Birkbeck Politics

David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, held an ‘in conversation’ event with Sarah Childs to celebrate the re-launch of Birkbeck’s new Centre for British Political Life. David Lammy has been an MP since 2000, was a minister between 2002 and 2010, and is now a noted backbench campaigner. He began by reflecting on how his own life experience had played into his time as an MP and the campaigns he pursued, before offering his thoughts on a whole range of subjects, from the consequences of Brexit, to his time at SOAS and what it is like to be an MP. Listen to the podcast below to find out what he thinks about Britain, Brexit and being called a ‘passionate’ MP.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 50, Professor Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 49, Professor Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss the domestic and EU context of Boris Johnson’s Brexit strategy as the October European Council approaches.

Description: Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 48, Prof. Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Parliament's second vote against Theresa May's Brexit deal and what might happen next.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 47, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Parliament's Brexit amendments.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 46, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Parliament's defeat of Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 45, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Theresa May’s decision to cancel Parliament’s vote on her Brexit plan.

Westminster Watch is a podcast in which members of the Department of Politics at Birkbeck College discuss current issues in British politics. It is aimed at those with an interest in British politics in general and students on Birkbeck's BA Politics module, Contemporary British Politics, in particular. In episode 44, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Parliament’s five days of debate over Brexit.

This event hosted by Birkbeck on 15 November 2018 focused on and around topics from Eric Kaufmann's new book Whiteshift. The book argues that we need to talk about white identity if we hope to address the root causes of populism and polarisation. The West is in the midst of two epochal demographic transformations. First, the white share of the population is projected to drop to less than half the total by 2050 in North America and 2100 in Western Europe. Second, the mixed-race population is projected to rise exponentially late this century to form the majority in western countries by the early 2100s. The first phase of Whiteshift, which we are currently in, increases the existential insecurity of conservative whites and emboldens the cosmopolitan left, with its dream of radical cultural transformation. Left-liberal hegemony in the high culture and its attempt to stanch the expression of conservative anxieties in established institutions has delegitmated the cultural elite in the eyes of conservatives, opening space for right-wing populism and 'culture wars' polarisation. The advent of mass racial melting offers a way out of this impasse, if we are able to grasp it.

Panellists discussed aspects of the theme of 'Right-Wing Populism and the Left' alongside Kaufmann's new book.

PANELLISTS

Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck and author of the forthcoming Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities (Penguin Allen Lane, 25 October, 2018)

Munira Mirza was Deputy Mayor for Education and Culture of London. She is author of The Politics of Culture: The Case for Universalism (2012).

Trevor Phillips, writer and broadcaster, was formerly head of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

John Judis, author of a new book The Nationalist Revival: Trade, Immigration, and the Revolt Against Globalization (2018) and The Populist Explosion (2016), an editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior writer at The National Journal and a former senior editor at The New Republic.

David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere: the Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (2017), and The British Dream. He was founding editor of Prospect magazine, was director of the think tank Demos and is currently Head of the Demography, Immigration and Integration Unit at the think tank Policy Exchange.

CHAIR

Robert Singh, Professor of Politics at Birkbeck will chair the event. Robert is is a specialist in contemporary US politics and the politics of American foreign policy. He is the author of eleven books - including, most recently, In Defense of the United States Constitution (Routledge, 2018)

The Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public life held their annual public lecture on 13 November 2018 at Birkbeck College with Professor Alan Finlayson, who delivered a lecture on ‘The Changing Rhetorical Culture of British Politics: From Parliament and PEBs to Twitter and Youtube’. The event was chaired by Birkbeck's Dr Ben Worthy.

One of the things that makes a political society what it is, is its rhetorical culture – the way in which it defines, organises and evaluates political arguments. That includes the places and rituals it establishes for the presentation of political claims and counter claims as well as expectations concerning the styles of political communication , norms about who can speak and ideas of what counts as a good argument. A key characteristic of contemporary British Politics is that its rhetorical culture is in considerable flux and may even be breaking down. As ‘traditional’ locations for political argument have been found wanting, communications technology has enabled the creation of new stages and the rise to prominence of different kinds of political actor with distinct ways of making political arguments. That has upended norms of what a good argument might look or sound like and expectations about what is an appropriate way to conduct political dispute That is why we spend a lot of our time not debating the issues but the ways in which they should be debated. In this lecture Alan Finlayson tries to put the situation into a larger conceptual and historical context, explore some of the new forms of political rhetoric emerging from digital culture and think about how we might manage this in such a way as to maintain and deepen our British democracy.

Alan Finlayson is Professor of Political & Social Theory at The University East Anglia. He writes in particular about British Politics, Political Ideologies and Rhetoric and is currently involved in two research projects supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. “The Crisis of Political Rhetoric: Renewing Political Speech and Speech writing” is concerned with reflecting on how the art of political speech writing and speech making can be supported and developed in British Politics. “Political Ideology Rhetoric and Aesthetics in the 21st Century: The Case of the alt-right” is a study of how digital communication platforms are changing the ways in which political ideas are created, made persuasive and shared.