By 1966, the Apartheid regime in South Africa had all but annihilated the African National Congress (ANC), imprisoning its leaders or driving them into exile. To help keep their message of struggle alive and maintain a strategy of resistance from within, young men and women in London smuggled ANC literature into South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Sworn to secrecy, their work remained silent for forty years but in this unique event the London recruits tell their story and discuss the role of international solidarity and collaboration in today's world.

Speakers included Ronnie Kasrils (founding member of Umkhonto we Sizwe and former Minister of Intelligence Services) and recruits Mary Chamberlain, Katherine Levine, Tom Bell and Ken Keable (also editor of London Recruits: The Secret War Against Apartheid). The event will be chaired by Professor Barbara Taylor (Queen Mary, University of London and Director, Raphael Samuel History Centre).

In partnership with the Raphael Samuel History Centre.

Bishopsgate Institute Podcast - talks, debates and readings from Bishopsgate Institute's cultural events programme. For more information about Bishopsgate Institute, our cultural events, courses and library, visit www.bishopsgate.org.uk.

Sylvia Pankhurst - Suffragette, Socialist and Scourge of Empire

Uploaded 29/05/2013

Katherine Connelly examines Sylvia Pankhurst's life of activism from her teens as a member of the Independent Labour Party, to her time as a leading suffragette before the First World War, through to her socialist, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist campaigns in later years. She will also explore some of the contradictions in Pankhurst's career such as her role within the suffragette movement and why she ended her days under the patronage of the Emperor of Ethiopia. Katherine Connelly is the author of a new biography of Sylvia Pankhurst. She is completing her phD on 'Karl Marx and Parisian popular culture in the 1840s' at Queen Mary, University of London.

In conversation with John Harris, Barry Miles explores London’s counterculture – the creative, avant garde, permissive, anarchic – that sprang up in the city in the decades following the

Second World War.

Love it or hate it there is more to the Tube than meets the eye.Why is the Victoria Line so hot? Is it really possible to go all the way round the circle line? The London Underground is the oldest, most sprawling and arguably illogical metropolitan transport system in the world. Yet it is iconic, relied upon by over a billion passengers a year and loved and despised in equal measure by Londoners. Find out everything you need to know in this witty and informative account of the social history of the Tube with journalist and novelist Andrew Martin.

Sex between men in public areas such as toilets and parks has been commonplace for at least a century, and continues today. Peter Kelley of LAGNA discusses this with writer and journalist Mark Simpson.

Bishopsgate Institute Podcast - talks, debates and readings from Bishopsgate Institute's cultural events programme. For more information about Bishopsgate Institute, our cultural events, courses and library, visit www.bishopsgate.org.uk.

The first female prime minister who also won three consecutive elections. But Margaret Thatcher is arguably better known for the policies to which her name became attached and which significantly altered the social and economic face of Britain. Yet despite deeply divided opinion, has ‘Thatcherism’ actually been embraced

and sustained by subsequent British political parties? Privatisation, free market approach, cuts to taxes as well as welfare spending, and tougher constraints on trade unions all appear to have featured in the policies of the main British political parties. Has there been a convergence of Thatcher’s policies from all sides of the political spectrum? This debate explored the impact and legacy of Thatcherism on Britain.

Speakers were Owen Jones (author and journalist), Mark Field MP, Clare Short (former Labour MP) and Lord Parkinson. The event was chaired by Aditya Chakrabortty (The Guardian).

A speaker at the 1985 Conservative Party Conference was cheered when he said, “If you want a queer for your neighbour, vote Labour!” Today, many leading Conservatives support gay marriage. A watershed in the long struggle for civil rights for LGBT citizens was resistance to Clause 28, which prohibited local authorities from presenting ‘homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. How did such hostility and prejudice give way to tolerance and now, perhaps, the possibility, at last, of equality?

Speakers included Peter Tatchell (Peter Tatchell Foundation), Lisa Power MBE (Terrence Higgins Trust) and Michael Cashman MEP (Labour politician, founder of Stonewall). The event will be chaired by Dr Matt Cook (Birkbeck, University of London).

Riots on the Streets:What can we Learn?

Urban riots broke out across England in 2011, the worst since those of the 1980s. Then, as now, political authorities initially saw them as pure criminality. But is it coincidental that both eras are characterised by deepening inequality and economic crisis? What can the 1980s tell us about keeping the peace in troubled times? Are there lessons to be learnt in community relations and how communities are listened to or policed?

Speakers included Sharon Grant (Bernie Grant Trust), Sir Philip Mawer (Secretary to the Scarman Report), Professor Tim Newburn (LSE) and Devon Thomas (Community Activist). The event was chaired by Hugh Muir (The Guardian).