Vijay Prashad, Tithi Bhattacharya, Aaron Bastani, Lynne Segal, Wendy Liu

After the global financial crisis of 2008 almost precipitated the collapse of the world economy, more and more people have turned to the ideas of Karl Marx to help them understand the failures of capitalism and provide a vision for a different kind of society. In 2018, as even Teen Vogue are publishing articles about Marx, we ask what it means to be a communist today. Is it possible to separate the idea of communism from gulags and secret police? Two hundred years after his birth, are Marx’s ideas still relevant and can they help us to overcome the crises englufing our planet?

@vijayprashad @AaronBastani @lynne_segal @dellsystem & Tithi Bhattacharya

Jubilee Debt Campaign & Fire Brigades Union // Ann Pettifor, Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Michael Roberts, Matt Wrack, Fran Boait

Debating, should we take over the banks? at #TWT2018 with @AnnPettifor @sarahjclifton @MattWrack @franboait & Michael Roberts @TWT_NOW

10 years after the Great Crash, with the financial sector still reigning large, shadow banking, money laundering, and predatory lending are all out of control, at the expense of workers, states, and the stability of the global economy. This session asks what needs to happen to make finance and the banks work for people and the planet. How do we direct investment towards the real economy? Do we need to take control of the banks? And what do we do about the offshore world and the global financial elite? Come and discuss.

Red Pepper & Spokesman // Hilary Wainwright, Sam Mason, Phil Asquith, Pat Devine, John McDonnell MP

@hilarypepper @johnmcdonnellMP

The Lucas Plan is one of the most radical alternative models to economic planning ever drawn up by workers. By demanding the right to socially useful production, the plan reopened the debate on economic democracy. 40 years on, these ideas are as relevant as ever. How can we build workers’ control into economic planning? What technological tools are available for us to enhance the possibility of popular economic control? How can organised Labour champion the right to production with a social purpose?

Jon Trickett, Nancy Platts, Jonathon Shafi, Alice Kinghorn-Gray, Kate Shea Baird, Paul Mason

Democracy is about much more than elections. Governments should be of the people, by the people & for the people, but currently many are failing on all these fronts. What is the political, economic and social impact of the ongoing centralisation of power within our institutions? Through exploring ideas such as municipalism, decentralisation, and electoral reform, and hearing from innovative projects in Scotland, Spain and places in England, this session will help imagine how we can bring about a new democracy.

Melissa Benn, Alan Finlayson, Jeremy Gilbert, Francis Foley

For Labour to build the coalition of support that it needs, we need to be able to tell people a clear and comprehensive story about how the country got into the state it is in, and how we think we can get out of it. What should that story be?

*Due to logistical problems this recording starts as Leo Watkins is speaking. Regrettably this means that Laura Basu, Angela Phillips & Wendy Liu's contributions are not on the tape apart from in the Q&A. We're looking at ways to get their voices back on the soundcloud file, and apologise sincerely that their omission means that the panel is presented as effectively all male.*

Our media is in crisis and transition. There is a crisis of funding, working conditions quality, trust and accountability in British journalism. Google and Facebook have rapidly acquired extraordinary power over what we see and read online. The BBC's culture and output have been transformed by four decades of neoliberal hegemony.

Tom Mills (sociologist)

Laura Basu (Author of Media Amnesia)

Leo Watkins (Media Reform Coalition)

Dan Hind (Publisher and Author)

Angela Phillips (Professor of Journalism)

Wendy Liu (New Socialist)

Angela Phillips' latest book with Eiri Elvestad is Misunderstanding News Audiences: Seven Myths of the Social Media Era.

https://www.routledge.com/Misunderstanding-News-Audiences-Seven-Myths-of-the-Social-Media-Era/Elvestad-Phillips/p/book/9781138215191

A toxic ideology rules the world – of extreme competition and individualism. It misrepresents human nature, destroying hope and common purpose. Only a positive vision can replace it, a new story that re-engages people in politics and lights a path to a better world. George Monbiot explains how new findings in psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology cast human nature in a radically different light: as the supreme altruists and cooperators.

George Monbiot's new book is available from Verso.

Eddie Mair: You were sitting next to Boris Johnson during the speech, do you think people want Bernard Manning as foreign secretary?

Amber Rudd: I dont quite agree with that approach, I think that the foreign secretary has an important job to do and will be getting on and doing it.

EM: I want to ask you about Theresa May’s judgement in appointing and keeping Boris Johnson as foreign secretary. As you know he said last night that the Libyan city Sirte "could be the new Dubai” adding “all they have to do is clear the dead bodies away.” He hasn’t apologised, why doesn't she sack him?

AR: The prime minister can appoint her own cabinet, we know that, Boris has set out his full explanation of why

EM: …no he hasn’t, he has merely criticised the critics.

AR: He has set out his view on the situation in Sirte, he has expanded on it, and you know what…

EM: “He has said that it’s a shame that people with no knowledge or understanding of Libya want to play politics” he said...

AR: I think he said a bit more than that.

EM: Well I can read the rest of the quote but he didn’t apologise.

AR: Well by all means if you really think the public…I didn’t suggest that he had, that was your phrase. I’m not going to be drawn further down the Boris vortex Eddie, but I’m very happy to discuss anything else in the speech or the policies that are really relevant to people at home.

EM: Well I think foreign policy is relevant isn’t it, as well as the Conservative MPs who think he should go, Guma El-Gamaty the leader of the of the Taghyeer Party and a member of the UN backed Libyan political dialogue process said this about those comments:

"It upsets me because it comes from a very high ranking official who is in charge of the foreign policy of the united kingdom. And it upsets me because it totally disregards the human aspect of the young Libyans who died."

Again, I ask you about Theresa May’s judgement in appointing and keeping Boris Johnson as foreign secretary.

AR: It is up to the Prime Minister who she appoints and keeps.

EM: Why doesn’t she sack him?

AR: As I say it is up to the Prime Minister.

EM: And I’m asking about her judgement. When she appointed him she knew he had published a poem about the Turkish president having sex with a goat. She knew he had described president Obama as part Kenyan. She knew he had referred to "Papua New Guinea style orgies of cannibalism and chief killing." She knew he talked about tribal warriors in Congo breaking out in watermelon smiles. And she knew he said that Liverpool had failed to acknowledge the role what he called “drunken fans” played in the Hillsborough disaster.

I suggest to you the reason Theresa May doesn’t sack him is because she fears a leadership challenge. She is prepared to send out Boris Johnson to represent the United Kingdom around the world in order to protect her own job.

AR: Well those are your views Eddie.

EM: I’m suggesting it to you, what do you think?

AR: You can and I , well I think that Boris Johnson does a great job as foreign secretary in many ways, i know he has a colourful way of expressing things sometimes

EM: Colourful!

AR: And the comments that if other people can get upset by are sometimes I agree ill judged, but I don’t think we should condemn him from some from one particular issue that he might have attacked inappropriately.

EM: What one particular issue, I gave you a whole list! My question was about Theresa May’s judgement.

AR: I trust her judgement Eddie.

EM: The Home Secretary, Amber Rudd.

Justin Schlosberg, Bhaskar Sunkara, Clive Lewis MP, Ellie Mae O’Hagan, Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi

As digital change combines with political polarisation, the way in which we consume news and interact with media organisations has changed dramatically. Yet in many ways the media remains thesame as it was fifty years ago, with most journalists sharing similar, elite backgrounds, and a handful of individuals owning most newspapers.

In this session we’ll be discussing the state of the media today and how we create a diverse and democratic media for the 21st century.

Emma Hughes, Nick Dearden, Asad Rehman & Sarah-Jayne Clifton

The economic dogma of the last 30 years has turned society into a gigantic marketplace, where rights, standards and protections are seen as obstacles to profit. The collapse of this dogma is nothing to lament, but takes with it any sense of progressive internationalism, throwing many back on the outdated certainties of the national economy. A Labour government could set the tone for a global fightback against neoliberalism but in favour of internationalism. What could this look like? Come and find out.

Organised by Global Justice Now and War on Want