Birkbeck Politics

Thousands of people apply to work in MPs’ parliamentary offices every year. Why? Robert Dale, author of How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher, visited the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life on 16 November to explain.

Working in an MP’s office is an opportunity to operate at the centre of British politics. In an insightful discussion with comments from Tony Grew (Lobby journalist for The Telegraph, founder of the Parly app) and Susan McLaren (Birkbeck PhD student), Robert Dale explored how to get a job in an MP’s office, the challenges of these positions and the culture around working in parliament.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Centre website: www.csbppl.com

Department website: www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

Thousands of people apply to work in MPs’ parliamentary offices every year. Why? Robert Dale, author of How to Be a Parliamentary Researcher, visited the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life on 16 November to explain.

Working in an MP’s office is an opportunity to operate at the centre of British politics. In an insightful discussion with comments from Tony Grew (Lobby journalist for The Telegraph, founder of the Parly app) and Susan McLaren (Birkbeck PhD student), Robert Dale explored how to get a job in an MP’s office, the challenges of these positions and the culture around working in parliament.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Centre website: www.csbppl.com

Department website: www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

On 23 November, the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism in collaboration with the Birkbeck’s Department of Politics brought together a panel of leading commentators and scholars to discuss the implications of Europe’s migrant crisis for the rise of the populist right.

The UK Independence Party, Danish People’s Party and French Front National won nearly 30 percent of the vote in the 2014 European elections on an anti-immigration platform. Since then, Europe’s migrant crisis has further raised the significance of the immigration issue among western European publics.

Populist right parties such as the Sweden Democrats, Austrian Freedom Party and True Finns have surged in the polls. The Freedom Party has doubled its vote share in Austrian local elections. In Germany and Sweden, opposition to immigration has risen dramatically. At the same time, many voters support the plight of the refugees which some observers hope will damage the populist right.

Speakers:

Chris Bertram is Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, and blogs regularly on issues related to migration.

David Goodhart is director of the Demos Integration Hub and founder of Prospect magazine.

Matthew Goodwin, University of Kent, and author of two books on UKIP, Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (with Rob Ford) 2014, and the upcoming UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of UK Politics (Nov 2015).

Daphne Halikiopoulou, University of Reading, is co-author of The Golden Dawn’s ‘Nationalist Solution’: Explaining the Rise of the Far Right in Greece (2015).

Eric Kaufmann, Birkbeck, University of London is co-author of Changing Places: the White British Response to Ethnic Change in Britain (2014, Demos), co-editor of Political Demography (Oxford 2012), and author of Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth (2010).

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

Centre website: http://www.csbppl.com

Department website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

A lecture by Professor David Runciman.

Conspiracy theory is widely believed to be intellectually disreputable and epistemically flawed. Yet ideas of conspiracy have been central to the thought of many leading political thinkers. Jeremy Bentham exemplifies this: he was, if not a conspiracy theorist, then certainly a theorist of conspiracy.

This lecture explores what Bentham had to say about conspiracies real and imagined and how his ideas of conspiracy changed in line with his changing view of democracy. It will ask whether it makes sense to call Bentham a conspiracy theorist, and if so, what that tells us about the relationship between conspiracy theory and political theory.

David Runciman teaches political theory at Cambridge University and is a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He writes for The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He researches late-nineteenth and twentieth century political thought, theories of the state and of political representation, and various aspects of contemporary political philosophy and contemporary politics. His most recent books are Politics: Ideas in and The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from the First World War to the Present.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Centre website: http://www.csbppl.com

Department website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

A lecture by Professor David Runciman.

Conspiracy theory is widely believed to be intellectually disreputable and epistemically flawed. Yet ideas of conspiracy have been central to the thought of many leading political thinkers. Jeremy Bentham exemplifies this: he was, if not a conspiracy theorist, then certainly a theorist of conspiracy.

This lecture explores what Bentham had to say about conspiracies real and imagined and how his ideas of conspiracy changed in line with his changing view of democracy. It will ask whether it makes sense to call Bentham a conspiracy theorist, and if so, what that tells us about the relationship between conspiracy theory and political theory.

David Runciman teaches political theory at Cambridge University and is a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He writes for The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He researches late-nineteenth and twentieth century political thought, theories of the state and of political representation, and various aspects of contemporary political philosophy and contemporary politics. His most recent books are Politics: Ideas in and The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from the First World War to the Present.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Centre website: http://www.csbppl.com

Department website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

A talk by Professor David Runciman.

Conspiracy theory is widely believed to be intellectually disreputable and epistemically flawed. Yet ideas of conspiracy have been central to the thought of many leading political thinkers. Jeremy Bentham exemplifies this: he was, if not a conspiracy theorist, then certainly a theorist of conspiracy.

This lecture explores what Bentham had to say about conspiracies real and imagined and how his ideas of conspiracy changed in line with his changing view of democracy. It will ask whether it makes sense to call Bentham a conspiracy theorist, and if so, what that tells us about the relationship between conspiracy theory and political theory.

David Runciman teaches political theory at Cambridge University and is a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He writes for The Guardian and the London Review of Books. He researches late-nineteenth and twentieth century political thought, theories of the state and of political representation, and various aspects of contemporary political philosophy and contemporary politics. His most recent books are Politics: Ideas in and The Confidence Trap: A History of Democracy in Crisis from the First World War to the Present.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Centre website: http://www.csbppl.com

Department website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/

Labour Shadow Chancellor and Birkbeck alumnus John McDonnell in conversation with academics from the Birkbeck Department of Politics.

The talk is followed by a Q&A with the audience.

For more events and updates from the Birkbeck Department of Politics and the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, see below.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/birkbeck-dept-of-politics

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

Centre website: http://www.csbppl.com

Department website: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/politics/