially on immigration and environmental policies that are increasingly opposed by the electorate and even parts of the establishment – both reveals and entrenches the political stasis. In February's elections, right-wing populists AfD emerged the second-strongest force, yet power was retained by a coalition of decaying traditional parties. Yet the struggle between defenders of the status quo and insurgent challengers is complicated. The surprise electoral success of a revitalised Left Party demonstrated that more challenger parties can emerge, while rifts are growing among the populists – over issues such as Ukraine or Israel. What does stasis allied to fragmentation mean for Germany's political future? In response, the coalition government – from day one, the most unpopular in modern German history – is increasingly propped up by state power. These include tightening controls over public discourse and laws that crack down on ‘defamation' of politicians, which have led to hundreds of prosecutions over social-media posts critical of elected officials. While supporters call these measures necessary to protect democracy, critics see them as authoritarian overreach. Where is Germany heading? Some observers say this is just the beginning of a new political upheaval. Can a coalition presiding over economic decline and mired in cultural and social conflict find the solutions that help regain voter trust – or is it likely to drive more citizens into the arms of populist challengers? Will Germany regain its economic dynamism and its capacity to act as the engine of European integration or will it become a growing source of instability at the heart of Europe? And is there a danger that Germany is drifting into a new kind of authoritarianism – with ramifications domestically and throughout Europe – and if so, how can that be challenged? SPEAKERS Sabine Beppler-Spahl chair, Freiblickinstitut e.V; CEO, Sprachkunst36; Germany correspondent, spiked Dr Jochen Bittner UK correspondent, Die Zeit Professor Ulrike Guérot publisher; author; director, European Democracy Lab e.V. Katja Hoyer journalist; historian, King's College London CHAIR Bruno Waterfield Brussels correspondent, The Times
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION ‘I have the feeling that this competition is going to be as important, if not more important, than the Champions League', said Chelsea manager, Enzo Maresca, after his team had won the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup. This summer's competition was intended to showcase club football from all continents of the world. But many involved in the game derided the tournament as an unnecessary addition to an already overcrowded football calendar. Saudi Arabia helped to bankroll the Club World Cup, and is fast developing into a powerhouse for club and international football. The country will host the 2034 World Cup and is planning to build 11 new futuristic stadiums. Saudi club sides are competing with top European teams to sign world-class players such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Sadio Mane. The Saudis have even greater financial muscle than the English Premier League or La Liga in Spain. On the world stage, it seems, money talks, while concerns about democracy and human rights are muted. In the UK, the fate of football clubs, big and small, is rightly considered to be of enormous importance to local communities. The response from Westminster has been the passing of the Football Governance Act into law. The Act means a government-appointed regulator will be in place to check on the health of clubs and monitor negotiations within the English football ‘pyramid'. Currently Morecambe FC and Sheffield Wednesday are on the brink due to recalcitrant owners, and many people say that the football regulator cannot come soon enough. But would such a regulator be able to save these clubs anyway? Another big change has been the rise of women's football. The Lionesses' victory in the Women's Euros 2025 will provide a big boost to the women's game in England – but it is also noticeable that the women's game is growing in both quality and audience figures. Are we entering a new age of football? Is football now conquering the globe? Or has the beautiful game finally become disconnected from its fans and roots with ever-more fanciful tournaments taking place in soulless arenas to satisfy a multi-billion-pound industry? SPEAKERS Dr Tim Black books and essays editor, spiked John McGuirk editor, Gript Media Linzi Smith hospitality manager Dr Dominic Standish writer and commentator on risk and sport; professor, University of Iowa; author, Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and reality CHAIR Geoff Kidder director, membership and events, Academy of Ideas; convenor, AoI Book Club
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Jane Austen turns 250 this year, prompting the question: is one of the world's greatest female novelists still relevant? With too many BBC and Netflix adaptations to count, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Colonel Brandon, George Knightley and Austen's other love interests remain staples of romantic fiction that others continue to draw from. Some argue that Austen's female characters, while feisty and ‘knowing their own mind', were not particularly radical. Moving relatively seamlessly into the institutions they so ‘resisted', her protagonists end up falling into happy marriage – seemingly waiting for a man who can handle them. While Austen may be the pioneer of the love match, is her reverence for society's patriarchal institutions her downfall in the twenty-first century? Others point to the fact that Austen's work changed the landscape of literature completely. She was not a political feminist, nor a political activist, yet her novels developed women as complex individuals with curious minds beyond their physicality and a world beyond their roles as mothers and wives. By making the space for strong and independent women within marriage, she sparked confidence to make matches that suit the individuals, not just the social order. Some argue that Austen was a victim of her circumstance, most notably to her financial constraints and her dependence on her family. She herself did not marry, perhaps recognising the limitations on time and agency of settling down and running a household. Indeed, she was rather entrepreneurial for a woman of her time. By viewing Austen as the victim spinster, do we risk falling prey to the same shallow stereotypes of women that so many characters in her novels are railing against? How should we judge Jane Austen, more than two centuries on? Does it matter if she is read by inner-city youth or merely celebrated with Georgian-themed fancy-dress parties? Should we judge her characters by the standards of modern feminism? Are there still lessons for Austen to teach us about relationships and social norms? Or was she simply a brilliant writer, with a turn of phrase and a talent for big finales unmatched for centuries? SPEAKERS Jack Aldane host and producer, The Booking Club Emma Gilland event co-ordinator, Academy of Ideas; convener; Battle Book Club Matilda Martin trainee English teacher; tutor Cheryl Robson writer, editor and publisher, Aurora Metro Books Sarah Tucker novelist; broadcaster; columnist CHAIR Jane Sandeman founder, AoI Parents Forum; former director of finance
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Genocide, Holocaust, Never Again. Phrases that once conjured up only one image: the Nazis' systematic attempt to eliminate the entire Jewish people and eradicate Jewish culture, identity and future generations of Jews from the face of the earth. It was once held that the Holocaust was unique in its horror with no precedent in history. Can we confidently say this view still holds today? Today, the word ‘holocaust' is increasingly used as a free-floating catch-all to describe many geopolitical events or even general human evil. Even Auschwitz, a death camp designed for the genocide of the Jews, has been turned into an all-purpose symbol of human cruelty. The proposed Learning Centre to be built as part of the controversial Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Garden, next to Parliament, promises a ‘high-tech immersive experience', expected to last only 45 minutes, that will reference a wide range of other international atrocities, such as Rwanda and colonial-era massacres, with the aim to promote equality and diversity in general. More specifically, these terms are being applied to the war in Gaza – particularly since Hamas's attack on 7 October 2023. Israelis are increasingly likened to Nazis, guilty of war crimes and ethnic cleansing, or settler-colonists aiming at the complete destruction and replacement of Palestinians and their culture. The United Nations, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières and countless individual governments have proclaimed a genocide in Gaza, a claim strongly denied by Israel and its supporters who condemn the veracity of these accusations and what they refer to as ‘Holocaust relativism'. In a new book, The World After Gaza, author Pankaj Mishra brings together the narratives of both the Holocaust and slavery-colonialism, arguing Nazism is simply the logical extension of colonialism. The Israeli government, according to Mishra, is guilty of both. Celebrity social-justice activist Naomi Klein wrote in the Guardian last year that we are entering a new intellectual era, one in which people are openly asking if the Holocaust should ‘be seen exclusively as a Jewish catastrophe, or something more universal'. Klein goes on to argue that perhaps the Holocaust was not ‘a unique rupture in European history' but rather ‘a homecoming of earlier colonial genocides'. What are the consequences of this ‘dejudification of the Holocaust', as Brendan O'Neill calls it in his recent book, After the Pogrom? How can the public, especially new generations, understand the true nature of this industrialised act of anti-Semitic barbarism – and to even remember that the Jews were the targets – when the Holocaust is wrenched out of its historical context? Are authors like Mishra and Klein right when they say it is this very sanctifying of the Holocaust in Western history that wilfully ignores crimes of equal magnitude, including what is happening in Gaza today? SPEAKERS Daniel Ben-Ami journalist; creator, Radicalism of Fools project on rethinking anti-Semitism; author, Ferraris for All: in defence of economic progress Naomi Gryn writer; filmmaker Samuel Rubinstein postgraduate historian and writer Dr Jake Wallis Simons author, Never Again? How the West betrayed the Jews and itself CHAIR Simon McKeon founder member, Our Fight UK; QPR season ticket holder; archivist
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Since 2020, the Academy of Ideas has published Letters on Liberty – a radical pamphlet series aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom today and inspiring rowdy, good-natured disagreement. In his Letter – The Freedom to Blaspheme – writer and curator Manick Govinda argues that blasphemy law has returned through the back door – with Islam, rather than Christianity, pointing the finger at heretics. From recent cases of attacks on free speech to the self-censorship of everyone from teachers to comedians, Manick argues that blasphemers are being persecuted and prosecuted across the world. While courtesy and kindness are valuable features of a free society, he writes, no religion or religious leader should be above criticism. Kowtowing to the offended, no matter how grievous the insult they may feel, weakens our liberty. Join Manick and respondents to discuss whether we should be free to criticise and mock religion. Is there a balance to be struck between tolerance of religious freedom and the right to publicly disagree with other people's faith? Has the UK brought blasphemy law back to the statute books via the notion of ‘hate crime'? And after the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, the Charlie Hebdo massacre and other Islamist attempts to censor discussion of Islam, is the problem we're dealing with a different idea of blasphemy to the days when the Life of Brian was banned? SPEAKERS Dr Piers Benn philosopher, author and lecturer Manick Govinda independent writer, commentator, mentor/arts adviser and curator Khadija Khan journalist and broadcaster; editor, A Further Inquiry; co-host, A Further Inquiry podcast John O'Brien head of communications, MCC Brussels CHAIR Rosamund Cuckston senior HR professional; co-organiser, Birmingham Salon
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION The past year has seen a flurry of announcements about military investment in Western countries. Following Trump's re-election, and his blunt demand that European countries invest more in their militaries, the EU announced €800 million of funds for defence in a package called ReArm Europe (later renamed Readiness 2030 after backlash that the package sounded too militaristic). NATO members then agreed to bump defence spending to five per cent of GDP – although some, like Spain, secured opt-outs, and members will be able to count certain infrastructure spending towards the target. Aside from Trump, the calalyst has been Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a more uncertain and dangerous geopolitical situation around the world. From clashes between India and Pakistan to continuing war in Gaza, threats from China about Taiwan, instability in the Balkans and rising tensions in South America – few deny the world is a more unstable place than it was a decade ago. The question is how Western countries should respond. Many suggest that the new period of rearmament is a necessary corrective to a longstanding vacation from geopolitical realities. In recent decades, weapons stockpiles have shrunk, armed forces have been reduced and industrial capacity has declined – to the point where few Western countries except America or Poland could sustain a serious conflict, or even a minor one. While Western states have let military spending fall down the list of priorities, newly emboldened countries like China, Turkey, the Gulf States and India have grown their armed forces. But others worry this new talk of militarism risks fanning the embers it is supposed to contain. Some joke that it could be dangerous for Germany, which has spent the postwar years being told to constrain its military, to now be encouraged to spend hundreds of billions of euros on its armed forces. Newly furnished militaries could be like Chekov's Gun – just waiting to go off. Others point to the loss of progress on arms-reduction treaties, or the dangerous rhetoric of civilisational competition. Burgeoning social-welfare commitments, skyrocketing energy prices, decades of infrastructure decay, and a lack of critical raw materials make rearmament more difficult than simply declaring a new target. But perhaps the most biting criticism is the gap between these new military ambitions and the reality at home. Western countries cannot defend their borders against illegal migration, let alone foreign adversaries. Young people profess less and less desire to identify with their country, let alone fight for it. And whatever the talk of strategic adversaries, Western countries are still dependent on Russia, China and other competitors for basic and crucial goods, from oil to batteries. Should the new talk of military rearmament be welcomed, feared or perhaps even ridiculed? When the countries comprising the West seems to be in constant tension over Ukraine, free speech or attitudes to Chinese investment, is there even a West to speak of? Is it high time to get serious about the military and prepare for war? Or do we need to cool off? SPEAKERS Dr Tim Black books and essays editor, spiked Mary Dejevsky former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington; special correspondent in China; writer and broadcaster Virginie Joron French member of the European Parliament, Patriots for Europe Group Tim Scott executive director, The Freedom Association Charlie Winstanley author, Bricking it: The UK Housing Crisis and the Failure of Policy; public affairs & social policy development professional CHAIR Jacob Reynolds head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION From Yes Minister to The Thick of It, the political class has always been a go-to topic for comedians and satirists. But in a world in which political developments have become so extreme and self-satirising, is it still so easy to find laughs in the corridors of power? Regardless, politics seems to impact on how we assess comedy too. When British comedian Sam Nicoresti became the first transgender person to win the £10,000 award for Best Comedy Show at the Edinburgh Fringe, some questioned if this was more political virtue-signalling than an assessment of comedic brilliance. Nicoresti's statement added fuel to this disquiet: ‘I did this for the queers making weird art, and it's a privilege to share this moment with the first all-female line-up of award winners.' Mixing comedy and politics can be a double-edged sword. In an era of identity politics and offence culture, irreverence about political orthodoxies often collides with everything from hate-speech laws to cultural taboos, leading to cancelled shows, boycotts or social media storms. Ricky Gervais's infamous monologues mocking ‘woke' culture regularly draw ire from celebrities and media, even if loved by millions. While humour can critique politicians effectively, be an edgy way of holding power to account and even spark public debate by saying the unsayable in an engaging way, what happens if comedy itself becomes politically partisan? After all, alternative comedy's embrace of progressive, right-on, liberal orthodoxies has arguably become a ubiquitous way of squeezing out dissenting comic voices. What happens if anti-woke comedians stop making good jokes and simply ‘sing to the choir'? With the stakes seemingly higher than ever, and comedians taking robust political stances of their own, does comedy risk become simply another form of propaganda? SPEAKERS Steve N Allen broadcaster and comedian Nicholas De Santo comedian; TV journalist and commentator Leo Kearse comedian; writer, Breaking The News, Mock The Week and The Mash Report; co-creator, Hate 'n' Live Intel Lady satirist, performer CHAIR Andrew Doyle writer and comedian; author, The End of Woke: How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution and The New Puritans
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was interviewed last night by The Spectator‘s Political Editor, Tim Shipman, in front of a live audience at Church House in Westminster. They discuss her shadow cabinet, her plan to revive the Tories, and how she thinks we can get the country growing. To watch and listen to the full conversation you'll need to be a spectator subscriber. Get three months for three pounds and access the full stream at spectator.com/kemi – your subscription isn't just to this conversation: it also includes full access to The Spectator website and app, weekly delivery of the magazine, all ourlivestreams, daily newsletters and podcasts. We hope you enjoy.To buy tickets to the rest of this event series, Tim Shipman Meets the Party Leaders, go to spectator.com/events Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more.For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts.Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION The UK's infrastructure is at a crossroads. Decades of underinvestment and misdirected investment have left transport networks congested, energy systems under strain, digital connectivity patchy, sewers clogged, towns flooded, bridges crumbling and housing targets seemingly unattainable. The government promises £1.5million new homes and yet we are faced with a major slowdown in the construction industry, a situation not helped by local resistance and bureaucratic inertia. The situation is further restrained by a lack of adequate support systems like schools, colleges, hospitals, and even courts and prisons. Cost overruns on projects like HS2 erode public trust, but day-to-day staff shortages, engineering works, train cancellations and leaves on the line are what really frustrate commuters. Grenfell Tower was a national tragedy, but spending billions on recladding buildings and funding bureaucratic regulators – instead of training builders to construct sufficient, affordable homes for those in need – seems inexplicable. Planning laws, environmental concerns, over-regulation, risk aversion, litigiousness and insurance liabilities have exacerbated the problem. But what is the actual problem? To be fair, this year, Keir Starmer announced that the government would ‘push past nimbyism' to get things done. Although tangible evidence has yet to materialise, recent ministerial pledges have included the desire to streamline planning, kickstart New Towns and boost energy provision. In August, the government announced a £130million package to help create 40,000 jobs in the construction sector So maybe we are not giving credit where it's due. This government has pledged to build nine new reservoirs, expand Heathrow, construct new nuclear and small nuclear reactors, and it has recently announced a £63million investment package to supercharge Britain's electric-vehicle infrastructure. In June 2025, it laid out its ‘10 Year Strategy' for UK infrastructure, whereby the government pledges to deliver growth in roads, railways, airports, water networks, energy grids, digital and housing infrastructure in order to deliver a more productive economy. Maybe we shouldn't grumble. How believable are the government's plans? How do we balance local concerns with national housing and infrastructure needs? If we can't maintain existing networks, how can we possibly create the next generation of infrastructure, like AI networks, smart systems, modular homes, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, drone deliveries and low-carbon energy systems? SPEAKERS Paul Finch OBE programme director, World Architecture Festival Ben Flatman architectural editor, Building Design and Building; author, Birmingham: Shaping the City Shelagh McNerney head of regeneration, Manchester City Council Christopher Worrall industry fellow, Onward; commentator on housing, planning, and political realignment
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Labour MP Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is still being discussed in parliament. But beyond proposals for a law change, how should we tackle one of the great debates of our time: should we set up a system of assisted death and profound questions it raises about everything from whether adults have a right to assistance to end their own life to what safeguards and protections should exist between individuals and the state when death is offered as a medical option by health professionals. Philosopher and bestselling author of Material Girls Kathleen Stock will lead a discussion raising themes in her forthcoming book Do Not Go Gentle, arguing that we should reaffirm life, rather than death and collectively, we should rage against the dying of the light. The issue throws up many moral dilemmas worth discussing: Is the status quo a ‘cruel mess,' to quote campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen? Is assisted death for those with a terminal illness, or suffering chronic pain or extreme mental distress, a progressive and compassionate choice as its supporters argue? Does it give a person more “freedom” or “control” over their lives, allow dignity in dying as it were? How should we square a patient's freedom of choice with existing frameworks of medical ethics? Will having the right to take control of your death by asking a doctor to kill you, really have broader sinister outcomes for the vulnerable, the elderly, the disabled, the suicidally depressed as its opponents warn? Is it ever possible to guard effectively against situations in which people are coerced to die, either by family members or by a state that is too often incapable of providing adequate palliative care? Or are such slippery slope arguments just a form of emotive scaremongering? How should we all approach our own or loved ones' terminal illness and death? SPEAKERS Dr Az Hakeem consultant psychiatrist and medical director, Psyche Clinic; author, Trans and Detrans Sonia Sodha columnist and broadcaster Dr Kathleen Stock columnist, UnHerd; co-director, The Lesbian Project; author, Do Not Go Gentle: The Case Against Assisted Death Professor Kevin Yuill emeritus professor of history, University of Sunderland; author, Assisted Suicide: the liberal, humanist case against legalization
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Sunday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION The government suffered serious embarrassment earlier this year when its attempts to rein in Personal Independence Payments (PIP) had to be hurriedly scaled back in the face of a backbench revolt. But the scale of welfare payments today remains a huge worry – and there seems little appetite to bring this spending under control. Earlier this year, there was a furore about the scale and availability of cars through the Motability scheme, which runs a fleet of cars said to be worth £14 billion. According to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP): ‘In 2025 to 2026 the government is forecast to spend £316.1 billion on the social security system in Great Britain. Total GB welfare spending is forecast to be 10.6% of GDP and 23.5% of the total amount the government spends in 2025 to 2026.' Of this spending, £174.9 billion goes to pensioners and £141.2 billion to children and working age adults. Going forward, an ageing population means these costs will continue to rise – and that's without the huge liabilities for public-sector pensions. Moreover, does the emphasis on state-funded welfare make sense? With millions on working-age benefits for sickness and disability, many worry that too many people are being incentivised to remain out of work. A new report by Policy Exchange, Out of Control, identifies how poor incentives and ‘concept creep' have stretched societal definitions of mental ill-health and neurodivergence so far that public services are stretched to breaking point, with costs of support spiraling to tens of billions each year.Getting people into work would make them better off, reduce the welfare bill and potentially improve the economic outlook, too. What is to be done? Are politicians prepared to have the difficult conversations, from reducing working-age entitlements to increasing the retirement age? Is the debate unnecessarily gloomy about the UK's ability to afford welfare in the future? Or will we face an abrupt financial reckoning if nothing is done? SPEAKERS Dave Clements writer and policy advisor; contributing co-editor The Future of Community Lisa McKenzie working-class academic; author, Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class Jean-André Prager senior fellow, Policy Exchange Gawain Towler former head of press, Reform UK CHAIR Rob Lyons science and technology director, Academy of Ideas; convenor, AoI Economy Forum; author, Panic on a Plate
The war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have focused attention on skyrocketing energy prices, leading to demands to encourage more output from the North Sea and causing travel chaos in Ireland. But bills were already high before this happened. This discussion with three experts, recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House in London, explains why - war or no war - we're all paying too much for energy. ORIGINAL FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION Heating or eating? That has become a burning question for many people. From struggling households to steel works and factories, energy prices remain a hot topic. Ed Miliband's assurance that bills would fall by £300 per year looks wildly optimistic. The cost of energy bills became a major political issue when a combination of a post-pandemic resurgence of the world economy and war in Ukraine sent the price of energy in general, and natural gas in particular, shooting up. Prices have come down a lot since then, but remain higher than before. The Ofgem energy price cap for a ‘typical household' increased from £1,137 per year in January 2019 to £1,720 in July 2025 – a rise of over 50 per cent. Supporters of renewable energy argue that the UK is still at the mercy of global prices for gas because ‘gas sets the price' in the energy market, thanks to the way the ‘merit order' works for wholesale energy prices: the most expensive form of energy that is used sets the price for everything. Generally, that is gas. Get rid of fossil fuels, we are told, and we would have lower prices and less exposure to world markets. However, critics point out that the wholesale price is only part of the story. The retail price of energy includes a variety of subsidies for renewable energy that mean the actual price renewable producers receive is much higher. If renewables are really as cheap as their proponents claim, why do they need to be subsidised and why do countries that use a lot of renewables also have the highest energy bills? Will prices rise further as we use even more renewables? And if energy security is so important, why would we want to rely on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar? In this session, energy experts will explain how our energy bills remain so high and what the consequences are for household finances and the wider economy. SPEAKERS Lord Mackinlay director, The Global Warming Policy Foundation Kathryn Porter consultant, Watt-Logic David Turver energy policy analyst, Eigen Values CHAIR Rob Lyons science and technology director, Academy of Ideas; convenor, AoI Economy Forum; author, Panic on a Plate
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster. Victory for the Greens in the Gorton & Denton by-election is the latest sign that old political loyalties have broken down. In what was, even as recently as the 2024 General Election, a very safe Labour seat, Hannah Spencer was elected with a majority of over 4,000. Reform came second, pushing Labour into an embarrassing third place while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats both lost their deposits. Indeed, the three mainstream parties that have governed the UK for over 100 years managed less than 30 per cent of the vote between them. What does all this mean for the future of British politics? ORIGINAL FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION Are the mainstream parties facing extinction or can they bounce back by the time of the next General Election in 2029? Can the Tories recover from 14 years of misrule? Will the Labour Party survive from its current economic woes? Will the political vacuum be filled by Ed Davey's Liberal Democrats or the ‘challenger' parties like Reform or the Greens? Take the Conservative Party: the oldest party in the world currently looks as if it is facing electoral wipeout. In a recent survey, 42 per cent of Conservative voters in the 2024 General Election said that even they wouldn't vote for them. The party that squandered Brexit is desperately looking around for a purpose. Some Tories believe that Robert Jenrick poses a more credible alternative than the current leader, Kemi Badenoch. But are they both fighting for a hopeless cause? Jenrick's crime-fighting TikTok videos and Badenoch's recent support of oil exploration got lots of media coverage, but Net Zero and the current failed model of policing were both introduced on their watch. Are they going back to their roots – if they can remember what those roots are – or are they simply mimicking Trump and Farage's agendas from the sidelines? Meanwhile, Labour seems to be imploding. A recent Ipsos poll ranked the current UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, as the most unpopular leader in modern times. In July 2024, his government won almost two-thirds of all seats, with a 174 majority in the Commons, yet a year later it is collapsing in the polls. The government has presided over cuts and tax rises, strikes and bailouts, two-tier justice and a zero-growth economy. The idea that if you pinned a red rosette on a donkey in Wales, it'd get elected no longer holds true. Far from ‘smashing the gangs', the immigration scandal that Labour inherited from the Tories means it is haemorrhaging support in Red Wall seats. Preferring Davos over Westminster, Starmer seems to prefer hob-nobbing with world leaders while taking British democracy for granted. Yet the death of both Labour and the Conservatives has been declared numerous times before, only for them to revive. Is it too soon to count them out? Is Britain's political map being redrawn, or torn up? Might proportional representation reinvigorate the mainstream parties? Must we wait for four more years? We'll take a vote on it. SPEAKERS Rosie Duffield MP member of parliament for Canterbury Dr Richard Johnson writer; senior lecturer in politics, Queen Mary University of London; co-author, Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour Party in Opposition since 1922 Mark Littlewood director, Popular Conservatism; broadcaster, columnist, the Telegraph and the Mail Tim Montgomerie conservative journalist; founder, ConservativeHome, UnHerd and Centre for Social Justice Graham Stringer MP member of parliament, Blackley and Middleton South CHAIR Bruno Waterfield Brussels correspondent, The Times
Backdoor Media presents: HUMP! Wednesdays with DJSOUL - A 60-minute, commercial-free HipHop; sometimes HOUSE, mixtape by LGBTQ recording artist/producer Tony DJSOUL Dobson, featuring the best LGBTQ+ voices in HipHop - Every Wednesday @ Midnight (EST)“If the weight ever gets too heavy, I'll share the load” — Robert Owens B! NOTED - Originally recorded in East New York, Brooklyn - I'd B! remiss if luv wasn't shown for my House Headz 1 U Tell It - Tony DJSOUL Dobson2 I Ain't - Francis Overcast/Kenny Dope3 8th Movement - Kassian 4 Memories - Scott Diaz/LOA.5 I'll Be Your Friend - Robert Owens/Josh Butler 6 Love. Hope. Happiness - Luke Solomon/Amy Douglas/Queen Rose7 Culture - Breach8 I'll House You - Jungle Brothers9 MOSS Pt. 3 (My Luva) - Osunlade 10 Chicago Love - Felix Da Housecat/Chris Trucher 11 Just Call My Name - George Kelly/Vaudafunk12 U Can Do It - Mo'Cream/84Bit13 Take It Easy - Yan Gordo/Feint Young Son14 You're Mine - Sijay15 Maori - Max Millan/F.A.T.16 Set Me Free - Duwayne Motley17 Shewele - Timmy Regisford/Soul Star 18 Babalú Ayé - Digital Afrika19 Gwara Gwara - Don Taiga/Ashley Abigo20 Moody - Hondo Vega/Norty Cotto21 Truly Amazing - The BlackKnight/Susu Bobien/Mark Francis“DEEP Is Fine Art!” — Tony DJSOUL DobsonTIP JAR - Thank YOU!CASH APP $TonyDJSOULDobson
Debate recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House, Westminster. This week, Reform's Suella Braverman declared that if the party were elected to government it would 'repeal the Equality Act, because we are going to work to build a country defined by meritocracy not tokenism, personal responsibility not victimhood, excellence not mediocrity, and unity not division'. In response, Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC that the Act represented 'basic values, one of which is should women be treated equally with men... I think it actually rips up something that goes to who we are as a country because I believe passionately that to be tolerant, compassionate and diverse is what it is to be British'. What has been the impact of the Equality Act on British workplaces? ORIGINAL FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION The British workplace is now too often a toxic environment, a hotbed of grievance culture, lawfare and an ever-expanding number of disciplinary codes unrelated to the nature of specific jobs. Over the past year, there's been a 23 per cent rise in cases at employment tribunals and a two-year waiting list, due to a growing backlog, with workplace conflicts estimated to now cost businesses £28.5 billion annually. How did this come about? The UK is a world leader in human relations (HR). With over half a million HR workers – almost double the number of 15 years ago – Britain stands second in the global league table for size of HR sector as a share of all occupations. Over seven in 10 FTSE 100 companies now boast a ‘chief HR officer' on their executive committee, reflecting the elevated status of this newfound ‘profession'. We might expect this might lead to happier more productive workers, fewer grievances and higher job retention. Yet the growth of the HR industrial complex doesn't appear to have led to better workplace outcomes or harmony. Arguably, HR is as much the problem as the solution. HR departments – until recently humdrum administrative hubs managing payrolls, processing sick notes and checking firms complied with employment law – have now morphed into real centres of power. They are the enforcers of workplace orthodoxies, controlling what workers can say or do, who keeps their job, and even shaping corporate missions. For example, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is charged with versing workers in new values, from DEI literacy to managing emotional security. What's more, the traditional defenders of workers' rights – trade unions – are increasingly acting in lockstep with HR managers' priorities. A recent paper by the Free Speech Union, Shopped Stewards, revealed the divisive nature of union bureaucrats' adherence to identity politics, which means they often side with the DEI initiatives of their employers, as opposed to defending their members' rights. For example, teacher Simon Pearson was fired by Preston College after a complaint from a Muslim representative of the National Education Union (NEU). Pearson was accused of being ‘Islamophobic' and ‘racially discriminatory' for social-media posts, such as saying Lucy Connolly ‘should not have been jailed'. Another report suggests that specific legislation has led to a deterioration in workplace relations. The Don't Divide Us report, The Equality Act Isn't Working, reveals the ‘expansionary logic' of the Equality Act 2010 has provided the legal scaffolding that supports a surge in (largely unsuccessful) workplace race–discrimination claims. This, DDU argues, contributes to a grievance culture where people resort to ‘lawfare' to resolve ‘petty disputes and imagined slights', while empowering thin-skinned employees to wilfully misinterpret perfectly innocent comments or interactions. Can the workplace be detoxified? How can we tame the HR monster? Can trade unions return to a ‘one for all, all for one' role of protecting workers' rights? Can laws that are divisive in workplaces be reined in? SPEAKERS Pamela Dow chief operating officer, Civic Future Paul Embery firefighter; trade unionist; author, Despised: why the modern Left loathes the working class; broadcaster Maya Forstater chief executive, Sex Matters Dr Anna Loutfi employment and human rights barrister; advisory council member, Don't Divide Us CHAIR Para Mullan former operations director, EY-Seren; fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
A debate recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival at Church House, Westminster on Saturday 18 October 2025. ORIGINAL FESTIVAL INTRODUCTION In recent years, Britain has been rocked by several scandals where the public has been kept in the dark. Politicians and the authorities have indulged in obfuscation, denial, cover-ups and even possible collusion – all to avoid accountability or admit responsibility. As with previous scandals, it's often been grassroots campaigners, victims' groups and courageous journalists who have brought these issues to public attention. What was it like being a key player on the frontline of history in three of these recent scandals: rape gangs, the Post Office miscarriages of justice and gender self-ID in Scotland? Journalists Charlie Peters and Nick Wallis, and Susan Smith from campaign group For Women Scotland, tell their stories of activism, investigation and holding truth to power. GB News reporter Charlie Peters, presenter of the 2023 documentary, Grooming Gangs: Britain's Shame, has called it ‘the worst race-hate scandal and abuse scandal since the Second World War'. Meanwhile, Conservative MP Nick Timothy, writing in response to Sir Keir Starmer's announcement that he would – at last – commission a national inquiry on the back of recommendations in Baroness Casey's National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (2025), stated: ‘Rape gangs are the biggest scandal of our generation.' The Post Office Horizon IT scandal stands out as another one of the UK's most significant miscarriages of justice. Faulty accounting software developed by Fujitsu led to the Post Office prosecuting over 900 subpostmasters for theft, fraud or false accounting, resulting in wrongful convictions, bankruptcies, imprisonments and even suicides. Nick Wallis, a freelance journalist, broadcaster and author, has been one of the leading figures in exposing and chronicling the scandal. For Women Scotland (FWS) is a women's rights advocacy group that was set up in 2018 to oppose the SNP's attempts to force gender self-identification through Holyrood. Even when the Gender Recognition Reform Bill was blocked by the Tory UK government, the then first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, continued to defend the policy. In a car-crash press conference, she famously refused to say whether double-rapist Adam Graham/Isla Bryson, who was initially sent to a female jail, was a man or a woman. The scandal caused a huge public outcry and has been partially blamed for Sturgeon's sudden resignation a few months later. The furore also forged For Women Scotland into a formidable campaign group that eventually won a famous victory in clarifying equality law at the Supreme Court. These scandals are only three of the many that have shocked our nation, alongside the Grenfell Tower fire, the Hillsborough tragedy, the infected-blood scandal and more. Are such scandals simply a feature of modern Britain? Do they, as many argue, implicate the state itself as negligent, incompetent and mired in the tendency to cover-up and collude? What can we learn from these brave journalists and campaigners who have stood at the frontline, challenged politicians and the authorities, and held them to account? SPEAKERS Charlie Peters GB News national reporter Susan Smith co-director, For Women Scotland; director, Beira's Place; contributor, The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht Nick Wallis journalist, presenter, BBC Radio 4 series The Great Post Office Trial CHAIR Claire Fox director, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!
Recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House, London. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION One consequence of Donald Trump's trade war with China has been increasing attention to a group of minerals called ‘rare earths'. Rare earths are vital to the production of everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to wind turbines and advanced weapons. Despite the name, rare earths are not particularly rare. For example, cerium is more abundant in the earth's crust than copper. But they are spread thinly as trace impurities, so to obtain usable rare earths requires processing enormous amounts of raw ore at great expense – and with considerable environmental impacts. China has been willing to massively subsidise this process to support its own industries while keeping the price low, making the processing of ore uneconomic elsewhere in the world. The potential geopolitical consequences are obvious: China's rivals are currently utterly dependent on it. Years ago, China secured a significant proportion – almost a monopoly – of excavated rare earths in Venezuela, Brazil and other parts of South America and has now imposed export controls on many rare earth elements in response to Trump's tariffs. China is responsible for 60 per cent of all rare earths mined but, more importantly, it controls the processing of 90 per cent of all global refined rare earth output. Given that US is reliant on production plants in in China/Taiwan for its computer chips, it was slow to respond to the geopolitical power shift. China has already flexed its muscles in this regard, having banned exports of rare earths to Japan in 2010 over a fishing dispute (subsequently overturned by the World Trade Organisation) and has imposed export restrictions on the US since 2023. In May, Ford had to stop production at a car plant in Chicago because of the shortage of magnets made with rare earths. China has also placed an export ban on the technologies used to extract and separate rare earths. A desire to open up access to these metals was said to be a major feature of Trump's negotiations around Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After Zelensky's painful ambush in the White House, Trump quickly concluded a deal allowing the US access to Ukraine's natural resources, especially the coveted rare earths. Some have also suggested that claiming these metals is one of the aims of Russia's war. What should the rest of the world do about China's monopoly? Is it feasible to create alternative sources of supply – and what would it cost? Can innovation reduce the need for rare earths – or can recycling save the day? What does it all mean for the direction of geopolitics? SPEAKERS Robert Fig partner, the metals risk team Animesh Jha professor, applied material science Henry Sanderson journalist; author, Volt Rush, the Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green CHAIR Austin Williams director, Future Cities Project; honorary research fellow, XJTLU, Suzhou, China; author, China's Urban Revolution
Elvis & Flora are in the studio to tell us their story of addiction and salvation. Their story is one of complete inspiration and dedication to God and to sober living. Please click all the links below to join in on this great movement. (1)Well of recovery Facebook(1) Grace Abounding Full Gospel Mission Facebook
We’re living in the last days. The Church of Jesus Christ must begin to stand strong in the mist of darkness. But we must stand with the combination of Word and Power. The Glory of God must once again be seen and experienced within the halls of the Church House. To accomplish this, God’s people must repent and Bring Back the Glory. Kingdomrock.org
We’re living in the last days. The Church of Jesus Christ must begin to stand strong in the mist of darkness. But we must stand with the combination of Word and Power. The Glory of God must once again be seen and experienced within the halls of the Church House. To accomplish this, God’s people must repent and Bring Back the Glory. Kingdomrock.org
We’re living in the last days. The Church of Jesus Christ must begin to stand strong in the mist of darkness. But we must stand with the combination of Word and Power. The Glory of God must once again be seen and experienced within the halls of the Church House. To accomplish this, God’s people must repent and Bring Back the Glory. Kingdomrock.org
We’re living in the last days. The Church of Jesus Christ must begin to stand strong in the mist of darkness. But we must stand with the combination of Word and Power. The Glory of God must once again be seen and experienced within the halls of the Church House. To accomplish this, God’s people must repent and Bring Back the Glory. Kingdomrock.org
10.26.25 - CAROLINA LIVE: If I Can Just Get To The Church House: Part#1 - Pastor Anthony MooreSupport the show
The Church: House of God and Gate of Heaven - Mike Hudgins 10.5.2025 https://vccgn.org/s/2510House.pdf Continue reading →
According to the fire department, they noticed a man and woman on the church steps engaged in what appeared to be sexual activity and requested that they leave. Moments later, the woman is dead. More than 300 lawsuits have been filed against the popular gaming platform Roblox on claims of sexual exploitation of minors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Join us this week as we discuss Francis Chan and his departure from his mega church, the why, and how we feel.
Antioch Community Church in Quincy, MA (Boston Area) Sermons
Join us as we continue looking at the 5 circles of a healthy church and talk about what it looks like to be in one another's homes and lives.
Sermons By Antioch Community Church in Beverly, MA (Boston Area)
This week, we take a look at Acts 2:42-47 and the importance of the church gathering house to house.
Join us for a live recording of the spiked podcast this weekend at the Battle of Ideas in Westminster. Alongside Tom Slater and Fraser Myers, this special edition of the pod will feature Kathleen Stock, Graham Linehan and Rakib Ehsan. Plus, you can put your questions to the panel. If you're already coming to the Battle of Ideas, then be sure to join us on Sunday 20 October at 1.45pm in the Robert Runcie Room in Church House. If you've not got a ticket for the Battle of Ideas yet, then why not get one now? Regular spiked podcast viewers and listeners can get 20 per cent off their tickets at the checkout by using the code SPIKED24 or by clicking this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/battle-of-ideas-festival-2024-tickets-807629249827?discount=SPIKED24
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues our series on the true portrait and power of Christ, with the message "Empty Hands."
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues our series on the true portrait and power of Christ, with the message "Empty Hands."
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues to challenge us to broaden our understanding of the purpose and impact of Christ's sacrifice in this series with the message "The Americanized Gospel."
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues to challenge us to broaden our understanding of the purpose and impact of Christ's sacrifice in this series with the message "The Americanized Gospel."
I'm out of town so I'm gonna make this one quick, alright? Girl Scout Cookies are cookies sold by Girl Scouts in the United States to raise funds to support Girl Scout councils and individual troops. The cookies are widely popular and are commonly sold by going door-to-door, online, through school or town fundraisers, or at "cookie booths" set up at storefronts.[1] The program is intended to both raise money and improve the financial literacy of girls. During an average selling season (usually January through April), more than one million girls sell over 200 million packages of cookies and raise over $800 million.[2][3] The first known sale of cookies by Girl Scouts was in 1917.[4][5][6] Cookie sales are organized by 112 regional Girl Scout councils[7] who select one of two national bakeries to buy cookies from.[3][8]Plus we learn about Disease X.Video of this episode is available at Patreon.com/yourkickstartersucksMusic for YKS is courtesy of Howell Dawdy, Craig Dickman, Mr. Baloney, and Mark Brendle. Additional research by Zeke Golvin. YKS is edited by Producer Dan. Follow us on Instagram: @YKSPod and TikTok: YourKickstarterSucksSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Pastor Ronnie Harrison challenges us to go beyond worshipping a Jesus we enjoy at Church but are largely un-affected by His teachings when we go home.
Pastor Ronnie Harrison challenges us to go beyond worshipping a Jesus we enjoy at Church but are largely un-affected by His teachings when we go home.
Hello friends! Austin based, singer-songwriter Kelley Mickwee returns to the show for episode 1425! Her new album, the gorgeous and soulful Everything Beautiful drops on Friday, September 27th on all streaming platforms. Kelley is celebrating the release of Everything Beautiful on Saturday, Sept. 28th at The State Theater with a dual release show with Suzanna Choffel. Go to kelleymickwee.com for tickets, music and more. We have a great conversation about recording Everything Beautiful with producer, David Boyle at The Church House, what she's done with the ten years in between albums, singing with Shinyribs, Ray Wylie Hubbard and others, the Red River Songwriter Festival, Birds of a Feather, touring, writing, and much more! I had a great time catching up with Kelley. I'm sure you will too. Let's get down! Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you pod. If you feel so inclined. Venmo: www.venmo.com/John-Goudie-1 Paypal: paypal.me/johnnygoudie
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues to smash the idol of Christ trapped in the walls of the church.
Pastor Ronnie Harrison continues to smash the idol of Christ trapped in the walls of the church.
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