Academy of Ideas

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: Matt Ridley discusses his new book in conversation with Rob Lyons. Innovation is key to economic growth and the improvement of human welfare. In his new book, How Innovation Works, Matt Ridley examines how new technologies, products and medical advances come about. He notes that innovation is more than mere invention - the aim is not simply to create an interesting new device, for example, but to produce something that is genuinely useful and widely available. What drives innovation? Is he right to conclude that we cannot speed up innovation through central direction? What are the barriers to greater innovation now and in the future? Matt Ridley and Rob Lyons discuss.

SPORTSCAST OF IDEAS: For months the lockdown has starved us of sport. But in the past couple of weeks it has made something of a return. And not only are the back pages and sports channels sparking into life but football, rugby, tennis, cricket have all made the front pages too as they become entangled with the big issues of our times, whether the coronavirus pandemic or Black Lives Matter protests. Hilary Salt, Duleep Allirajah, Geoff Kidder, Rob Lyons and Alastair Donald discuss.

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: The Covid-19 pandemic has put an unusual strain on health systems around the world. What can we learn from how the NHS is dealing with the crisis? Should we continue with a model of healthcare that is both publicly funded and (mostly) publicly provided? Could we learn from other countries’ systems that have coped better? Are the problems the NHS has faced a result of politicians not backing up supportive words with adequate funding? Or has the NHS’s place as our ‘national religion’ prevented an honest debate about its future Kate Andrews, Dr Lee Jones, Henrik Overgaard-Nielsen and Patrick Vernon discuss.

ARTS & SOCIETY FORUM: When Patrick Marmion first saw Stephen Berkoff’s Greek as a student back in the Eighties at the Edinburgh Festival it blew his head off. A notoriously difficult man himself who has been accused of all sorts of sexual transgression, there are aspects of his writing which are gloriously uncomfortable for today’s audiences. And yet with all the repressive puritanism that’s accompanied the counter revolution against the liberalism of the Sixties and Seventies, too many writers have lost touch with their creative libidos and we have grown accustomed to a theatre that is led by bloodless, neutered moralists. Patrick Marmion and Wendy Earle discuss.

BOOK CLUB: Author Ella Whelan looks at how a modern interest in the politics of consent comes face to face with old-school romance in Sally Rooney's Normal People.

ECONOMY FORUM: Anyone who drives regularly will have noticed the sharp drop in petrol prices since the spate of lockdowns around the world and the fall in economic output. What’s going on? Robert Fig, a seasoned commodity risk practitioner, looks at what this all means for the future of world trade. Will negative pricing become a regular phenomenon? What does the future hold for commodity, bond and currency pricing in general?

EDUCATION FORUM: Passion and anger have greeted the Westminster government’s proposals for a phased return of school pupils. The largest teaching union, the National Education Union (NEU), says that 92% of its members feel unsafe at what it condemns as a “reckless” plan that is “too fast, too confusing and too risky”. It is advising members not to co-operate. Amid uncertainty around the degree of risk and public disagreement among scientists over the impact and necessity of the lockdown, what are teachers to do: focus on the worst-case scenario or rely on “good solid British common sense”, as exhorted by Boris Johnson? Claire Fox and Conor McCrory discuss.

BOOK CLUB: The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as they are forced into quarantine. Each person responds in their own way to the lethal disease: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame, and a few, like Dr Rieux, resist the terror. Sound familiar? David Bowden re-reads Albert Camus' classic. 

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: As we now all know, on 25 May, a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd was arrested on suspicion of paying for cigarettes with a fake $20 bill. Within 20 minutes he was dead - police officer Derek Chauvin had knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. Almost immediately, protests, often violent, spread across the US. American cities seem to be burning in righteous rage at the injustice. Since then, largely under the slogan of Black Lives Matter, spontaneous, mass demonstrations have taken place in solidarity with Floyd across the world. What does this all mean for those of us living outside the US? In the UK, protests have taken place in Hyde Park, Parliament Square and other areas with large numbers of mostly young people understandably appalled at racist violence wherever it happens. But are the parallels between the UK and America so obvious? As groups of white people publicly take the knee, is it significant that these discussions about race in 2020 are framed in terms of white privilege and identity, instead of a collective fight against racism? Patrick Vernon OBE, Inaya Folarin Iman, Dr Shahrar Ali, Kunle Olulode and Dr Cheryl Hudson discuss.

LOCKDOWN DEBATE: The worldwide response to the pandemic has challenged many long-cherished values. Democracy was put on hold, with elections postponed and parliaments in recess. Freedoms were curtailed, with extensive powers granted to police forces. Traditional markers of compassion, like funerals, were cancelled. And many say that essential workers, from nurses to shop-assistants, were put in harm’s way. Amidst such widespread moral challenges, how are we to decide what’s right? Whilst a rich tradition of philosophy reflects on how to be moral, can it be useful in such ‘unprecedented’ times? Is there anything we can learn from history? When we are urged to ‘follow the science’ and obey government guidance, is there any room for individual judgement and moral autonomy? Susan Neiman and Frank Furedi discuss.