Birkbeck Politics

Recording of a two part evening event which took place on Tuesday 13th November 2018 addressing the celebration of the Centenary of Women’s Suffrage. The event was hosted by the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, at Birkbeck College.

In the first half of the evening Dr Mari Takayanagi a Senior Archivist at the Parliamentary Archives delivered her paper ‘Celebrating Suffrage Centenaries’ followed by a Q&A Session. This was followed by a round table discussion with contributions from Mary Branson, Sian Norris and Dr Red Chidgey.

Chair: Sarah Childs (Birkbeck)

Recording of an event which took place on Wednesday 6 November 2018 at Birkbeck.

This was an ‘In Conversation’ with Jacqui Smith, Co-editor of The Honourable Ladies: Volume I Profiles of Women MPs 1918–1996

The book focuses on the lives and achievements of the Women who served as MPs between 1918-1996 and have shaped the political landscape today. There will be a chance to purchase a signed copy of the book after the event.

Jacqui Smith was Labour MP for Redditch from 1997 until 2010. While Tony Blair was Prime Minister, she held junior ministerial positions before being promoted to Home Secretary in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet – becoming the first-ever female Home Secretary and only the third woman to hold one of the great offices of state.

Following her parliamentary career, Jacqui has acted as a consultant for KPMG and featured regularly on TV and radio, presenting documentaries for BBC 5 Live and appearing on programmes such as Question Time and This Week. She previously delivered the Sky News Paper Review, alongside co-editor Iain, and the pair now co-host LBC weekly political podcast For The Many.

Speaker: Jacqui Smith

Discussant: Sarah Childs (Birkbeck)

This was round table discussion looking at how Australia and the UK compare in terms of the openness of their government, based on the views of two academics involved in the Open Government Partnership assessment process. Reflecting particularly on the two government's Open Government Partnership commitments, it also looked more broadly at the performance and workings of their respective Freedom of Information (FOI) regimes and other experiments in openness.

Speaker: Daniel Stewart (ANU and Australia IRM).

Discussant: Ben Worthy (Birkbeck College and UK IRM).

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 43, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy discuss Boris Johnson’s resignation and his controversial tenure as Foreign Secretary.

Recording of an event which took place on Thursday 5 July at Birkbeck.

Is the rise of populism in the West a threat to liberal democracy, or does it renew democracy by bringing new voices into the conversation? All panellists agree that elites bear some culpability for the rise of populism, but how should the system be reformed? The evening featured a panel debate between four high-profile speakers with contrasting views on this question. Claire Fox, Director of the Institute of Ideas and a regular on Radio 4’s Moral Maze joined Yascha Mounk (Harvard/Slate), author of The People vs. Democracy, Sasha Polakow-Suransky (Foreign Policy, author of Go Back Where You Came From) and David Goodhart (Policy Exchange, author of Road to Somewhere) to discuss these issues. Professor Eric Kaufmann of Birkbeck moderated the event.

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

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Centre website: www.csbppl.com

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

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 42, Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy give a rapid reaction to David Davis’s resignation as Brexit secretary.

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 41 Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy talk about Boris Johnson's no-show for the Heathrow expansion vote and Theresa May’s puzzling persistence as PM.

Recording of a round table discussion on current attitudes towards immigration, hosted by the Birkbeck Department of Politics. Chaired by Professor Rosie Campbell with speakers Professor Eric Kaufmann, Dr Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Anna Killick.

The plight of many contemporary members of the Windrush generation has served as a moving reminder of the lives affected by government policy on immigration. Much of this policy was designed to respond to voters’ concerns about rising immigration. Certainly, interpretations of the publics’ attitudes to immigration have had a profound effect on our politics in recent years. Since the early 2000s the salience of immigration has risen up the public agenda prompting the parties to promise reductions in absolute numbers and setting targets for net migration as well – apparently – as repatriations. In this roundtable experts on public attitudes towards immigration debate how the statistics should be interpreted and how citizens, politicians and parties might respond.

This is a recording of an event which took place at the at Birkbeck College on Wednesday 9 May 2018. Chaired by Birkbeck Professor of Politics Rosie Campbell.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/BirkbeckPolitics/

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

Twitter: www.twitter.com/bbkpolitics

Centre website: www.csbppl.com

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

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 40 - recorded on the UCU picket line at Birkbeck - Dr Dermot Hodson and Dr Ben Worthy talk about the #strikeforUSS and its wider political significance.

How do we distinguish between truth and fact? Is there such a thing as an "alternative" fact? In the age of fake news and "fake news!", staff and researchers from Birkbeck College discuss how information is used in policy-making, public discourse and campaign politics.

Panel:

Sam Ashenden, Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Rosie Campbell, Professor of Politics

Andrew Fugard, Senior Lecturer in Social Science Research Methods

Antonella Patteri, PhD candidate in the Department of Politics

Ali Guven, Lecturer in International Relations & International Political Economy, chairs the event.

This is a recording of an event that took place at Birkbeck College on Wednesday 21 February.