Academy Of Ideas

Discussion of the news, race and policing in America and Immanuel Kant In this edition of the Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and Dave Bowden discuss the big stories of the past few weeks, including the scandal at Kid’s Company, doping in sport and the row over falling milk prices. Rob speaks to Jean Smith from the New York Salon about race and policing in America ahead of her session on the subject at the Battle of Ideas, and we have Steve Murphy’s mini lecture from the Institute’s recent event University in One Day on Immanuel Kant and the nature of enlightenment.

In this edition of the Podcast of Ideas Rob Lyons, Claire Fox and Dave Bowden discuss the big stories of the last few weeks including the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, the fall of Lord Sewell, the Ashley Madison leak, David Cameron's miguided strategy for tackling ISIS and the Brighton smoking ban.

Highlights from the Institute's Justice Money Power debates at the City of London Festival In this week’s podcast we here some of the most informative and inspiring speeches from the Institute’s recent Justice, Money and Power debates at the City of London Festival, including chairman of the Night Time Industry Association’s Alan Miller’s defence of the night-time economy as a force for societal good at our Fight For Your Right To Party debate at the Bishopsgate Institute. Economist Phil Mullan gives a worrying prognosis for the British economy unless we can stimulate real econonic growth at our Are We Heading For Another Crisis? event, also at the Bishopsgate Institute. Architect Alastair Donald makes a powerful argument for building huge numbers of new houses across the UK to end the housing crisis at A Tale Of Two Cities: Skyscrapers And Slums at London & Partners, and Professor of Law John Fitzpatrick gives a history of the development of human liberties since Magna Carta and proff

In this week’s Podcast of Ideas, Rob speaks to Greg Lukianoff from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) about the fight for freedom of speech on US campuses amid an increasingly intolerant climate. Following the Institute’s inaugural University in One Day this week, we hear Sebastian Morello’s mini-lecture from the event on why Pico della Mirandola’s 1486 Oration on the Dignity of Man is a foundational work for humanist thought. David Bowden and Adam Rawcliffe come in to give us their views on the week’s news stories, and Nadia Butt reports back on last weekend’s Debating Matter National Final at the British Library in London.

In this week’s Podcast of Ideas, Rob Lyons and David Bowden dissect the week’s news including the pope’s encyclical on climate change, the Rachel Dolzeal fiasco and the oppressive licensing laws killing off the nation’s nightlife. Professor Alan Hudson talks about University in One Day, the Institute’s new initiative for sixth formers, and why the Renaissance matters. Jason Smith tells us about next week’s Debating Matters National Final, and we hear some of the highlights from the recent Birmingham Salon event on the rise of transgender issues as a political force. 

In official terms, ‘the vulnerable’ used to be narrowly defined by the 1995 Care Commission report as referring to people in extreme circumstances, like the homeless, or those unable to look after themselves mentally or physically. Today, however, it is the term of choice to describe anyone and everyone deemed to be in need of sympathy, especially those hit by government cuts – ‘a savage attack on the most vulnerable members of our society’, etc - but also much more widely. The unemployed are vulnerable to depression; women are vulnerable to ‘everyday sexism’; immigrants are vulnerable to trafficking or even slavery, not to mention FGM; teenage girls are vulnerable to body-image issues; and teenage boys are vulnerable to being warped by pornography. A coroner recently called on the Ministry of Defence to review its care for vulnerable soldiers at risk of suicide and bullying. Meanwhile, more radical campaigners increasingly seem to see ‘vulnerability’ as a collective condition affecting just about everyone un

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.  

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.

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 beginnin

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.

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.

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 Gittos This 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.

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 f

In the first podcast in a new series, Rob Lyons speaks to Dave Bowden about the state of press freedom in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, Justine Brian fills us in on the latest news from Debating Matters, and Geoff Kidder gives us the lowdown on the upcoming Greek elections.