Academy of Ideas

By academyofideas

The Academy of Ideas has been organising public debates to challenge contemporary knee-jerk orthodoxies since 2000. Subscribe to our channel for recordings of our live conferences, discussions and sal... more

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FAQs about Academy of Ideas:

How many episodes does Academy of Ideas have?

The podcast currently has 488 episodes available.

Academy of Ideas episodes:

December 18, 2015 Can the UK economy survive Brexit?
After the Conservative Party’s victory in
the general election, it now looks likely that David Cameron will follow
through on his promise to hold an in/out referendum on the UK’s
membership of the European Union by the end of 2017. Although Cameron
himself would prefer the UK to remain a member, there is now a serious
possibility of ‘Brexit’, particularly given the rise of UKIP and a
general disillusionment with the EU among many voters across the
political spectrum. Euroscepticism has re-emerged on the left, too, with
the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones calling for the UK to leave
the EU.
Business leaders have frequently warned of economic catastrophe if
the UK leaves the EU. One much-quoted estimate is that between three and
four million jobs depend on trade with the EU, though the claim that
these jobs would all be in jeopardy if the UK left is controversial. The
UK would likely continue to have free trade with the remaining members
of the EU. But the economic issues run much wider than trade. Brexit
could have significant implications for inward investment, the role of
the City of London as a global financial centre, UK influence on the
rules and regulations of a block that would remain a major trading
partner, as well as agricultural support, free movement of workers, and
so on.
But perhaps it would be wrong to see the question of EU membership in
narrowly economic terms. There is much concern that the EU now
determines large areas of UK law, while lacking the accountability to
voters that national parliaments have. The travails of the Eurozone have
dampened enthusiasm in many quarters for the long-term project of
‘ever-closer union’. Some see the possibility of Brexit not as a
rejection of Europe but as an opportunity to rethink our relationship
with other EU member states.
Is the EU reformable, or are its current ways of working too
entrenched? Would an independent UK be able to survive and thrive
outside the EU? Is Europe as we know it already doomed, or has it proven
itself capable of weathering the crisis?Recorded at the Battle of Ideas 2015

Speakers

Kishwer Falkner
Baroness Falkner of Margravine; chair, House of Lords EU Financial Affairs Sub-Committee; member, EU Select Committee

Thomas Kielinger
UK correspondent, Die Welt

Matthew Kirk
group external affairs director, Vodafone

Philippe Legrain
visiting senior fellow, LSE’s European Institute; author, Immigrants: your country needs them and European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess – and How to Put Them Right

Phil Mullan
economist; director, Epping Consulting business advice; author, The Imaginary Time Bomb

Chair

Peter Lloyd
consultant, financial markets research; campaigner, Manifesto Club; writer, Free Society
...more
1h 29min
December 11, 2015 #PodcastOfIdeas: The tyranny of health
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick discusses public health's war on our bad habits.

In the run up to Christmas, the season of excess and indulgence,
Rob Lyons and David Bowden are joined by writer and retired GP Michael
Fitzpatrick to discuss the ever increasing curbs on our ability to eat,
drink, smoke and be merry.
...more
33min
December 11, 2015 Podcast of Ideas: The tyranny of health
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick discusses public health's war on our bad habits.
In the run up to Christmas, the season of excess and indulgence,
Rob Lyons and David Bowden are joined by writer and retired GP Michael
Fitzpatrick to discuss the ever increasing curbs on our ability to eat,
drink, smoke and be merry.
...more
33min
December 01, 2015 #PodcastOfIdeas: Paris, bombing Syria and climate-change talks
Listen to the team discuss the Paris attacks, bombing Syria and the climate change talks

In this week’s Podcast of Ideas Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and David
Bowden discuss the aftermath of the Paris attacks, intervention in
Syria, Jeremy Corbyn’s embattled position as Labour leader and this
week’s UN climate change conference .
...more
29min
November 27, 2015 #BattleFest2015: The Corbyn Effect - are the old parties dead?
When Jeremy Corbyn went from being the token
lefty candidate for Labour leader to the favourite to lead the party
this summer, it became clear that the old assumptions no longer apply.
But while the ‘Corbyn Wave’ appeared to be something new, there was an
unmistakable paradox in the fact that the man of the moment had been
hiding in plain sight at Westminster since 1983. So is he a blast from
the past or a harbinger of things to come? Some suggest his rise
represents a momentous shift to the left. With its new £3 registered
supporter option, Labour’s ‘membership’ swell to 610,753, with many of
the new influx aged under 30. This seemed to echo the rise of the SNP in
Scotland as another example of the left-wing populism flaring up across
Europe in the wake of SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain. At the
same time, though, more long-established outsider parties like Britain’s
UKIP and France’s Front National have enjoyed considerable electoral
success, topping the European Parliament polls. With the unlikely
emergence of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as plausible US
presidential candidate, ‘politics as we know it’ seems to be over, but
it does not seem to be as simple as a move to the left.
The dramatic ascent of the Sweden Democrats, a party that describes
itself as socially conservative with a nationalist foundation, means
that when its leader Jimmie Åkesson predicts that his party will one day
be strong enough to run the country, serious commentators acknowledge
this is possible. It is as yet unclear whether these new political
parties command a stable support for specific policies. There seems a
more unstable ebb and flow of new parties in the spotlight and showing
disenchantment with mainstream politics by voting for the outsider can
appear more the sign of anti-politics rather than newly radicalised
times. Is it Corbyn’s old-fashioned state socialism programme attracting
solid support, or is his appeal that he is Not Blair Or The Other Three
candidates? And while UKIP gained four million votes in the general
election, their much vaunted rise is now side-lined as yesterday’s flash
in the pan story, with UKIP voters being amongst those enthusiastically
supporting Corbyn.
Why have populist parties become so popular? Does this mark the
beginning of the end for many established parties, or is it merely a
period of change, more about volatile protest votes than a new historic
era? Should we really take seriously some of these movements when they
may disappear as quickly as they emerged? If the Corbyn Effect is part
of this wider trend, will it last or will it crumble like Clegg-mania
amid broken promises and unrealistic ideas? Or are we in fact watching
the emergence of exciting new political movements, a reason to be
hopeful?

Speakers

David Aaronovitch

columnist, The Times; author, Voodoo Histories; chair, Index on Censorship

Alex Deane

managing director, strategic communications, FTI Consulting; Sky News regular; BBC Dateline London panellist

Andrew Gimson

author and political journalist; contributing editor, ConservativeHome

Miranda Green

journalist; founding editor, The Day; regular contributor to BBC political shows; former Lib Dem spin doctor

Chair

Bruno Waterfield

Brussels correspondent, The Times; co-author, No Means No
...more
1h 9min
November 20, 2015 #BattleFest2015: The Paris attacks and the threat to an open society
Listen to the special Battle of Ideas satellite put on in Stockholm in the wake of the Paris attacks

At last weekend’s series of Battle of Idea Satellite debates in
Stockholm an impromptu session was held in response to last Fridays
terror attacks in Paris.
Speakers
Isobel Hadley-Kamptz
author and journalist
Kashif Mahmood Virk
imam, Stockholm Ahmmadiyya congregation
Brendan O’Neill
editor, spiked
Chair
Rob Lyons
science and technology director, Institute of Ideas
...more
25min
November 16, 2015 #BattleFest2015: Shifting sands - understanding the Middle East today
Listen to this session from the International Battles strand of the recent Battle of Ideas festival

In the past few years, the Middle East has undergone serious
convulsions, from the collapse of Iraq to the Arab Spring, the Syrian
war and the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen. The spread of Islamic State
has wiped out one hundred-year-old borders in a matter of months, with
large areas of Iraq and Syria now part of those countries only in name.
America’s interest and power in the region seems to waning while
regional powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran are becoming more
assertive.
A bewildering number of alliances and counter-alliances seem to be in
play in which religious affiliations, local political grievances and
powerful external players meet in a maelstrom. The Gulf states intervene
against and for Sunni jihadists depending upon which state one looks
at; America supports Iranian-backed militias in Iraq while backing
Saudi-led airstrikes against Shia groups in Yemen; in Syria, America and
its Arab allies are supporting Islamist groups against Assad, who is
still supported by Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah. The US and
Iran appear to have reached a historic agreement on Iran’s nuclear
energy programme, just as US-Israel relations turn increasingly
fractious; indeed, Israel is closer to Saudi Arabia when it comes to the
nuclear deal, albeit for very different reasons.
The Arab Spring was supposed to mean the end of tyranny and the rise
of democracies across the region. Instead, states are imploding. Was
this inevitable, or is there still hope for peace and democracy within
the existing borders of countries like Syria and Iraq? Would their
break-up mean anarchy or a new order based on more meaningful religious
and ethnic identities? And while the Western powers were long considered
the puppet masters of the Middle East, are the strings now in the hands
of regional powers? Does the West even have a sense of its strategic
interests in the region, or is it stuck in the past, supporting the
wrong allies and condemning the region to years of chaos? What do the
confusing alliances and counter-alliances tell us? And what future is
there for the people of the Middle East?
Speakers
Gilbert Achcar
professor of development studies and international relations; chair of Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS, University of London
Rosemary Hollis
professor of international politics and director of the Olive Tree Programme, City University London
Dr Tara McCormack
lecturer in international politics, University of Leicester; author,
Critique, Security and Power: the political limits to emancipatory
approaches
Karl Sharro
architect; writer; Middle East commentator; co-author, Manifesto: Towards a New Humanism in Architecture
Chair
Joel Cohen
judges co-ordinator, Debating Matters; freelance writer
...more
1h 14min
November 09, 2015 #BattleFest2015: Anthropocene - are humans wrecking the planet?
...more
9min
November 06, 2015 #BattleFest2015: Planet of the Vapes - why is there a war on e-cigarettes?

In recent years, the
popularity of e-cigarettes has exploded. They have been celebrated by
many as being the greatest aid to smoking cessation ever invented, with
even the anti-smoking group ASH giving them grudging approval.
E-cigarettes do not contain the tar and toxins that make cigarettes
harmful, but as this is a relatively new technology, some argue we
cannot be sure of their long-term effects on people’s health. And even
if they do turn out to be harmless, detractors worry they will
‘renormalise’ smoking and act as a gateway to smoking for young people.
On these grounds organisations like the British Medical Association
say they should be subject to the same stringent regulation, advertising
bans and high taxes as tobacco. Internationally, a WHO report has
called for them to be banned in public globally and the sale of
e-cigarettes and the nicotine liquid they use is already banned in most
Scandinavian countries. Several US cities, including New York and
Chicago, have banned their use in public places.
As of 2016 in the UK, e-cigarette manufacturers will have to choose
between being regulated as a medicine by the Medicines and Healthcare
Products Regulatory Agency or adhere to strict new EU regulations that
would put them under similar regulation to tobacco products. The Welsh
Health Ministry has said it would like to ban their use in public places
and, across the UK, many pubs, workplaces, universities and public
transport companies have already banned their use despite the lack of
state coercion or public demand to do so.
There is resistance, however: the WHO report was met with an open
letter from a group of over 50 leading doctors and scientists from 15
countries urging them to reverse their call for a ban, stating that:
‘There is no evidence at present of material risk to health from vapour
emitted from e-cigarettes’ and that there is no ‘credible evidence’ that
e-cigarettes act as a gateway to smoking tobacco.
Should the precautionary principle be applied in regard to
e-cigarette regulation? Should we be wary of the rise of e-cigarettes
when many say we should be striving towards a nicotine-free society?
Or, is the movement to ban or hyper-regulate e-cigarettes less to do
with concern for people’s health and more about a broader culture war
over people’s lifestyle choices?

Speakers

Lorien Jollye

vaping advocate, New Nicotine Alliance UK

Dr Richard Smith

chair of trustees, ICDDR,B; former editor, British Medical Journal; chair, Patients Know Best

Christopher Snowdon

director, lifestyle economics, Institute of Economic Affairs; author, The Art of Suppression

Duncan Stephenson

director of external affairs, Royal Society for Public Health

Chair

Rossa Minogue

resources editor, Institute of Ideas
...more
55min
October 30, 2015 #BattleFest2015: The battle for geek culture
Debate at the Battle of Ideas 2015 (http://www.battleofideas.org.uk)
With the rise of fantasy and sci-fi, geek culture is now mainstream. Yet trailing its success has come vicious infighting amongst fans. 'Gamergate' moved quickly from a dispute between game developers and journalists to a row over gamers' attitudes towards women. Dr Matt Taylor's choice of a bawdy shirt overshadowed his work in landing the Philae lander on a comet. The rise of social media has led to 'calling people out', harnessing the power of public shaming. 'Social Justice Warriors' have provoked sub-cultures such as 'Sad Puppies', who reject perceived politically correct orthodoxies. How are the frontlines of the culture wars changing?
SPEAKERS
Allum Bokhari (columnist, Breitbart)
Serena Kutchinsky (digital editor, Prospect)
Dr Maren Thom (researcher, film, Queen Mary University of London)
Jason Walsh (journalist; foreign correspondent, CS Monitor)
Milo Yiannopoulos (technology editor, Breitbart)
...more
35min

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How many episodes does Academy of Ideas have?

The podcast currently has 488 episodes available.

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