Talking liberty - Taking conscience seriously
Saturday 24th June, 1.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome. Donations help us to meet speaker travel and room hire costs for our two debate Salon events.
Please book via EventBrite
United? Kingdom?
Saturday 22nd April, 1.00 pm - 5.00 pm
The Arthur Sullivan Room, Birmingham Midland Institute, 9 Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BU
Tickets £15 via EventBrite
Join us for the Birmingham book launch of Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy after Brexit (Polity 2023) by Philip Cunliffe, George Hoare, Lee Jones and Peter Ramsay plus a debate on the future of Ireland and another debate on the future of the monarchy.
For the best part of a thousand years the history of Ireland has been bound up with that of England. The relationship has never been a stable one. England made many attempts to subjugate and colonise its neighbour. The plantation system which it introduced there acted as a model for later British colonial adventures. The harsh treatment of the Catholic majority was one factor in ensuring that the attempt to incorporate Ireland into the United Kingdom was never likely to succeed for long. Similarly the granting of partial independence and the partition of the island provoked violent upheaval that has never been fully resolved.
Pauline Hadaway: writer and researcher. Pauline completed her doctoral research at University of Manchester examining the cultural economy and politics of peace building in Northen Ireland after the Good Friday Agreement.
Peter Ramsay, Professor of Law, LSE. Peter also writes about politics at thenorthernstar.online
Chair:
Chrissie Daz
Reading:
The Graveyard of Euroscepticism, Peter Ramsay, Northern Star
Will the Windsor Framework get Brexit Done? Tom McTague, UnHerd
Is there no growth in support for a united Ireland? Is support shrinking instead? FactCheck NI
Don Milligan: author, The Embrace of Capital: Capitalism from the Inside (Zero books 2022. Don has been a gay activist, trade unionist, and member of the communist movement for many years.
Tessa Clarke: Tessa is a journalist, author, documentary reporter and blogs at Diary.of.a.Journalist on Instagram. She is the author of two books on free speech, privacy and the royals.
Chair:
Rosie Cuckston
Reading:
What's wrong with the monarchy? Don Milligan, Off the Cuff
The republican anti-aesthetic, Samuel Martin, The Critic
The rational case for a British republic, Mick Hume, Spiked Online
Talking liberty - The seductive power of literature
Saturday 25th March, 1.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome. Donations help us to meet speaker travel costs for our two debate Salon events.
Please book via EventBrite
Talking Liberty - In defence of teaching history
Saturday 25th February
1.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome. Donations help us to meet speaker travel costs for our two debate Salon events.
Please book via EventBrite
Aspects of the Omnicrisis
Saturday 28th January, 1.00 pm - 5.00 pm
The Arthur Sullivan Room, Birmingham Midland Institute, 9 Margaret Street, Birmingham B3 3BU
Tickets £15 available at the event (cash only) or via EventBrite
National interest and global order - which comes first?
1.15 pm - 2.45 pm
The war in Ukraine has not undermined supranational institutions which still have the support of the most powerful world leaders. Going it alone doesn’t look like an attractive option. NATO seems to be stronger than ever in most of Europe where many feel threatened by Russia. When British Prime Minister Truss tried to follow a new economic policy, she was soon forced to resign after the IMF commented negatively. When her successor Sunak suggested that he had better things to do than attend the COP27 climate conference such was the criticism, he quickly changed his mind.
Dr Philip Cunliffe, Associate Professor in International Relations, University College London; author, The New Twenty Years’ Crisis 1999-2019: A critique of international relations; co-host, @Bungacast podcast
Dave Aveston
Break: tea/coffee (included in ticket price) 2.45 - 3.15 pm
Reparations, industrial revolution: how should poor nations develop in the 21st century?
3.15 pm - 4.45 pm
Clearly this dream has not been realised; if anything the trend has been in the opposite direction. The Covid pandemic and responses to it is part of the reason for this. Previous explanations for uneven development have ranged from crudely racist ones, cultural and geographical factors, naked exploitation and the exigencies of cold war politics. Behind even the most despicable of these explanations, however, there always lay an understanding that, at least in principle, the poor world ought to be allowed to catch up and that worldwide industrial development of the kind seen in the West would be in the interests of humanity as a whole. But this thinking has changed. At COP27 it was clear that the industrial revolution is now viewed as the first step on the path to the climate emergency.
Do climate change and other environmental impacts of industrial development mean we have come up against a natural barrier beyond which it is no longer possible to go? Is it now necessary to restrain growth in order to avoid destroying the planet, and what will that mean for billions of people in conditions of extreme poverty? Should they not enjoy the high standards of living modern society has shown are possible? Are Western environmentalist ideals just another form of colonialism or do they offer a different pathway, learning from previous mistakes and sparing people from catastrophe? Could loss and damage payments from the rich countries be part of a better route to development or are they tokenistic in the bigger scheme of changes that poor countries need?
Speakers:
Austin Williams, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, Kingston School of Art; author China's Urban Revolution:Understanding Chinese Eco-cities
John Vogler, Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations, University of Keele; author Climate Change in World Politics
Chair:
Chrissie Daz
The global south has the power to force radical climate action, Jason Hickel, Al Jazeera
Coming up in 2023
Coming up in 2023...
Aspects of the Omnicrisis
Saturday 28th January, Birmingham & Midland Institute
Talking liberty - In defence of teaching history
Saturday 25th February, Map Room at Cherry Reds
Talking liberty - The seductive power of literature
Saturday 25th March, Map Room at Cherry Reds
United? Kingdom?
Saturday 22nd April, Birmingham & Midland Institute
Talking Liberty - The Future of Free Speech
Talking Liberty - the future of free speech
Saturday 12th November
1.00 pm - 3.30 pm
Map Room, Cherry Reds, 88-92 John Bright Street, B1 1BN
Free entry but donations welcome
Please book via EventBrite
Please join us from 1.00 pm for social time and informal discussion. From 1.45 pm we will introduce and discuss the essay The Future of Free Speech by Jacob Mchangama. You can purchase the essay in booklet format or download a PDF version. You are strongly encouraged to read it to contribute more fully to the discussion, but if you don't we will give a short summary to introduce the key arguments.
Mchangama is the author of Free Speech:a history from Socrates to Social Media, and he argues in this essay that we are in a free speech recession.
"Free speech is one of the most powerful and transformative ideas ever conceived. It is held as the 'first freedom, the bedrock of democracy, the enemy of tyranny, the midwife of enlightenment and the source of truth...But free speech is far from assured; it has not been the default position in the long arc of history. Thus, after decades of global gains, it has now suffered more than a decade of setbacks."
How far do you agree with these assertions? Does Mchangama set out a convincing case for the importance of free speech? Is it helpful to those who want to defend free speech, or are there significant omissions?
Following our discussion, we will agree which of the Letters on Liberty to discuss in 2023.
Free speech in the news:
National Secular Society defends free speech at 'Stand with Salman' event
Arrest of protestors prompts free speech concerns
Joanne Harris faces member vote on Society of Authors role amid call for free speech review
John Cleese set to join GB News in a push for 'free speech'
Most students think UK universities protect free speech, survey finds
Aspects of the "omnicrisis"
Aspects of the omnicrisis
Saturday 8th October