Academy Of Ideas

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: What lessons should we draw from the pandemic response? Is China turning from a ‘status quo’ power to one that will become more disruptive and active in pursuit of global influence? To what extent will the international order and its institutions continue to fray? Are we seeing the return of the nation state, or will realpolitik in the face of the pandemic likely encourage renewal of cooperation and new institutions? What is the likely impact of the inevitable economic restructuring? In short, where next for geopolitics - and is the future one of international disorder? Dr Philip Cunliffe, Mary Dejevsky, Lord Maurice Glasman and Joan Hoey discuss.

ECONOMY FORUM: When members of the US Federal Reserve met in late January, they expressed confidence in the country’s ability to stretch a record run of economic growth and job gains well into 2020. Indeed, 2019 had seen strong performance in certain indicators, including rising real incomes among lower-earners. Two months later, the US was in a coronavirus lockdown, and the economy was in freefall. Some 34million jobs have been lost, and GDP is expected to decline by 35% or more in the second quarter. What are the prospects for the US economy to recover? Pre-Covid, was the economy as robust as commentators claimed? Does the crisis provide an opportunity for the US to address its weaknesses? Will government spending have a positive effect, or will a debt overhang be an obstacle to recovery? Will the Fed’s easy money policy work? And, what will the US’s economic problems mean for the world economy? James Matthews introduces.

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: What is behind this seeming media crisis and what are the implications? With the press already having taken a beating in some quarters for their failures over reporting Brexit, how worried should we be over the collapse of press standards, and the way the ‘media class’ seems to stand apart from the rest of society? Are we shooting the messenger for the failings of others, such as government mismanagement, even misinformation? What is the news and commentary we need during this period, and how do we go about ensuring the survival and prospering of a free, critical press? Claire Fox, Jodie Ginsberg, Daisy McAndrew and Freddie Sayers discuss.

ECONOMY FORUM: Earlier this year, as what would become known as Covid-19 struck Wuhan, there was some discussion about how China’s GDP might temporarily fall and what impact that fall might have on the world economy. There was little sense that the disease might become a pandemic and affect the whole world. Now, with most Western countries facing unprecedented falls in economic output, China appears to have ridden the storm remarkably well. Like it or not, the UK, EU and US are remarkably dependent upon on China – and not just for PPE. Beyond the tempers on all sides, what real cleavages – China vs the West, China vs its neighbours, and among Western allies over tactics toward Beijing – can we expect to develop in 2020-21? Austin Williams and James Woudhuysen discuss.

BOOK CLUB: Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever - a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control. Max Sanderson introduces.

ARTS & SOCIETY FORUM: Kate Abley’s first novel, Changing the Subject, is an entertaining narrative about ordinary people in an extraordinary situation. She says ‘You don’t have to have read any Salman Rushdie to engage with this talk: I will make it my job to inspire you to try him. Under the feeble cover of having written a novel myself, I would like to make the experimental assertion that it is possible to describe novels in English as Pre-Rushdie and Post-Rushdie. Of course, there were rumblings of change before 1981 and the publication of Midnight’s Children. But it was that book which delivered the fatal blow to literarty-farties grumbling since the 1930s that the “The novel is dead”.’ Kate Abley and Wendy Earle discuss.

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: In the past few years, the idea that we should do what the experts tell us has lost some of its power. Some experts admit that there was, perhaps, a belief that the science was more definitive than it actually is. Even on the core advisory group, SAGE, there are significant differences of view amongst scientists, from the core understanding of the biology of the new coronavirus to estimates of how far it has spread, and over the rules informing social distancing and the efficacy of facemasks. But to what extent is or should our response to this threat be regarded as a scientific question, or as moral or political choices? What is the place of expertise in politics? How will the relationship between politics, expertise and democracy change in the future? Dr Clare Gerada, Timandra Harkness, Jill Rutter and Karol Sikora discuss.

EDUCATION FORUM: When should schools reopen and what does this debate tell us about what we value most about schools? Is it their role as engines of social mobility, as safeguarders of vulnerable children, as an unofficial child-minding service, exams or something else? Is it really a big deal if children miss a few months at school? David Perks and Joanna Williams discuss.

ECONOMY FORUM: In Germany, as in the UK, the economy is predicted to contract sharply as a result of the lockdown. But has this crisis become a convenient distraction from the deeper, structural problems of the German economy? And as the economic pain becomes clear, who will bear the brunt? Developing economies could suffer the greatest effects from the Covid-19 pandemic even though they have been little discussed in the West. They constitute a diverse range of countries, but it is possible to identify some key themes that, to a greater or lesser extent, threaten them. There are the direct effects on already hugely overstretched healthcare systems, the economic consequences of lockdowns, the impact of the slump in demand from the developed economies, and tougher financial conditions such as capital outflows and higher debt servicing costs. Daniel Ben-Ami and Sabine Beppler-Spahl discuss.

ARTS & SOCIETY FORUM: 'News poet’ Dr Andrew Calcutt, principal lecturer at the University of East London, introduces Antigone by the Ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles, translated as The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney. Focusing on the messenger’s speech (a recurring feature in Greek tragedy), Andrew explains how this directed him towards a new way of news reporting.

ECONOMY FORUM: How can we avoid the worst of a coronavirus depression? Are these lockdowns doing more harm than good? What will be the long-term economic impacts of the pandemic and the reaction to it? Joan Hoey, Phil Mullan and Jake Pugh discuss.

EDUCATION FORUM: Since the 1980s, much has been said of the educational potential of digital technologies, both within the classroom and beyond. With the coronavirus crisis, however, much of this discussion has been sidelined, as for the first time in school history nearly all England’s schools and colleges are by necessity scrambling to move their entire pedagogic operation online. What can we learn from the crisis about the role of digital technology in education? The first ever online meeting of the Academy of Ideas Education Forum will explore this and many other questions. Donald Clark and Toby Marshall discuss.

ECONOMY FORUM: One of the biggest policy benefits from leaving the EU is the end of the ‘Brussels excuse’. No longer can British ministers blame the European Commission – often illegitimately – for tying its hands in dealing with Britain’s economic challenges. Now the buck clearly stops with a Boris Johnson-led government, which is also has the benefit of a large parliamentary majority. What do its early actions tell us about the new government’s approach to national economic policy? Phil Mullan and Rob Lyons discuss.

PODCAST OF IDEAS: Alastair Donald, co-ordinator of our international Battle satellites, talks to friends and speakers from our annual festival: the Battle of Ideas. From Italy: Dominic Standish is a lecturer in media and a commentator on Italian affairs as well as the author of Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and reality. From Germany: Sabine Beppler-Spahl is the chair of Freiblickinstitut e.V, CEO of Sprachkunst36, author of Brexit-Demokratischer Aufbruch in Großbritannien and the Germany correspondent for spiked. And from Brussels: James Holland is a freelance writer on European politics.

PODCAST OF IDEAS: The current coronavirus pandemic has revealed, or heightened, many underlying political issues - from the lingering effect of the culture wars to the consequences of fearmongering in political discourse. But one issue that seems to have bucked the trend is the generation debate. Going by much of the discussion of the last 10 years, young and old people are supposed to be at odds with each other. And yet, this virus has proven that the tensions between the generations might not be so pronounced - teenagers are volunteering for their elderly relatives and the nation has come together to protect our Grans and Grandads. But is there a generational element to the government lockdown - what does this mean for kids out of school and away from public life? And how might we move on in a positive direction, away from the generation wars? Jennie Bristow and Ella Whelan discuss.

BOOK CLUB: ‘It is the history of a revolution that went wrong - and of the excellent excuses that were forthcoming at every step for the perversion of the original doctrine,’ wrote Orwell for the first edition of Animal Farm in 1945. Orwell wrote the novel at the end of 1943, but it almost remained unpublished; its savage attack on Stalin, at that time Britain’s ally, led to the book being refused by publisher after publisher. Orwell’s simple, tragic fable has since become a world-famous classic. On the 75th anniversary of Orwell's allegorical novella, the Academy of Ideas Book Club met online to discuss Animal Farm on the 16th April 2020, led by Neil Davenport.

SPORTSCAST OF IDEAS: Sport, like everything else, is on lockdown. But that doesn't mean talk about sport has died down - from controversies over furloughing to accusations of virus spreading at games. But how do we move forward, are football matches and other big public sporting events on the horizon? And is our absence from sport making the heart grow fonder, or will online matches replace the beautiful game? Alastair Donald, Geoff Kidder and Rob Lyons from the Academy of Ideas are joined by athlete, footballer and Battle of Ideas speaker Georgina Newcombe in this special SPORTScast of Ideas.

PODCAST OF IDEAS: Europe might be the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic at the moment, but this is a global problem. Alastair Donald, co-ordinator of our international Battle satellites, talks to friends and speakers from our annual festival: the Battle of Ideas. From Singapore: Stuart Derbyshire is the associate professor in psychology at the National University of Singapore and the Clinical Imaging Research Centre. From upstate New York: Nancy McDermott is an independent researcher with a special interest in the family, parenting, science and the public-private spheres. From Sweden: Johan Wirfält is the artistic director of talks, debates and film at the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern. And from Johannesburg: Matthew Kruger is a law consultant specialising in corporate, constitutional and human-rights litigation.

PODCAST OF IDEAS: We're closing in on week two of lockdown in the UK, with life on pause for many of us cooped up at home. But thinking outside of our own four walls, it has often been hard to get a sense of what's happening across Europe, where cases of the virus seem to be skyrocketing. Some countries, like Italy, have forced their citizens into weeks of house arrest. Others have taken a more liberal approach - and have often been criticised for it. This week, in the latest of a new series of the Podcast of Ideas, Alastair Donald talks to friends and speakers from our annual festival: the Battle of Ideas. You'll hear Fraser Myers, spiked's staff writer in London; Anne-Élisabeth Moutet, Telegraph journalist in Paris; Sean O'Halloran, freelance journalist in Fabriano in Eastern Italy and Lamprini Thoma, writer and podcaster in Thessaloniki.

PODCAST OF IDEAS: The coronavirus might have changed life for many of us, but at the Academy of Ideas we’e adamant that it won’t stop our ability to challenge and interrogate the cultural, political and scientific big questions of our time. With this in mind, Claire Fox, Geoff Kidder, Jacob Reynolds, Rob Lyons, Mo Lovatt, Alastair Donald and Ella Whelan discuss everything from the government's new social-distancing measures to what this all means for the economy and social interaction.