Academy of Ideas

Woke politics: ‘People are realising it is deeply authoritarian’

In a wide-ranging interview, Andrew Doyle talks to Claire Fox about his new book, The End of Woke and why there is much still to be done to defend freedom.
 
Andrew notes that while some things have shifted in recent months – from the Cass Review and the UK Supreme Court judgement on the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act to the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential term – it doesn’t mean that our problems are over. The ‘new puritans’ he identified in his previous book are still very much there and clinging on to their power and influence.
 
It's now five years since the death of George Floyd and the hysteria around Black Lives Matter. Claire and Andrew reflect on what the hell happened and the dangers that arise from a re-racialisation of society. They also look at how identity politics and racial thinking has led to a white grievance culture and a tit-for-tat outlook, which Andrew argues has more to do with revenge than with promoting a liberal society. 
 
Above all, the conversation focuses on the continued importance of the fight for free speech, even for 'cosplay' rebels like Irish rappers Kneecap. And they tackle the way in which woke has undermined the search for truth: when even something as common sense as biological sex is called into question, then anything goes – and society suffers.

Cure or cult? Special educational needs in the classroom

Dave Clements is a policy adviser, writer, and parent of a child diagnosed with ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Despite a longstanding scepticism about the claims made about the increase in these and other similar conditions, since becoming a father he has been forced to question his views. Clements describes his son’s condition as something that ‘runs through him like a stick of rock’. ASD, in particular, can have a profound effect on children and their families. And yet, as Dave tells us in his forthcoming book, there seems to be something else going on, too. He is struck by the record numbers of pupils being labelled as ‘neurodiverse’, having special educational needs (SEN) or struggling with anxiety and attendance issues. Do we know what normal is anymore, he asks?
The book is less about providing answers than posing uncomfortable questions. Are we in danger of making identities out of disorders? Why do some parents appear oddly eager that their children be labelled neurodiverse? Has SEN become a hold-all category for too many different kinds of issues and conditions, and thus an unhelpful term? At a time when schools struggle to fund SEN provision, is a growing ‘awareness’ of neurodiverse, and other similar conditions, part of the problem or the solution? Are there other reasons for the increasing rates of referral and diagnosis, and for rising numbers of children needing support in class?
As the SEN agenda becomes a greater part of the school experience, is teacher autonomy being undermined by the expectation that they follow scripts produced by SENCOs and SEN departments for some pupils and lessons? How are mainstream schools expected to cope with students who are unable to regulate themselves against sudden, intense, and uncontrolled expressions of emotion or aggression? Instead of experts being brought in to teach teachers how to teach pupils with neurodiverse conditions or other special educational needs – wouldn’t it be better if experts taught these kids in specialist schools? Or is the problem of inclusion, and the variety and nature of the needs children bring to the classroom, more complicated than that?
SPEAKERDave Clementswriter and policy adviser; contributing co-editor, The Future of Community

The scary new powers to trawl through our bank accounts

Claire Fox sits down with Jasleen Chaggar of Big Brother Watch and author Timandra Harkness to talk about the latest attack on our privacy.
The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill does not sound like the kind of legislation that will set your pulse racing. But one part of it in particular should be more widely known and the cause of great concern: the new eligibility verification powers for welfare recipients.
Essentially, if the Bill passes, the government will be able to demand that banks trawl through the accounts of anyone receiving welfare benefits and use algorithms to flag up any possible fraud or erroneous payments. The government already has the power to see bank statements from those who are suspected of welfare fraud, but these new powers go much further, automating these checks on any account receiving welfare payments AND any linked accounts, too. This is guilty-until-proven-innocent stuff.
The civil liberties implications are very serious.

How can the UK return to growth?

Recording of the introductory remarks at the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum on 20 March 2025.
Ever since the great financial crisis of 2008, growth in Britain – both in terms of GDP and living standards – has stagnated. While the Covid pandemic and lockdowns didn’t help, the problems of the UK economy (indeed, most Western developed economies) are longstanding. What has gone wrong?
Labour has promised a return to growth, yet the new government has already announced big hikes in taxes like employers’ National Insurance, while promising billions in investment into decarbonising the electricity grid and imposing regulations on everyone from car manufacturers to house builders. Unsurprisingly, the economy only just avoided a technical recession in the second half of last year and GDP per capita has fallen.
For Lord Jon Moynihan, author of the recent two-volume Return to Growth: How to Fix the Economy, the blame lies with high levels of taxation and government spending – particularly spending on growth-stifling projects and programmes. In advance of the latest forecasts from the Office for Budgetary Responsibility and Rachel Reeves’s spring statement, what should we do to revive the economy?

Podcast of Ideas: does England need a football regulator?

Next week, the Football Governance Bill will go to Report Stage in the House of Lords. While it will then go to the House of Commons, the debates in the House of Lords are a chance to amend a piece of legislation that threatens to damage English football in ways that. as yet, are not getting enough attention. The introduction of an Independent Football Regulator (IFR) has become a controversial subject as the realities are becoming clearer, and unintended consequences are dawning on more and more football owners, managers and fans. 
So, to help you to see what all the fuss is about, Liverpool fan Alastair Donald brought together our own Geoff Kidder and QPR season-ticket holder Simon McKeon alongside – hot from the Lords front line debating the legislation – Claire Fox, and two of the most vocal speakers on the topic: Baroness (Natalie) Evans of Bowes Park and Lord (Nick) Markham.

Girls only: Sall Grover and the fight for women's rights

Claire Fox talks to Sall Grover and Katherine Deves about their fight in Australia to reassert in law that a woman is an adult human female.
Sall Grover is the founder of the female-only app, Giggle for Girls and Katherine Deves is one of her legal team. Both have been visiting the UK from Australia to get support for their appeal of an important test-case decision on the definition of ‘woman’, which Sall lost last year.
It all began when then 54-year-old biological male Roxanne Tickle from New South Wales, who identifies as a woman, complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission when moderators withdrew his access to Giggle for Girls, because - well, to state the obvious - the app is exclusively for women. However, when the subsequent case (known as Tickle v Giggle) was tried at the Federal Court, Justice Robert Bromwich concluded that, according to Australian law, sex is ‘changeable and not necessarily binary’. The ruling effectively eradicated the category of sex in law. The decision set a dangerous legal precedent with international implications, summed up by Jo Bartosch’s headline at the time: ‘Australia has abolished womanhood’. 
They talk about the case, the pros and cons of facial recognition (which the app used to determine who was a woman and who wasn’t), lawfare, the #MeToo movement and how human rights NGOs have become enmeshed in trans ideology. They also discuss the real-world impact of this trend for the likes of Scottish nurse Sandie Peggie, who was suspended from Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in January 2024 after she objected to Dr ‘Beth’ Upton (Theodore Upton) - who identifies as a woman but is a biological male - using the female staff changing facilities.

'Why do we do it? This is the best job in the world.'

In the wake of the huge farmers' protest in London on 10 February, Rob Lyons talks to two Cumbrian farmers, John Shaw and Richard Kerr, along with their accountant Paul Benson, about the state of farming in the UK today.
Why farmers are so angry about the Labour government's inheritance tax changes
The existing difficulties with making a good living from farming, particularly the power of supermarkets
Why it is unfair to blame sheep and cattle farmers for climate change
The failure of many politicians to understand why a farm is more than just a business
Why, despite all the difficulties, they continue to want to farm - if the government will let them.

Neurodiversity to gender dysphoria: a problem of over-diagnosis?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
In many areas of life, an explosion of diagnostic labels seem to have expanded far beyond straightforward medical prognosis. Medicine seems to have become tangled up with fashionable identities, and a zeitgeist that stresses vulnerability and victimhood. How do such trends affect medical ethics, let alone reliable medical interventions?
One such example is the jokey aphorism ‘we’re all neurodiverse now’ – from the lawyer of the QAnon Shaman blaming his client’s behaviour on his autism to rising diagnoses among students. In workplaces and university campuses, neurodiversity awareness is ubiquitous, with more and more people identifying as ‘on the spectrum’. According to some estimates, as many as 20 per cent of the global population are neurodivergent, spanning everything from severe autism to dyslexia and ADHD. Particularly among women, there has been a sharp increase in ADHD diagnoses in the last year, with record numbers of prescriptions for ADHD medicine in 2024 – the UK is in fact suffering from an ADHD medicine shortage because of increased demand.
Elsewhere, there is contention over the explosion of young people who self-identity as gender dysphoric. A readiness to accept social transitioning in what has been described as social contagion amongst teenage girls has led to the conclusion that anyone declaring themselves gender-confused is in need of medical intervention, whether psychotherapeutic, biomedical or surgical. Advocates of transgender medicine argue against medical ‘gatekeeping’, demanding access to hormones and surgery as part of a patient’s bodily autonomy. However, some mental-health practitioners in the UK and US have testified that they face ideological pressure to put dysphoric patients on a medical pathway. In a 2021 study, 55 detransitioners of a group of 100 stated that they were not given an adequate professional evaluation before receiving clearance for medical transition. What’s more, some gender-critical commentators suggest that there is pressure to misdiagnose the confusions of puberty, same-sex attraction and broader mental-health issues as simply gender dysphoria.
Central to the debate is the premise that doctors, nurses and therapists are obliged to act in a patient’s best interests. But is it always clear what these interests are? Should individuals and their families get the final say? Is the rise in diagnoses due to an actual rise in numbers, expanding definitions, or clinicians and therapists getting better at identifying symptoms? Or are we over-diagnosing the likes of neurodiversity and gender-dysphoria, even pathologising behaviour which in the past may have been described as shy, socially awkward or perhaps a bit quirky? Do medical diagnoses help people understand their difficulties in interacting with the world by giving them a vocabulary and practical accommodations that help manage and alleviate debilitating discomforts? And what are the implications for medical ethics and health policy, when diagnoses have become so closely linked to understanding our identities?
SPEAKERSDave Clementswriter and policy advisor; contributing co-editor The Future of Community
Dr Jennifer Cunninghamretired community paediatrician; board member, Scottish Union for Education (SUE)
Dr Az Hakeemconsulting psychiatrist; author, Trans and Detrans
Sophie Spitalspeaker; writer; former editor, Triggernometry
CHAIRSally Millarddirector of finance; co-founder, AoI Parents Forum