Spring 2009 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): David Miliband, Frans Timmermans, Professor Loukas Tsoukalis, Sir Stephen Wall | An interdisciplinary, cross-party investigation of policy options for the EU post-2009, involving 50 experts from all over Europe. The final report will be presented to national governments and the EU institutions in spring 2009.

Contributor(s): Professor Vytautas Landsbergis | Professor Vytautas Landsbergis will in his lecture be giving his perspective on the today's pressing events in the western world. His lecture will be an examination of consequences of doubtful mentality, as growth in population figures and average living standards have not resulted in increased happiness. Growing frustration and the crumbling myth of welfare state point to a crucial need to consider a new philosophy for life. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A session.

Contributor(s): Professor Jean-Pierre Filiu | European forces make up most of the international force in south Lebanon. The EU is the main donor to the Palestinian territories, a member of the Quartet and the initiator of the new Union for the Mediterranean. But how is all this activity to translate into a strategy for promoting peaceful co-existence in that troubled region?

Contributor(s): Polly Toynbee, David Walker | The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. City workers earn millions. Manual workers earn less than they did thirty years ago. The widening gap is tearing apart the fabric of our society. In their new book Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today, Polly Toynbee and David Walker present a worrying portrait of Britain.

Contributor(s): Vikram Pandit | Today's financial and economic wreckage will provide the foundations for a system on which a stronger future will be built. This will only happen with a real cooperation and collaboration that is hard to envisage amidst the growing clamour for protectionism, speculation over the possible nationalisation of the banking system, and questions over the right of those at the centre of the industry to be part of the solution. In his lecture, Vikram Pandit will outline his views on the role of banking in society and the future of the industry, its supervision, its structure and its reputation and explains his work to reinvent the world's most global financial services company and his vision for the New Reality.

Contributor(s): Professor Norman Rose | A review of British policies in Palestine in particular and the Middle East in general with special emphasis on the inter-war and post-war periods. For the Jews, this critical period led to the establishment of the state of Israel, for the Palestinians, to their 'Nakba' (Catastrophe), and for the British, a humiliating retreat from their imperial standing. Norman Rose is a graduate of the LSE and now holds the Chair of International Relations at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox, Will Hutton, Professor Danny Quah | The upcoming meeting of the G20 in London in early April 2009 is crucial for the development of policies to stabilise the world economy and reform the international financial architecture. What will the G20 do and what should it do? Will Hutton, Danny Quah, Mick Cox and David Held debate the issues.

Contributor(s): Jack Straw | Jack Straw was appointed as lord chancellor and secretary of state for Justice on 28 June 2007. He has previously served as leader of the House of Commons, secretary of state for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and home secretary. In Opposition he served as shadow home secretary, shadow environment secretary and shadow education secretary.

Contributor(s): Nandita Ghose, A.F Harrold, Andre Mangeot, Ife Piancu | This event is aimed at encouraging anyone who has never been to a poetry event before to come and see the amazing and exciting range of possibilities that poetry has. Poet in the City's New Audiences initiative has fast become one of our most popular set of programmes with events at the Guardian on Spoken Word and at Imperial University on Work, Space and Maths. This event has a mix of our favourite performance and up and coming poets that we're sure you'll enjoy.

Contributor(s): Will Self | "All but death" wrote Emily Dickinson "can be adjusted", and yet, the cold fact that bodies must eventually die only serves to hide the reality of death as a contested cultural domain, where competing notions of public and private, tradition and innovation, individual and collective, are played out, and discourses within literature, art, jurisprudence, medicine, religion, and politics all stake their claim to knowledge of the great unknown. This talk will illuminate the social aspects of death and dying in contemporary society, and challenge received ideas of what Rabelais' called our "vast perhaps".