Academy of Ideas

#PodcastOfIdeas: Solving the housing crisis, scrapping the Human Rights Act and a breakthrough in autism research

In this edition of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons talks to Alastair Donald from the Future Cities Project about what can be done to solve the UK's housing crisis and barrister Jon Holbrook comes in to tell us why he would scrap the Human Rights Act. Rob also talks to Dr Fiona McEwen from King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry on new research, which appears to show that autism is largely caused by genetic and not environmental factors, members of the Institute of Ideas team give us their opinions on the week's stories, and Geoff Kidder reports back from the inaugural session of the Dublin Salon.  

#PodcastOfIdeas: Richard III, General Election and rejuvenating the economy

#PodcastOfIdeas: Racial equality laws, free speech on campus and tackling childhood obesity

In this week's podcast of Ideas David Bowden talks to Dolan Cummings about whether racial equality laws are now, or ever have been, needed in the UK, Rob Lyons addresses an event held by Policy Exchange on childhood obesity, and spiked's assistant editor Tom Slater comes in to talk about the Down With Campus Censorship! campaign.

#BattleFest2014: Ukraine: Cold War rebooted?

The recent crisis in Ukraine has been widely portrayed in the West as a rerun of the Cold War, with a peaceful pro-EU Ukraine being pulled apart as the result of an aggressive and newly expansionist Russia seeking to re-establish hegemony over its neighbourhood. Russia’s annexing of the Ukrainian region of Crimea has been roundly condemned as violating international law, state sovereignty, democracy and causing the most serious crisis in European security since the end of the Cold War. The situation is complicated, however, by the close historic ties between Russia and Ukraine and the fact that many Russian-speaking Ukrainians want to maintain them, as well as the fact that Crimea was actually part of Russia within living memory.
Significantly, however, in recent decades Russia has tended to cite the importance of national sovereignty in opposition to Western-led foreign interventions; this is the first time it has accepted the idea that sovereignty can be overridden by other concerns. So is this the beginning of a newly aggressive Russian foreign policy, or is Ukraine a special case?
Some commentators have presented a different narrative from the Western one of Russian expansionism, pointing to European and American actions in the run-up to the crisis, such as US senator John McCain’s visit to anti-government protesters in Kiev’s Maidan before the fall of the government. It is argued that the EU and the American directly intervened with the effect of destabilising Ukraine by delegitimising an elected government and effectively hand-picking a new government, alarming many Ukrainians, in particular those in the Crimea and other Russian-speaking areas. Appeals to Ukrainian national sovereignty are further complicated by the fact that anti-Russian Ukrainians’ desire to join the EU arguably means swapping client status with one bigger power for another.
So who is right? How should we understand the current crisis over Ukraine? Is it a new Cold War provoked by Russian aggression or do we need to look closer to home to understand the causes?
 
SPEAKERS
 
Professor Ivan Krastev Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia; permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna
 
Dr Tara McCormack lecturer in international politics, University of Leicester; author, Critique, Security and Power: the political limits to emancipatory approaches
 
Will Vernon producer, BBC News (speaking in a personal capacity)
 
Dr Kataryna Wolczuk reader in politics and international studies, University of Birmingham
 
CHAIR
 
Bruno Waterfield Brussels correspondent, Daily Telegraph; co-author, No Means No

#PodcastOfIdeas: Tax avoidance, plain packs and the sharing economy

In this episode of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons talks to economics journalist and author Daniel Ben-Ami about what tax has become one of the biggest issues in British politics and Rob Killick about whether Uber and AirBnB represent the first shoots of a new economy. Plus, Claire Fox explains why state-regulation of what appears on a cigarette pack is a free-speech issue and Institute of Ideas staff select their stories of the past two weeks.

#PodcastOfIdeas: Copenhagen terror attacks, the history of theatre and the FGM panic

In this episode of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons speaks to Professor Bill Durodié about last week’s terror attacks in Copenhagen and the implications they have for free speech in Europe. Claire Fox talks about how societal change and the emergence of the public has been reflected through theatre down the ages. And Bríd Hehir tells Rob about how the panic stirred up over female genital mutilation has prompted a witch hunt against physicians and parents.

#LondonLegalSalon: Abortion and Protest - Do We Need Buffer Zones?

In late 2014 the Labour party indicated their support for legal ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics to prevent protests from interfering with the provision of services. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain's largest abortion provider, supported the move saying that the pro-life protests outside their clinics cause unwarranted levels of distress to those seeking to access lawful healthcare. Is this an acceptable limitation on the freedom to protest, or an unnecessary expansion of the law into the regulation of free speech?Speakers: Frank Furedi (University of Kent), Tim Stanley (Daily Telegraph).Chair: Luke GittosThis Podcast was recorded at the London Legal Salon event at the October Gallery in London on February 10 2015. To find out more about the London Legal Salon's upcoming series of debates on abortion click here.

#BattleFest2013: Do we live in a top-shelf society?

Sexually explicit material has always challenged censors
and traditional moralists. From the 1960s, liberal values on sex and
sexual relationships became one of the markers of a civilised, modern
society. Over the past decade, however, there’s a gnawing unease that
sexually explicit material has gradually stepped down from the top shelf
and into the mainstream. Whether it was Rihanna’s raunchy display on The X Factor,
Jonathan Ross’ lewd chat shows or Katie Perry simulating oral sex in
pop videos, pornographic imagery has become the wallpaper of
twenty-first-century society. With the rise of the increasingly
ubiquitous ‘celebrity sex tape’, fans of chart-friendly pop stars such
as Tulisa Contostavlos are exposed to increasingly graphic and intimate
depictions of their icons. And then there’s Fifty Shades of Grey.
Traditional moralists have always found much to censor in modern
society, but when former champions of sexual liberalism, such as Joan
Bakewell, start bemoaning the onslaught of naked flesh into the living
room, something appears to have changed. Indeed, it is fortysomething
ex-punk journalists turned parents who have started to wonder aloud why
thong-thrusting pop videos are being shown at lunchtime.
But could it be argued that we’ve been here many times before? From
Elvis Presley and David Bowie to Madonna and Prince, pop stars have
sought to challenge and question society’s taboos around sex. Surely
Rihanna and Perry are simply the latest practitioners of taboo busting
exhibitionism? Or is it the case that sex and relationships have become
devalued, with porn aesthetics the new low-grade currency? A civilised
society should be open about sex, but are we in danger of forgetting
that civilised values also means the separation of the public and
private, the decent and the debased? Is the rush to smash sexual taboos a
sign of healthy libertarianism or of self-loathing by a cultural elite
unwilling and unable to promote higher culture? Are the sexual-taboo
smashers really hammering elite traditionalists and conservatives or is
it a radical way of sneering at ordinary people’s ‘small minded’ values? Neil Davenportwriter; head of sociology, JFS Sixth Form Centre; contributor, spikedDr Jan Macvarishresearch
fellow, Centre for Health Services Studies; founding associate, Centre
for Parenting Culture Studies, University of Kent, CanterburyAnna Percyfeminist
performance poet; member, Stirred Feminist Poetry collective; organiser
and facilitator, live poetry events and writing workshops Chair:



Suzy Dean
freelance writer; blogger, Free Society