The World Cup is back – and so is the World Cup Podcast of Ideas. With the biggest-ever tournament kicking off on Thursday 11 June across the US, Mexico and Canada, we’ve got the team together to discuss some of the burning issues.

First things first: are we actually looking forward to it? With 48 teams taking part for the first time, there will be many more games than in previous tournaments. Is there a danger of football fatigue with so many matches or is it a historic opportunity for smaller nations to get their moment in the spotlight?

Given that the bulk of the tournament is happening in America, the usual accusations of over-commercialisation are more prevalent than ever. There’s even a half-time show for the final, an idea borrowed from the Super Bowl. Does stopping for 45 minutes to listen to Coldplay and K-Pop really have a place in the beautiful game? And why are why is FIFA mucking about with the rules - again?

And what of the experience for fans, particularly with huge ticket prices and big distances between matches? What will that do for the World Cup atmosphere, inside and outside stadiums?

Most importantly: who will win, and who are the ‘dark horses’ for glory beyond the usual suspects that might be worth a punt? Can England finally win it after ‘60 years of hurt’? Can Scotland break out of the group stage for the first time?

And for those who love to get a bit of World Cup merch: who will be sporting the best kit – and the worst?

You can listen by clicking on the button below, or on Podbean, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can also listen on your favourite podcast player – just search for Academy of Ideas.

Subscribe now

Share

Battle of Ideas festival is the UK’s premier annual festival of debate on the biggest issues of our times. And wow, there are a lot of issues to discuss. In the wake of revelations about the police’s inhumane treatment of stabbing victim Henry Nowak, which has shocked the nation and had international coverage, those at the heart of the British government attempted to tone-police the way it was discussed in public. Use of the phrase ‘pure, cold rage’ was dubbed incitement, the accurate debate about ‘two-tier policing’ was condemned as divisive. Policy discussion about whether a faux anti-racism, imbibed by every police force via EDI training, was itself described as stirring up racial tensions. The mood of ‘you can’t say that’ is too often a feature of social and cultural exchanges. Not, however, at the Battle of Ideas festival.

Because, unlike so many other festivals, the Battle of Ideas has the motto Free Speech Allowed. It’s not just a talking shop for the great and the good. Attendees are as much a part of our festival as the speakers. Indeed, we think that the audience is the festival. From the ongoing crises in British politics and society to tectonic shifts in world affairs, there is a lot to debate and think about.

The UK has plenty of problems to face at the moment, from a flatlining economy to frequent controversies about immigration, social cohesion and the lack of consensus about the past, the present and the future. Instead, we are offered endless shenanigans about who should lead the government, while the various contenders offer little or nothing in the way of an inspiring vision of the future.

Worse, the internal civil war in the Labour Party has imposed an unnecessary by-election on one local area, local voters reduced to being mere devices to affect a prime ministerial job swap, with no discernible big ideas to merit such manoeuvres. As one X poster noted wryly about professional Northerner Andy Burnham: ‘He’s Keir Starmer with more emotion, and a Paul Smith t-shirt.’ Of course, the rise of Reform and the Greens indicate an ever-growing disenchantment with politics as usual. Whether these parties are fit for purpose will no doubt be hotly contested at the festival.

Whoever is crowned Labour prime minister, one trend that is guaranteed to continue is the tendency to substitute ever-greater regulation and prohibition in place of social and economic progress. Attacks on free speech are so common in the UK that they’ve drawn international attention and condemnation. But at every level, right down to the minutiae of everyday life, politicians seem keen to ban things, from social media for under-16s to smoking cigarettes for anyone born after 2009. Far from living in a ‘free market’ society, government wants to regulate the price of energy, rent and even food. All this while the traditional institutions of the state, from policing to healthcare and beyond, increasingly let us down. Why is this happening and how can we fix it?

Meanwhile, geopolitics is in flux and feels dangerously out of control. Conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon have now been joined by the war in Iran. The choking of the Strait of Hormuz has thrown the world economy into turmoil – hot on the heels of events around Venezuela and Greenland. America – like Russia in Ukraine – is discovering that overwhelming firepower can be made meaningless by drones and other cheap weapons that give weaker countries the capability to stay in the fight. What does that mean for the future of warfare?

The ‘Western alliance’ has never been under such strain since the Second World War. Is this just the impulsiveness of Donald Trump or has he simply brought longstanding tensions into the open? And is the UK even fit to defend itself, let alone intervene more broadly, when one of Labour’s own grandees, Lord George Robertson, described the stasis on defence spending and security as an example of ‘corrosive complacency’. Hardly reassuring.

The world economy was creaking even before events in Iran. The UK government is not alone in facing an enormous debt burden – America, France, Italy and Japan are in the same boat. Are we facing a global sovereign debt crisis? Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken off, but does the new technology offer the economic benefits of industrial revolutions of the past or is it a threat to our futures – and will we even have the energy supplies to power it? What will be the impacts in wider society, from education to culture?

With all this going on, the need for open and honest debate has never been greater. Yet many people seem stuck in intellectual silos and political tribes, unable to engage with those who disagree with them. Social divides – between young and old, men and women – seem to be entrenched. The role of the media – whether it is the mainstream broadcasters and outlets, the rising tide of ‘new’ media or the flurry of information and debate on X, TikTok and Facebook and the rest – needs some critical interrogation. Do we need to relearn the fine art of disagreement?

We’ll be discussing all this and much more over the course of the festival weekend in London and in our various events before and after, taking place across the UK and Europe. Come along, listen to the arguments and have your say. If you’re interested in what is going on in the world, have an opinion and want to challenge others – and be challenged yourself – then Battle of Ideas festival is a fantastic experience. Join us on 17 & 18 October at Church House in Westminster. There is nothing like being there.

Subscribe now

Share

‘We’ve just been attacked racially by some white person.’ Vickrum Digwa’s brother instinctively knew which buttons to press to mobilise the British state. The ideology behind the treatment of Henry Nowak, and sadly now a growing list of state failure in the name of anti-racism, is – of course - a political one.

It is now widely accepted that police and local authorities failed to pursue the participants in grooming gangs in part because of fears over community tensions and accusations of racism. Yet the comparison with Nowak’s case becomes clearest when viewed through individual examples. A father arrested twice for trying to rescue his 14-year-old daughter from a gang of Asian men. A Labour councillor dismissing victims as ‘poor white trash’. Girls, plied with alcohol and drugs by their abusers, routinely picked up for drunken and disorderly behaviour. Time and again, the machinery of the state seemed more willing to suspect the victims than their assailants.

The most uncomfortable thing about the police footage of Henry Nowak’s arrest is the apparent disregard for his life. ‘I don’t think you have, mate’, an officer replies after Henry tells him he has been stabbed. It reflects the immediate profiling of a likely drunk, white racist who, in the eyes of the police, had abused a respectable Sikh family and therefore was not worth listening to. You can see the prejudice of the police operating in real time.

Of course, the officers in question have not yet been dismissed, pending an investigation. The Independent Office of Police Conduct says they are currently being treated solely as witnesses. In recent years, it seems that the most egregious crime an officer can commit is not the facilitation of the death of an 18-year-old university student, but making racist remarks. For example, who could forget the BBC’s brave, courageous and desperately needed Panorama film in which an officer was plied with nine pints of Guinness before making off-colour remarks about Arabs and Algerians being the ‘worst’ criminals to deal with?

The ideas of ‘unconscious bias’, ‘white privilege’ and ‘systemic racism’ have been drilled into a generation of workers thanks to the EDI-ification of society. After the Manchester Arena bombing, in which 22 people were murdered, security personnel admitted they had not approached the suspicious perpetrator because ‘I was scared of being wrong and being branded a racist if I got it wrong and would have got into trouble’. Risks identified by teachers regarding Axel Rudakubana, who later murdered three young girls in Southport, reportedly went unreported because of concerns about stereotyping a ‘black boy with a knife’. Valdo Calocane, who killed three people in Nottingham, was discharged from care amid concerns about the over-representation of young black men in detention.

Subscribe now

Of course, pleas to ‘not politicise’ these tragedies – driven by an ideology that nobody voted for – are selectively applied dependent on the victim. The murder of George Floyd, thousands of miles away, prompted calls for political reform here in the UK. The House of Commons and the House of Lords held a minute’s silence for Floyd – but that seems unlikely for Nowak. The police shooting of career criminal Chris Kaba sparked calls for justice, institutional reform and the vilification of firearms officers by Sadiq Khan, Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn. Yet when the full facts were laid out at trial, the officer in question was acquitted by a jury in just three hours.

Going by the testimony heard at the Nottingham Inquiry – where bereaved families said institutions closed ‘ranks to try to keep us quiet’ – there is a fair chance that Henry Nowak’s parents could face similar pressures as they seek answers about their son’s death. How Henry’s parents grieve, and what they choose to do, is entirely up to them. Yet the Nottingham Inquiry, and the determination of the victims’ families, has demonstrated the importance of persistently challenging rotting public bodies and demanding transparency. As Emma Webber – mother of one of Calocane’s victims, Barnaby Webber – told the hearing: ‘We have faced evasion, self-protection, avoidance and downright lies so many times.’ That observation could apply to every tragedy mentioned above. Depoliticising these events only serves the government and the institutions that fail us.

Why was Henry Nowak’s killer not arrested at the time? Why did officers search Henry’s phone for evidence of racist abuse? While Digwa’s father and brother have been charged with weapons offences, why have they not been charged as accessories after the fact? (His mother awaits sentencing after being convicted of hiding the murder weapon.) As Dr Sanjoy Kumar told the Nottingham Inquiry, ‘there wasn’t a single institution involved in our case that didn’t fail’.

Until those questions – and others – are answered, we must not ‘move on’. Accountability is not hatred. Perhaps Farage is correct and on this – ‘we should be angry’. Because if a young man’s death, a catalogue of institutional failures, and a political ideology that repeatedly seems to blind public bodies to reality, cannot justify our anger, then what can?

Share

On 16 May, Pope Leo XIV published a new encyclical – a letter to all Catholic bishops and directed to the wider church – on the question of artificial intelligence. Usually, grand statements from the Vatican on social issues are scarcely worthy of comment, with a tendency to echo the latest liberal orthodoxies that is second only to the Church of England – but this one has some merit.

First, the title: Magnifica Humanitas: of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on Safeguarding the Human Person In The Time Of Artificial Intelligence. At a time when humanity is definitely not widely regarded as ‘magnificent’, this is a welcome cheer for the human race. Only a couple of weeks ago, we were celebrating the hundredth birthday of Sir David Attenborough. It is a sign of the times that a ‘national treasure’ can also believe humanity is a ‘plague on the Earth’.

Second, this is a serious attempt to prompt an ethical discussion about what we should do about AI. There are lots of practical problems with AI, such as its capacity to ‘hallucinate’ facts and references (or to simply get things wrong) and the problems of plundering the copyrighted works of writers and artists to train on and regurgitate in different form.

There is also the question of what happens to source websites that rely on advertising when your search engine (looking at you, Google) jumps in with AI-powered answers culled from these sites. What is the business model if advertising is no longer a viable funding source because these sites get far fewer visitors? Will AI ultimately diminish the very sources it relies upon?

Nonetheless, the potential for AI to make our lives easier is there. We need to figure out what it is good or bad at and how best to use it. Given the energy demands that data centres place on electricity grids now and in the future – apparently, nearly a quarter of Ireland’s electricity is already used to power data centres – what does that mean for the future of energy production?

But beyond these practical questions, few world leaders are in a position to step back and approach an ethical discussion of AI. On that point at least, the encyclical could prove to be a useful focus for debate – especially as a human-centred view.

In one of the most quoted passages, the encyclical says:

Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice. In the abstract, technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity’s problems, just as it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it. Therefore, the primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that claims to dominate the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence.

Now, I handed in my membership card for The God Squad a long time ago, so I don’t really worry that we’re not building AI ‘in the presence of God’. But making sure that AI doesn’t lay waste to everything in its path, that it actually serves people, seems like a worthwhile aim.

For example, it seems reasonable to wonder about a future in which war is conducted using autonomous weapons. As Ukraine has shown, getting good at drone warfare can be enormously useful for those countries that can’t put millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks and aircraft on to the battlefield. But if autonomous drones and other weapons can slaughter at will, who’s in charge? What’s left of the moral element of the decision to kill or not to kill? You don’t have to envisage a Terminator-style takeover by the machines to have some concerns about all this.

Some kind of regulation of what AI does and how it handles data seems appropriate. On the other hand, since we’re still fumbling around figuring out what AI is and what it can or can’t do, premature and heavy-handed regulation could make it harder for startups to exploit the power of the technology, leaving the field to massive companies with well-funded compliance departments. There is a risk that in wanting AI companies to ‘play fair’, the massive incumbents are allowed to rule the roost when a powerful restraint on them – competition – is held back.

There is much to talk about around these issues and the Battle of Ideas festival on 17 & 18 October in Westminster will be a great place to have these conversations. The AoI team has just had a big Battle of Ideas programming meeting and AI will be one of the major topics up for discussion, along with the big issues in politics – both domestic and international – economics, the arts and culture, science, the media and, above all, free speech. Early-bird tickets are still available so please buy yours now and join the conversation!

Subscribe now

Share

‘Let me tell you about who I was before.’ That’s how Or Levy – an Israeli who spent 491 days as a hostage in Gaza – softly began to speak. I hope that, for those of us who heard him, we hold onto those words in some small way. For when you immerse yourself in such trauma, you are surely meant to walk away somewhat burdened by it.

The Nova Exhibition in London is a deliberately disorienting mess. Belongings recovered from the music festival are strewn across the floor for you to examine. I looked through a notebook filled with the most mundane customer-service surveys, admired a typically found festival ukulele, and noticed a pillow embroidered with the words ‘oh my gawd’. I hadn’t even realised that spelling carried a distinctly Jewish cadence, despite hearing my own Jewish grandmother say it all my life.

I’ve visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum and the Hiroshima National Peace Memorial. In each of those places, I immersed myself in suffering silently, but at the Nova Exhibition you are harried by noise. In every corner there’s a phone, a TV screen and a tablet replaying footage from October 7th. Some are quiet, some loud. Panic meets gunfire. ‘Allahu Akbar’ is the one constant. It creates a terrifying approximation of what those final moments must have felt like for the victims.

The loudest video is that of Shani Louk. Her broken, partially naked body is twisted in the back of a pickup truck, with men crouched over her as though guarding a prize. It is impossible not to confront the obscenity of it: how can someone so young, so visibly full of life only hours earlier, be reduced to this? What terrible hatred must exist to drag this pacifist from happiness and laughter to an end met with humiliation and celebration?

I had to rewatch the video a handful of times to confirm what I thought I saw – a boy leaning over her body to spit on her. I found myself asking: would the 18-year-old in Whitechapel who was recently arrested after allegedly shouting, ‘You Jews are gonna get beheaded one by one, you dirty Jews’ have reacted differently if placed in that crowd?

‘Normal’ is how you would describe much of the display at the Nova Exhibition. The dusty chairs and tents reminded me of the same exhausted disorder I experienced on my last day at Reading Festival when I was 16. The men pouring over the border separating Gaza and Israel were dressed in hoodies and trainers, not military garb. Even the ‘Econova Project’ – an initiative to ban single-use plastics at the festival – echoed the fashionable environmental causes that drift through equivalent British festivals.

However, the most devastatingly ‘normal’ part of the Nova Festival was the way it resonated with the Jewish experience. One of the selected quotes read: ‘They shot at us in the car. They turned my brother into a sieve; they left nothing of him. I have nothing to bury… I have nothing to bury.’ One of the great horrors of the Holocaust was not simply that millions of Jews were murdered, but that so many were denied dignity even in death. Entire families vanished into gas chambers and crematoria, leaving behind no grave to visit, no body to mourn over, nothing to bury.

Or Levy described how, during the 491 days he was held hostage, he had no idea if his wife was alive. I thought of my grandmother’s family – trapped in a ghetto in Bulgaria, no idea if my great-grandfather lived after he was taken by soldiers to a concentration camp.

One of the videos explained how a group of festivalgoers hid in the home of a Holocaust survivor. It breaks my heart that those survivors have still never truly been allowed to separate themselves from such suffering – they have instead been reminded of their pain generations later.

It makes me ashamed to be British that Holocaust survivors in the UK no longer wish to live here. What does it tell us when British Jews may visit an exhibition detailing the deaths of hundreds of people in Israel for simply being Jewish, yet travel to the same land, seeking refuge, months later?

This interview with a pro-Palestinian activist on GB News’s Free Speech Nation shows the impact the Nova Exhibition can have. I’d urge everyone, whatever your views on the conflict in Gaza, to visit it with an open mind.

Nova Exhibition London is now open until 5 July. Find out more here.

Share

Subscribe now

The next Academy of Ideas Battle Book Club will be discussing A Better Life by Lionel Shriver on Tuesday 30 June from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm (via Zoom). The discussion is free to join and offers an opportunity to unpick questions of immigration and integration, home and community, responsibility and ambition. Find out more and register here.

Meanwhile, an Academy of Ideas member and political activist, who writes as J.R. Turner, has written a political thriller, State of Exception. Here, he explains why he wrote it and its themes below.

Claire

Subscribe now

How I accidentally wrote a political thriller

J.R. Turner

I did not set out to write a novel. I set out to get through a period of my life when my own mind would not switch off.

When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, I needed somewhere to put my thoughts that was not the diagnosis itself. I started writing – not with a plan, not with a publisher in mind, not even with a clear sense of what the story was. Just a character, a situation, and a political world that felt uncomfortably close to the one outside my window.

That was the beginning of State of Exception.

I wrote it chapter by chapter, mostly during the hours when sleep would not come. The story kept growing. Characters became real to me in the way fictional people sometimes do – not as constructs, but as people with pressures and histories and things they were trying to protect. The political world sharpened. The stakes got higher. By the time I put it all together, it was nearly a quarter of a million words, and had to become a duology.

I never thought of myself as a novelist. I am still not entirely sure I do. Which is perhaps why I write fiction as J. R. Turner – a small but necessary distance between the person who has to answer questions in public life and the one who gets to ask them on the page.

State of Exception follows a British prime minister navigating a series of crises that arrive, not one at a time, as they might in a more orderly world, but simultaneously and in ways that make each one harder to manage because of the others. A security threat. A constitutional rupture. An international situation that refuses to stay contained. A parliament that senses weakness and begins to move.

The prime minister at the centre of it is not a hero in any clean sense. He is competent, principled, and genuinely trying to do the right thing – but the novel is less interested in whether he succeeds than in what the effort costs him, and what it reveals about the system he is trying to hold together. His family are present throughout. So are his closest advisers, his Cabinet, his political opponents and the international figures applying pressure from the outside. The cast is large because the situation demands it. A crisis of this scale does not resolve in one room.

What interested me most in writing it was not the drama of the events themselves – though I hope the drama is there – but the machinery underneath. The way decisions actually get made in government. The way information moves, or fails to move. The way institutions that look solid from the outside can be revealed, under pressure, to be held together largely by convention and the willingness of people inside them to keep behaving as though the rules still apply – and what happens when that willingness starts to erode.

I work in politics. I have spent a long time paying close attention to the gap between what it looks like from the outside – the statements, the briefings, the performances – and what it actually feels like from inside the room where the real choices get made. That gap is where the novel lives. Fiction gave me the freedom to explore it in ways that a political speech, or a policy document, never could.

The themes that run through it are not ones I chose deliberately. They emerged from the story as I wrote it. Power and how it changes people. Loyalty and where its limits are. The difference between defending an institution and hiding behind it. The cost of leadership when the situation is genuinely hard and the easy options have already run out.

And underneath all of it, a question the book keeps returning to without ever quite answering directly: when a democratic system comes under serious pressure, what actually holds it together – the rules, or the people?

Book One is out now. Book Two is almost ready, and picks up directly where the first left off – the crises are not resolved so much as transformed. And somewhere in the insomnia that started all of this, an outline for a third novel, entirely unrelated to this one, has already begun to take shape.

I did not expect any of this. I started writing to get through something difficult. What I found, somewhere along the way, was that the story had more in it than I had put there – and that finishing it felt like it mattered, in a way I had not anticipated when I began.

Some distractions, it turns out, have more life in them than you expect. If a political thriller by a new writer is your cup of tea, you can buy State of Exception: Book 1 via Amazon.

Share

It’s the final weekend for applications to Living Freedom Summer School, the annual residential event organised by Ideas Matter. The deadline for applications is next Tuesday, 26 May. If you doubted the importance of participating in this event – or need an incentive to forward this Substack and spread the word to as many young people as possible – then a snapshot of the state of freedom over the past week should be persuasive.

Take the gathering of thousands from around the UK who descended on London last weekend to demand their voices be heard and express concerns over broken borders and a loss of cultural identity. Whatever one’s view of the organisers or their politics at the Unite the Kingdom rally, Keir Starmer’s decision to label attendees as ‘peddling hatred and division, plain and simple’ goes way beyond expressing political disagreement and amounts to yet another attempt to silence the people’s views by labelling them bigots.

Meanwhile, the rally and attendees were subject to extraordinary levels of political scrutiny and policing designed to restrict freedom in several new ways. Eleven foreign speakers – including democratically elected or prospective politicians such Flemish MP Filip Dewinter, Polish MEP Dominik Tarczyński and Republican candidate Valentina Gomez – were barred from entering the UK to address the crowds. Moreover, live facial-recognition technology was deployed on a march for the first time, scanning attendees across central London under the justification of preventing disorder and identifying extremists.

Under the radar, another dangerous new development became clear. Police warned that both the Unite the Kingdom and the Nakba marches, taking place on the same day, would be subject to a condition that ‘the responsibility [rests] on the organiser as well as the speaker to stay within the law (on hate speech)’. Since when did we legislate for guilt by association on public demonstrations? Further, phrases such as ‘death to the IDF’ or ‘globalise the intifada’ could reportedly trigger charges arising from the Nakba march. The police even warned that photographs shared online from the demonstrations could potentially constitute hate speech, depending on the hashtags used or the placards visible in the background. On that basis, should we ban photographs in textbooks about pre-war Germany because vile messages might be on show?

The fact that so many Britons are now looking to Donald Trump’s America as a defender of free speech is itself a sign of how demoralised some people are about the possibilities of changing our own political culture. The Trump administration’s forthcoming freedom.gov anti-censorship portal is reportedly being flooded with British users, who make up the clear majority of visitors to the holding page. That should embarrass Britain’s political class.

The answer cannot simply be outsourcing the defence of our liberty to America. If freedom is to flourish here, Britons themselves will have to rebuild the culture and institutions capable of defending it.

At Living Freedom, we operate under the banner that ‘every generation must renew freedom for its own times’. There is no better place to start than by engaging in the brilliant programme of discussion and debate at this year’s Living Freedom Summer School. Get your application in NOW!

About Living Freedom Summer School

Join us from 9-11 July in central London for lectures, panel debates and workshops led by a brilliant line-up of thinkers, authors, critics and campaigners – including Frank Furedi, Ella Whelan, Nigel Biggar, Rosie Kay and Timandra Harkness. Topics range widely across contemporary issues related to freedom and free speech – from ‘What is a citizen?’ to ‘How to cultivate intellectual virtue?’, from narrative control to women’s freedom, from banning social media for under-16s to how far we should tolerate the intolerant.

Our heavily subsidised tickets cost just £50 (a saving of £450) and include meals and accommodation.

Apply now for Living Freedom Summer School 2026 using the button below. For more context to this year’s event, see Living Freedom Substack.

APPLY FOR LIVING FREEDOM SUMMER SCHOOL

Subscribe now

Share

We’re back with a new parliamentary session inside the Lords. A lot has happened, from the kicking Labour and the Tories got in the local elections at the hands of Reform and the Greens to wins for the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales - a mixed bag, shall we say. The Lords feels demoralised, not least because we’ve got to discuss the 35 bills coming up in this parliamentary session following the King’s Speech, many of which are dull if not dire, but also without the full backing of a fragmenting government. We’re in this odd situation where many ministers are expected to push a programme that they’re not entirely sure will exist in a few weeks or months, depending on when the Labour leadership election will eventually run.

So what are these new pieces of legislation? The government is pushing digital ID, abolishing jury trials, a new conversion-therapy bill to criminalise parents and those who work with young people who question transitioning and - you guessed it - running back to the EU. The pro-EU position is the government’s safe space, and Labour politicians have completely gone against the red lines they set out in their own manifesto about not going back on Brexit. You get five days of debate on the King’s Speech - and just four minutes each(!) - so I chose to take on the issue of national security. I used the example of the two demos on the weekend and the fact that our Prime Minister decided to target just one of those (the Unite the Kingdom march), because it’s much safer to opine about the far right than it is to tackle the vicious anti-Semitism present among some members of the pro-Palestine marches.

There are two recent events that I think really indicate where parliament is at at the moment. The first is the video published by the Department for Education featuring Bridget Phillipson and TOWIE’s reality-TV star Gemma Collins discussing how to ‘transform post-16 education’. I’ve no doubt Collins might have some ideas about skills and training, but the Labour Party has got her in for one reason only - they think her Essex charm is what will convince ‘ordinary people’. You can see the cogs whirring: ‘What will the working class relate to? Gemma Collins’.

The second event is the government’s shock decision to water down sanctions on Russian oil and gas. It initially looked like an obvious sell out of our solidarity with Ukranians and many British voters are rightly outraged. Since it hit the headlines (and I recorded this film), ministers have been scrambling to deny that that was their aim; that it’s been misrepresented (while admitting poor government communication). But no amount of gaslighting will cover up their back-pedalling from the boastful commitment it made months ago to Ukraine. And I can’t help but suspect it reveals yet again an underestimation of the electorate. The government has clearly had a panic about the price of flights with the summer holidays coming up, imagining voters will not tolerate any disruption to getting off on holidays for any noble cause, and so concluded that they should try to curry favour by getting a bit of jet fuel in at the expense of defending Ukrainian sovereignty. Of course, they can’t open up oil and gas fields because that would upset their net-zero targets.

Behind both the education video and the change in foreign policy is the Labour Party’s caricatured version of the working class, who they believe only switch on for influencers and only care about their summer holidays. This is what’s rotten at the heart of Labour.

We’re off again for Whitsun recess - I know, you couldn’t make it up - but what is really going to preoccupy everyone is the Makerfield by-election. Whether Andy Burnham’s Manchesterism will work to stop Reform from what would be a historic victory or not, he certainly believes his own hype. The arrogance of Burnham’s campaign is based on the idea that he is the change everyone wants, and yet his politics are pretty indiscernible from his potential leadership rivals. Just take Brexit - we all know that Burnham, Streeting, Starmer, Rayner - the lot of them - are all in favour of re-joining or re-aligning with the EU in one form or another. Let’s see what the Makerfield voters (65% of whom went for Leave in 2016 let’s remember) make of the return of the anti-Brexit campaign.

It can all feel a bit depressing at the moment, but if you like a laugh and are free on the 30 June, get a ticket to Stand-Up For Jews!: A night of laughter in the face of anti-Semitism. Our friend Andy Shaw from the Comedy Unleashed team and others have set up a one-off event at the Leicester Square Theatre, and all profits go towards supporting jewish volunteer services in London and campaigns against anti-Semitism like Stop The Hate and Our Fight. There has been war over whether or not the naff jokes at the Unite the Kingdom march where people took off hijabs should be allowed or not - there’s even a question on it in parliament. But what’s great about Comedy Unleashed is that they’re one of the only comedy outlets that defends the idea that satire should come without strings. No religion should be safe from ridicule, so I look forward to a night of laughter for a very important political cause. Book now.

The last thing I’d like to mention is a reminder of Living Freedom, a three-day residential school taking place in central London on 9-11 July, open to anyone aged 18 to 30, based in the UK or beyond. Are you keen to defend free speech? To challenge Big Tech and the growth of online censorship? Want to understand historic ideals of tolerance and moral autonomy? Do you have concerns about attacks on civil liberties or artists being cancelled for their views? Are you interested in exploring the arguments for and against single-sex spaces in an open and tolerant way? Then Living Freedom Summer School is for you. And, if you’re too old to attend like me, get your kids, grandkids, students and friends to sign up - the deadline for applications is 26 May.

Andy Burnham had already stated at the Labour Party conference last year: ‘Long term, I’m going to be honest, I’m going to say it, I want to rejoin it. Look, I hope in my lifetime I see this country rejoin the European Union.’ When pressed by ITV News on Saturday, he said that ‘in the long term there is a case for that’ but that he was ‘not advocating that in this by-election’.

None of this is exactly a shocker from the locker. The current prime minister, Keir Starmer, was at forefront of attempts to stop the UK leaving when he was shadow Brexit secretary. The majority of Labour members support rejoining. Earlier this month, LabourList reported on a Survation poll suggesting that ‘87 per cent of Labour members would back Britain returning to the European Union, with 72 per cent strongly supporting rejoining’. Two thirds of Labour members thought the party should make a commitment to rejoining.

Notably, such enthusiasm wanes markedly when the idea of joining the Euro – which would surely be a condition of rejoining the bloc – is added to the question. Does anyone think the idea of rejoining the EU – on much worse terms than we left on (no rebates on contributions or other opt-outs), with free movement restored, the obligation to join the single currency, no Thatcher-negotiated budget rebate and pitiful defence cooperation – is going to fly with the wider electorate? No wonder Streeting and Burnham are keeping such talk at the level of long-term aspiration.

Both Streeting and Burnham know the electorate that ultimately matters: Labour Party members, for they are the ones who will decide who the next leader is. That said, Burnham faces the prospect of fighting a by-election in Makerfield, an overwhelmingly Leave-supporting constituency – and both have been suitably vague about when we might actually rejoin. Indeed, today, clearly aware that a pro-rejoin position could be a disaster in the by-election, Burnham said: ‘I am not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU. I respect the decision that was made at the referendum and it’s going to undermine everything I’ve said about strengthening democracy if we don’t respect that vote.’

But the claim, repeated by Streeting, that leaving the EU has been ‘catastrophic’ is ironic given the latest UK economic data. The UK would appear to be the fastest growing of the G7 group of leading economies and growing faster than the Eurozone. So, Labour is simultaneously crowing about its brilliance in running the economy while claiming that we can only be saved by developing a closer relationship with an equally moribund EU.

The truth is that these latest figures probably flatter UK performance. We will wait to see how the rest of the year pans out. In reality, the UK economy is doing no better or worse than the countries that are reasonably similar to ours and somewhat worse than the United States. With better policies on energy, taxation, planning and more – which a UK government has much more freedom to implement thanks to Brexit – the UK economy could be lifted out of the doldrums.

Moreover, Streeting is wrong about free-trade deals. The UK is well ahead of the curve in negotiating deals with other countries and groups beyond Europe while enjoying a free-trade deal with the EU, too. Just today, there are reports that a deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council states – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman – is nearly complete.

Still, with the government desperate to sign more deals with the EU for ‘closer cooperation’ (in other words, being rule-takers and financial contributors in exchange for, er, little of substance), the Brexit debate rumbles on. And, of course, the Battle of Ideas festival has been very much part of that debate. Here is a selection of our recent Brexit-related sessions from the Battle of Ideas archives to listen to and watch.

Running back to EU? Labour, Europe and the economy
Battle of Ideas festival 2024
Speakers: Catherine McBride, Ali Miraj, Dr Thomas Sampson, Gawain Towler

Brexit: how can we take control?
Battle of Ideas festival 2023
Speakers: Dr Philip Cunliffe, James Hallwood, Baroness Kate Hoey, James Holland, Professor Peter Ramsay

Listen to the debate

Brexit: a revolution by or against the establishment?
Battle of Ideas festival 2019
Speakers: Lisa Mckenzie, Professor Anand Menon, Daniel Moylan, Bruno Waterfield

After Brexit: the new political faultlines
Battle of Ideas festival 2019
Speakers: Lord Maurice Glasman, Joan Hoey, Christian May, Professor Anand Menon

Subscribe now

Share

I was surprised the other day to discover that the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest is taking place this weekend. Indeed, Eurovision celebrates 70 years this year, so it’s a ‘big birthday’. As a Eurovision fan, I’ve usually got the date in my diary and I’m checking out some of the songs before the big night. But recent contests have made me a bit weary of the whole thing.

That’s not just because of the disgraceful decision by five countries – Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Iceland – to boycott the contest this year over Israel’s participation. Having failed in their attempts to get Israel banned, these countries – or rather, their national broadcasters – have flounced off in protest. Ireland’s participating broadcaster, RTÉ, claimed that taking part ‘would be unconscionable given the ongoing and appalling loss of lives in Gaza’. It seems the joy of taking part in a night of camp entertainment promoting LGBTQI+ and all the rest has taken a backseat as the cause du jour. Instead of men donning women’s clothes and celebrating gender fluidity, now it’s all about donning a keffiyeh and blaming the Jews. How progressive.

The Eurovision organisers – motto: ‘United by Music’ – rightly responded by saying that the event is a ‘non-political contest designed to unite audiences and bring people together through a shared love of music and entertainment’. I’m all for keeping politics out of sporting and cultural events as much as possible, striving to find at least some way to see past the reasons for conflict and embracing the brotherhood of man (pun intended). Israel’s critics pointed to the exclusion of Russia from the contest after the invasion of Ukraine as setting a precedent. But those circumstances were pretty specific: it’s hard to be full of camp fun if the armed forces of one participating country are slaughtering the people of another with precisely zero provocation.

Those who want Israel to be kicked out of one festival of music seem to have forgotten that the war in Gaza began after the indiscriminate murder and kidnapping of participants at another festival of music – the Nova festival. Where’s the solidarity? It can be found, not among the right-on elites of Europe’s broadcasters, but in the votes of Eurovision fans, who have strongly backed Israel in the public vote every year since the horror of October 7th.

Spain, Slovenia and Ireland have decided to take things a petulant step further by not even broadcasting the contest on Saturday. (Never fear, Eurovision fans – it’s live on YouTube.) RTÉ2 has even decided to show the classic ‘A Song for Europe’ episode of Father Ted instead. The show’s co-writer and Israel supporter, Graham Linehan, has objected to the decision and accused RTÉ of using his creation as a ‘a tool of antisemitic harassment’.

Indeed, RTÉ seems to be so far up its proverbial fundament that the Nine O’Clock News on Tuesday reported that the Eurovision semi-final was taking place in Vienna ‘despite’ the RTÉ boycott, as if the whole world should stop in awe of RTÉ’s principled non-participation.

The tendency to boycott cultural events and cancel artists has become all too common – and it is thoroughly destructive. As a new report by Freedom in the Arts, The New Boycott Crisis, notes: ‘An ecology that was once built on talent, artistic judgement, meritocracy and creative risk has been gradually displaced by a different dynamic: fear, informal or direct sanctions, quiet cancellations, the normalisation of silence, the avoidance or subversion of due process and formal procedures, a heightened sense of anxiety about reputational risk, safeguarding and safety.’

However, my concerns for the Eurovision Song Contest run deeper than merely the ridiculous posturing around this year’s event. The contest has become more and more bloated. Starting at 8pm in the UK, it routinely runs on past midnight these days. The songs seem to lack the variety of old, falling back time and again on the blandness of so much modern pop. The system of semi-finals has long meant that some enjoyable if bat-shit-crazy songs no longer make it to the Saturday night final.

My biggest gripe of late has been that the qualities of the songs are too often drowned out by the staging, which gets more and more elaborate and overblown each passing year. Enough with the video screens, video floors and the rest, already. The problem is epitomized by last year’s winner, ‘Wasted Love’ by JJ – pop-opera sung falsetto while the singer is seemingly clinging to a ship being tossed around in the ocean.

JJ is, of course, ‘queer’ and has spoken out against Israel taking part, as have other Eurovision stars. Yawn. The shift from camp to queer is just boring. No wonder Julie Burchill has called Eurovision a ‘culture wars contest’: ‘The rise of “queerness” – gayness without style or humour – has had a dreadful effect on Eurovision.’

Still, the Eurovision Song Contest does present us with dozens of new songs by lots of very professional performers (maybe it’s a bit too slick these days) all giving it their best shot for fame and glory. Chances are there will be a handful of performances that will stick in the mind.

With that in mind, here’s a selection of personal favourites that mean I’ll probably end up in front of the gogglebox on Saturday listening to Graham Norton and watching the contest, fingers crossed for a few entertaining nuggets. (And worth watching to spite the boycotters, too.)

Please stick your own Eurovision favourites in the comments!

Subscribe now

BEST SUBVERSIVE PERFORMANCE
‘Divine’ by Sébastien Tellier (France, 2008)
Rocks on stage driving a golf cart, sings the second verse having breathed in helium and the backing singers are all wearing fake beards. Also, it’s a great song.

BEST FIDDLE SOLO
‘Hunter of Stars’ by Sebalter (Switzerland, 2014)
If Mumford & Sons could only have been this much fun. Bonkers lyrics, catchy tune. This became a total earworm for me for ages afterwards.

BEST SONG NOT TO MAKE THE FINAL
‘You & Me’ by Joan Franka (Netherlands, 2012)
More mildly folkie stuff, but a sweet song that has a touch of ‘Seasons in the Sun’ about it. Yet it came just 15^th in the semi-final. What were you thinking, Europe? No idea why she’s wearing Native American headgear, though.

BEST FLOOR FILLER
‘Golden Boy’ by Nadav Guedj (Israel, 2015)
The biggest shock to me was when I found out Guedj was just 16 years old when he took part. Fabulously cheesy lyrics (‘Pull me, baby, I’m your trigger / You know that my love is bigger’) with their tongue firmly in their cheek.

BEST EUROVISION ANTHEM
‘Fuego’ by Eleni Foureira (Cyprus, 2018)
Didn’t take to this watching live, but I love it now, with it’s vaguely Eastern riff, Millennial whoop and every drop-the-beat cliché you can shake a stick at. A fan favourite. The guy who wrote ‘Golden Boy’ came back to win in 2018 with ‘Toy’ for Israel, pushing this song into second place and thus robbing Cyprus of a famous victory.

BEST OF RECENT YEARS
‘Rim Tim Tagi Dim’ by Baby Lasagna (Croatia, 2024)
This rocks along in a suitably bonkers way with a great cheer-along chorus.

CLEVEREST STAGING
‘Heroes’ by Måns Zelmerlöw (Sweden, 2015)
It may well have sparked the ‘staging wars’ I moaned about earlier, but this is smart and simple and took a good song to victory.

BEST CHANNELLING OF SHIRLEY BASSEY
’Rise Like a Phoenix’ by Conchita Wurst (Austria, 2014)
Yes, it’s a bloke with a beard in a dress – but that’s just a vehicle to get some attention. Tom Neuwirth is a fabulous singer delivering a very dark and powerful song with Bond-esque production.

BEST OLDIE
‘Tu Te Reconnaîtras’ by Anne-Marie David (Luxembourg, 1973)
From the days when Luxembourg (!) couldn’t stop winning Eurovision and an in-house orchestra was part of the furniture.

BEST ‘HAVING YOUR MOMENT’ MOMENT
’Only Teardrops’ by Emmelie de Forest (Denmark, 2013)

With Eurovision being staged in Malmö, Sweden, it was just a hop across the bridge for the Danish supporters, so Emmelie was performing to a home crowd. It’s a good song. There are drummers, too. But it’s her reaction at the end when she’s knocked back by the roar of the arena that gets me every time.

BEST NEVER-GOT-THE-CHANCE
’Think About Things’ by Daði Freyr (Iceland, 2020)

One of the favourites to win Eurovision 2020 – until the contest was cancelled thanks to the Covid pandemic. Still, the video was a hit across Europe with naff sweatshirts and a silly dance routine to accompany a funky slice of electropop about, er, becoming a dad.

Share

As the Labour Party tears itself apart, some of us have more than mere political interest at stake. When Angela Rayner resigned over her – now totally legitimate and innocent, says HMRC – tax faux pas on her multiple homes, I sensed opportunity in the chaos.

Within the hour, I was at the bookies: £40 at 20/1 said Rayner becomes the next leader of the Labour Party. Although I’m aware of the irony that if my 800 quid does come through, I may find myself to be the only working Brit to benefit from a Rayner premiership – an insurance policy of sorts.

For both my colleague and I – who backed Wes Streeting at a similarly generous price – there is a large element of delayed gratification. Unlike gambling on the horses or the football, we’ve held these bets for quite some time, furiously checking whether Catherine West really has a path to Downing Street. (I even placed a panicked fiver on her at 200/1.)

Yet for punters, there is another reason to want this Labour administration to fall: affordability checks.

A ‘does what it says on the tin’ type of policy, affordability checks would mean that if you want to gamble, there must first be a ‘check’ on whether you can afford to do so. In practice, this means sharing extensive financial documents with gambling companies. This is a serious invasion of privacy, and a policy seemingly designed to damage the gambling industry as casual punters will surely decide it simply isn’t worth the effort.

Affordability checks are also a clear restriction on individual choice. As Jon Bryan put it in his Letter on Liberty, Risking it All: The freedom to gamble: ‘If we accept state control over our spending on gambling, we concede the argument about individual choice and liberty in other areas of life, too.’

Like so much of modern legislation, however, there is a targeted group in the government’s sights. Take this seemingly light-hearted story: ‘England superfan set to sell house for World Cup trip’. The BBC offers no moral judgement – but surely, they should? Why do we make light of a 62-year-old man selling his assets to watch England at a World Cup, yet demand extensive financial documents from somebody placing a risky bet? Because there are acceptable vices to waste money on, and polite society does not see gambling as one of them.

But in all seriousness, if we accept that the government can tell us when we can’t afford something, what stops them from telling us we can’t afford something else? Santorini is lovely, but have you considered Scarborough? A new car would be useful, but a second-hand bicycle does the same job.

Further, is this not the same ideology behind government attempts to control where private pension funds are invested, already rejected once by the Lords? The principle is surely the same: that government seeks more control of what we as individuals choose to do with our money.

Andy Milne is entitled to sell his home to fund his trip to the US – it’s his money. We’re also entitled to back Catherine West at 200/1 before she cowardly rows the little boat carrying my hopes and dreams back to the shores of obscurity. That’s life.

Hopefully Rayner, an apparent lover of some of my favourite vices, saves the gambling industry. And the £800 would be nice too.

READ AND LISTEN

Letters on Liberty: Risking it all – the freedom to gamble
Listen to the debate from Battle of Ideas festival 2022, with Jon Bryan, Mark Littlewood, Ed Rennie and Brigid Simmonds OBE.

Is gambling at the forefront of the fight for liberty? You bet!
AoI Substack, 9 December 2025
Jon Bryan explains how the Budget tax rises were just the latest attack on players. PLUS: Jake Weston previews his case at Thursday’s Living Freedom Xmas Balloon Debate.

Share

Watch below or listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST VIA PODBEAN

With so much to discuss, the team also look ahead to two events:

The Academy 2026, the Ideas Matter annual residential weekend of lectures and discussions, which this year is titled ‘Hollow Leviathan: the state against the demos’, on 22 & 23 August. Find out more here.

Battle of Ideas festival, the UK’s premier festival of discussion and debate, in London on 17 & 18 October. Buy tickets here.

Subscribe now

Share

It’s always exhilarating when the electorate overthrows apple carts. This is what change looks like: a lively, messy, visceral upheaval, not just a capitalised word on the front of a manifesto. Reactions from mainstream party politicians were exemplified by our tone-deaf prime minister, who seems convinced all that voters want is more of the same, but ‘further and faster’.

We will be back with a commentary on the results after the weekend. But however the government stumbles on, however personally popular Kemi Badenoch is – the voters know they’ve been taken for granted, patronised, treated with contempt from Southport onwards.

But for politics to change for good, we need to ensure the mood doesn’t just fade away with the rosettes and election leaflets. While the ballot box is a necessary component of ensuring that people’s voices are heard loud and clear, it is not sufficient. What we need is an engaged citizenry, involved regularly in free and open conversations and debates about the challenging times we live in and how WE can shape the future. And we ourselves should not be complacent about how tricky that can be, full of pitfalls and more dilemmas.

One such challenge is how to deal with the rise of the normalisation of antisemitism, until recently too often dismissed as criticism of Israel. The recent spate of violent attacks on Jews, and controversies about a disproportionate number of Green Party candidates – many of them newly elected councillors, who openly espouse a sectarian Israelophobia that too often creates fertile ground for Jew hatred – has at last, and at least, made the issue a matter of public debate.

The tricky part of this is when some policy announcements, such as the demand for the enactment of fast-track hate crime prosecutions and the banning of pro Palestine marches, inevitably create moral dilemmas for free speech, as I discussed with Ian Collins on Talk:

Rally against antisemitism
It is crucial that we build solidarity with the Jewish community in the UK and we’d urge as many of you as possible to attend the rally this SUNDAY 10 MAY, 1pm opposite Downing Street.

Support the Academy of Ideas
Below, you’ll find a taster of Academy of Ideas forthcoming events and other work. Please become an AoI member using the button below to help us build up our work to ensure an ongoing Battle of Ideas.

Claire

JOIN THE ACADEMY OF IDEAS

FORTHCOMING EVENTS AND RECENT MEDIA APPEARANCES

“A book that made me think, even when I argued with it”: Baroness Fox reviews Lord Biggar’s The New Dark Age
The House magazine / Politics Home, 27 April 2026

Claire Fox was the guest on the latest edition of The Brink podcast, 7 May 2026

LEEDS SALON
Christianity and existential freedom
Speaker: Dolan Cummings
SATURDAY 9 MAY, 2:30PM
Venue: Mill Hill Chapel, City Square, Leeds
Full details and tickets

THE HANNAH ARENDT STUDY GROUP
On judgement (Part 2) – Arendt and Kant
WEDNESDAY 13 MAY, 7PM (UK) via Zoom
Free to take part – More information and registration

EAST MIDLANDS SALON
Is connoisseurship dead?
THURSDAY 14 MAY, 7PM
Venue: The Brunswick Inn, Station Road, Derby, DE1 2RU
Speaker: Dr Michael Savage (AKA The Grumpy Art Historian)
Tickets via Eventbrite

CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY READING GROUP
Plato’s Republic: Session 4
SUNDAY 17 MAY, 6PM (UK) via Zoom
Free to take part, register here
For session 4 – read Stephanus number 376 to 412

BREXIT UNLEASHED: SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITIES
TUESDAY 19 MAY, 9am – 6pm
Venue: Westminster, London
Come along and visit the Academy of Ideas stall.

Introduction:
Nearly ten years on from the historic referendum, the United Kingdom stands at a pivotal moment. Brexit delivered the freedom to govern ourselves, shape our own laws, control our borders and pursue an independent global future. The question now in 2026 is: how do we fully seize those opportunities — and defend them from those seeking to reverse them? A VIP line-up of leading political figures, economists, commentators and campaigners examine how Britain can make the most of its independence and ensure that the promise of Brexit is fully realised.

Tickets and speakers here.

Related content: watch Claire Fox on Talk discussing Starmer’s Brexit betrayal:

DIDO POWELL’S LONDON ART GALLERY TOURS 2026: OBJECTS IN ART
Sunday 24 May, meet 2.45pm for 3pm start. Length 90 mins. Cost: £15 pp.
Venue: National Gallery, London
You can book a place by contacting Wendy Earle wendyearle@talktalk.net
Find out more at the Academy of Ideas events page

SPECIAL OFFER - The spiked summit 2026
SATURDAY 27 JUNE
Emmanuel Centre, Westminster

Join spiked for its biggest live event yet – a one-day conference featuring leading writers and thinkers including Konstantin Kisin, Lionel Shriver, Katharine Birbalsingh, Toby Young, Allison Pearson, Brendan O’Neill and Tom Slater.

Academy of Ideas supporters can get 20% off full price tickets here.

LIVING FREEDOM SUBSTACK:
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX CASE: LAW DEFEATED BY CULTURE IN BATTLE FOR FREE SPEECH
Free-speech campaigners were disappointed that the High Court overturned the Office for Students fine this week. But free expression won’t thrive till we overturn the culture of censorship itself.

Read the commentary here.

Living Freedom Summer School is open to anyone aged 18 to 30 and takes place in London on 9 to 11 July.

Apply here.

Support a scholar here.

THE ACADEMY 2026:
HOLLOW LEVIATHAN: THE STATE AGAINST THE DEMOS
SATURDAY 22 AND SUNDAY 23 AUGUST
Wyboston Lakes Resort, Bedfordshire

EARLY BIRD TICKETS UNTIL 31 MAY

Join Ideas Matter for this annual residential weekend of bold ideas, lectures and discussion.

The modern state is bigger than ever. It reaches further into our lives, demands more of our obedience and claims more authority than at any point in modern history. Yet at the same time it feels strangely hollow, unable to keep order, deliver competence or command legitimacy. Our institutions remain standing, but increasingly as empty facades: grand in language, feeble in practice.

This is not just incompetence. It is a deeper political failure. The state has broken its contract with the demos. Instead of protecting the people, it increasingly manages, disciplines and mistrusts them. It cannot perform the hard tasks of public authority, yet it grows ever bolder in policing speech, rationing services and lecturing the public.

The Academy 2026 will examine the rise of this hollow leviathan. Why does the modern state expand as its capacity drains away? Why does it seem so often to work against the people in whose name it claims to rule? And what would it mean to restore authority, legitimacy and political agency?

Lectures include:

• What is the National Interest? – Professor Frank Furedi

• Islamo-Leftism and the roots of contemporary Third-Worldism – Dr Tim Black

• Coming apart: authoritarian strategies for a fractured society – Chris Bayliss

• What remains? Art and memory in the Post-Cultural State – Lola Salem

Tickets and info here.

BATTLE OF IDEAS FESTIVAL 2026
SATURDAY 17 AND SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER
Church House, Great Smith St, Westminster, London, SW1P 3BN

Buy early bird tickets here

Debating Matters Transatlantic (DMTA)
DMTA will take place in the heart of Westminster from 11-14 November 2026, featuring a programme of seminars with guest speakers, discussions on key issues of our time, and tours of some of London’s greatest cultural landmarks. There will be three teams of American pupils and three teams of UK sixth-formers. More info soon.

Subscribe to Academy of Ideas YouTube
Academy of Ideas - YouTube

Subscribe now

Share

With the local elections approaching and predictions of a mass exodus away from the traditional parties, there has been concern raised about the generational and gender divide in voting intentions. Many mainstream politicians remain preoccupied with nightmares about ‘far-right’ male youth, seeing the ‘manosphere’ as a fundamental factor in Reform’s expected successes. However, with the rising popularity of the Green Party among younger voters, is it time to look at the other side of the coin: is the rise of extremes being led by young women?

Contrary to popular opinion, young men are not so much moving to the right as young women are moving to the left. While this has been picked up by recent polling, the extent to which youth polarisation is being driven by the rise of the right, rather than the dominance of the Green Party, remains often overstated.

Polling and research conducted by Onward in October last year showed the growing polarisation between men and women, not just in the UK but across the world. Young women were more likely to vote Green (by +9 per cent), while young men were more likely to vote for Reform (by +15 per cent). But this has been contested by more recent statistics. Current YouGov polling shows that at least 36 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds are intending to vote Green, compared to only six per cent for Reform. Seemingly, there has been a much larger shift to the left than to the right.

The extent to which young women are moving leftwards is often underestimated. As Scarlett Maguire reports: ‘We often hear about a lost generation of young men’, yet young women are more pessimistic (and then, perhaps, more radical). They are much more likely to say the UK is a racist country (43 per cent vs 29 per cent), and similarly more likely to believe that the UK still holds sexist beliefs (39 per cent vs 30 per cent). They are less likely to feel connected to their country or feel that they benefit from capitalism. This is strange for a generation of young women who have never had better economic opportunities; they now hold 56 per cent of university places, and on average earn nine per cent more in their twenties than their male contemporaries.

Subscribe now

So why is it that young women have become so disillusioned and pessimistic? As Maeve Halligan argued at Battle of Ideas North in March, women are particularly vulnerable to the progressive politics of empathy. They have been taught to care, and care deeply. They have internalised the teachings of anti-colonialism, social injustice, and mental health. They have sided with the perceived ‘underdogs’ rather than those they believe are benefiting from the status quo.

But is this not riddled with hypocrisies, or at least some level of cognitive dissonance? Why would progressive young women, often super-sensitive to any or all evidence of racism, turn a blind-eye to the Green Party’s evident soft-soaping – or even endorsement – of hatred against Jewish people (perhaps the oldest form of racism)? Why would hyper-feminist young women embrace a party that is viciously intolerant of gender-critical views, and forgo women’s single-sex rights without a pause?

Perhaps, as Halligan implies, it’s because, in vibes terms, the Green Party is on the right side. Its policies – campaigning on ‘fiery mix of anti-billionaire, anti-landlord, pro-Gaza rhetoric’ – are popular with disillusioned, middle-class young women. These women have been socialised by virtue signalling and performativity, and this is how they will vote. They reflect the sentiment of the Green Party and proactively concern themselves with every group other than the ‘straight, white, able-bodied men’ because they see the world through a framework of victimhood, leading them to believe that the structures of power (and therefore oppression) must be deconstructed, even if these structures benefit them.

Gen Z have been radicalised by the lens of ‘affective polarisation’, having been encouraged to see politics in moral terms: not in terms of differing opinions or ideologies, but rather in terms of good and bad. That makes it much harder to connect or understand across political divides. And as young people are more ‘alienated’, ‘pessimistic’ and ‘isolated’ they have become more paralysed by the fear of being ousted from their social group. Therefore, while they are increasingly exposed to more radical ideas, they are simultaneously unable to speak freely about their genuine beliefs and concerns.

All this means that even if young women don’t agree with everything on the Green Party’s agenda, they are much less likely to vocally disagree. There is a perception of radical progressivism that has been popularised by social desirability and conformity.

Arguably, the loneliness epidemic among young people has radicalised them. As they have become more dependent on the politics of their group, which is often policed online, they have limited themselves massively in who they connect with. The recent polling highlighted a concerning chasm between men and women, not in the ‘big P’ political polarisation, but in their ability to form personal relationships. Only 35 per cent of women under the age of 25 admitted to having a positive view of men, and the distaste and distrust of men is leading them to opt out of dating at all.

The so-called ‘femosphere’, or at least the normalisation of fairly radical feminism online, has for a long time aimed to take down toxic masculinity. The concerns bought to light by the #MeToo movement have been further amplified in recent years by the moral panic around porn and incels. This, coupled with the fearmongering around men moving to the far-right, has given rise to the idea that it is now ‘embarrassing to have a boyfriend’ and women have become more neurotic about which men, with what ideas, they engage with. Ironically, this is scaring away most of the decent men, who are terrified of asking a girl out in case they get accused of acting inappropriately. For a generation who are already more risk-averse and introspective, the idea that men pose an inherent risk to women’s safety is not something that we should be entertaining or pushing any further – unless we are pushing for a completely divided and atomistic generation.

This has often been justified as a response to the rise of right-wing men. But perhaps this is a reaction to a moral panic of the elite, who are exacerbating the mood amongst the most extreme and disaffected in the manosphere to amplify the fears of radical right-wing boys, when in reality only a minority of young people are voting for right-wing political parties. But what they fail to realise is that by pushing young men away, they are only going to radicalise them further, leaving both sexes ‘lonelier and angrier’, with less understanding of the other, than before.

But whether you agree with the Green Party’s policies, think it is a good thing that young people are becoming radicalised (as at least they are engaging in politics), or find both these things horribly concerning, the main issue for many young people is a crisis of fragmentation and loss of common ground. This is why Ideas Matter is running its annual Living Freedom Summer School – three days of lectures and discussions in London for 18- to 30-year-olds in London on 9-11 July. This is a chance for young people to debate the ideas and ideals of freedom from all different perspectives and angles. Click on the button below to find out more and to apply.

APPLY FOR LIVING FREEDOM SUMMER SCHOOL

Share

This week, media headlines focused on a report from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) that argued that people diagnosed with conditions such as anxiety, mild depression or ADHD should not be eligible for cash benefits. The report proposed that government should introduce an ‘emergency handbrake’ to cut the number of people who are receiving health and disability benefits. It argues such conditions should be classed as ‘non-work limiting’ - with people offered support rather than money.

Such policy proposals often lead to a backlash and, on cue, charities such as Mencap condemned the proposals, calling them ‘deeply unhelpful and ill-informed’. I am more sympathetic to TBI than those refusing to contemplate any challenge to orthodoxies around the huge numbers now self-describing or being diagnosed through the prism of neurodiversity or mental ill health. But I do agree, we all need to be better informed about this issue beyond headline-grabbing soundbites.

So, the Academy of Ideas was delighted to co-host the book launch of The Crisis in the Classroom: How the special needs explosion is destroying education, a new book by Dave Clements, published by Luath Press. We reproduce Dave’s speech from the launch below. This is an important book because it both passionately argues a viewpoint, but swerves away from an overly simplistic, black-and-white approach. It asks urgent questions on rising levels of diagnosed needs and behavioural difficulties in schools.

Combining personal accounts, cultural analysis and policy research, Dave’s book questions common explanations for where we are and instead calls for a more honest and critical conversation about how best to support young learners, while also calling for a radical rethink of policies and systems that are struggling to respond to a growing crisis in education today.

Dave – a regular speaker at the Battle of Ideas - probes difficult areas, unafraid to take on some sacred cows, querying why there is a surge in children requiring special educational support. Is there a problem of over-diagnosis? Is the explosion of those claiming the label a fashion or a genuine public-health crisis? What’s it really like for children and families living with neurodiversity?

As writer and broadcaster Dr Tiffany Jenkins, author of Strangers and Intimates notes, the book is ‘An urgent wake-up call to the harm the needs explosion is doing to school and our children, from someone with personal experience who can see the bigger picture.’ So, I urge you all to read it. You can order a copy of the book direct from Luath Press here. Further down the page, you can find links to audio from our related Battle of Ideas debates last year.

Subscribe now

The Crisis in the Classroom: opening remarks at book launch in Westminster

Dave Clements

I first presented the ideas contained in my new book, The Crisis in the Classroom: How the special educational needs explosion is destroying education, a year ago at a meeting of the Academy of Ideas Education Forum. I think that was when I first really understood how controversial it might be. Not because I was saying anything intrinsically shocking. Not because they disagreed. But because the teachers among them knew the things that I was saying, and the things that they were saying, could not be said in the staffroom.

And these were the brave teachers, the ones willing to question orthodoxies in education. I spoke to a few of those willing to speak publicly in the book. Indeed, the credit for my writing it at all lies with another teacher, Kevin Rooney. Having read a series of pieces I’d written on my Substack on the subjects of neurodiversity and special educational needs (SENs), he phoned me up and told me I should write a book about it.

We were coming at the subject from different perspectives: Kevin as a teacher troubled by the challenges associated with SEN; me as a parent struggling with the SEN system, and with schools, to get my son the support he needs. That dynamic, I hope, was a productive one – and led to a more nuanced take on the subject than it might have otherwise been.

So, what is it all about?

It’s not about my ‘lived experience’ – others have done that and done it well. At the same time, I think part of the problem we have – and part of the reason that we have what I describe as a ‘needs explosion’ at all – is a consequence of an unhealthy obsession with ourselves and our personal struggles. It isn’t always helpful.

What I do say in the book is that my son has autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and was also diagnosed with ADHD – both in his early school years. Both conditions feature strongly in the needs explosion. There are 1.2million people, children and adults, with autism and 2.2million with ADHD in England.

But I also talk about a whole host of other needs and behaviours that have spiked recently, where they might have come from, and the impact they are having in the classroom.

The book asks more questions than it answers. But they are, it seems to me, important questions and they aren’t really being asked. So that is what I do – I ask awkward questions. The first is the one that most of us are thinking when we read about this stuff, even those of us with kids with SENs.

‘Are they making it up?’
I talk about celebrities with ADHD and autism and those making a career of their conditions online. Are they spreading awareness, or are they just cashing in, or perhaps trying to stay in the public eye, or just making excuses for their dodgy behaviour? There is understandable cynicism about some of the claims being made about what are sometimes called ‘invisible disabilities’, about a culture of entitlement and the growing need for mitigations.

But also, it has to be said that it’s not always that simple. My lived experience of raising a child with a demand-avoidant profile - or what is sometimes called pathological demand-avoidance (PDA) - at least tells me that much. Demand avoidance sounds made-up, and maybe sometimes it is, but believe me it’s also very real and difficult to handle.

So, it’s not just a media or online phenomenon. It is both real for some and a wider cultural problem with real-world impact for others. The trouble is, knowing which is which can be very hard to disentangle.

Do we know what normal is?
The expansion of diagnostic categories can be a good thing - such as the recognition of what used to be called Asperger’s syndrome at the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. But it can also be a bad thing, as autism specialist Uta Frith recently, and controversially, explained. The autism spectrum is now so inclusive, she said, it has effectively ‘collapsed’. It has become meaningless.

It’s striking how much of this change, this particular expansion of a category of needs, can be traced back to the 1990s. Judy Singer coins the word ‘neurodiversity’. ADHD begins to be diagnosed in the UK. The term Asperger’s syndrome is popularised (until, that is, Hans Asperger’s Nazi links are uncovered). Each time expanding recognised needs still further.

In the postscript, I bring the book up to date with other examples of how this process of needs identification and expansion is playing out now: Mattel releases an autistic Barbie complete with noise-cancelling headphones and fidget-spinner; Alton Towers rows back on its decision not to allow those who say they struggle with crowds (in other words, kids with autism) to skip the queue.

But it’s the crisis in the classroom that I keep coming back to. I ask what’s so special about special educational needs if every child seems to have one? There are 1.7million children in England with SEND, half a million of them with an Education, Health and Care Plan (or EHCP) intended for children with the highest or most complex needs. Some of this is a consequence of more children presenting with ASD and ADHD – placing huge pressure on local authorities, with talk of bankruptcy and bailouts.

That would be challenging enough, but I also talk more broadly about the needy classroom – with rising numbers of exclusions, attendance issues and behaviour problems. It’s an explosion where everything is hitting at once, and in the classroom, in particular.

Where are all these needs coming from?
While schools are not blameless, there are problems affecting young people whose causes lie elsewhere. In a chapter called ‘Beyond the school gates’, I look at the wider context: at the mental-health crisis, the impact of lockdown, the growing welfare crisis, the panic over online influencers, social media and mobile phones, and the debate over boys’ education. I also look at how, despite all the concern and even hysteria, other problems – in communities and in families – go largely ignored.

There are real needs out there, but some of them are misattributed. The rise of identity politics, it seems to me, is a big part of the cause of escalating needs. But so, too, is the collapse of adult authority and any sense that we, as adults, are in this together, and have a collective responsibility for raising and educating our young people. This new politics of self-indulgence, and this failing authority and lack of solidarity among adults, has allowed the explosion to happen and are now getting in the way of containing it and clearing up the damage.

Schools aren’t blameless and neither are local authorities. I talk, as a parent and as a former school governor, about the SEND experience of a constant struggle for support and dealing with placement breakdown; about reduced timetables, school exclusions, and how many parents and children are often left to their own devices (often literally for the kids).

At the time of writing, parents and teachers alike were awaiting publication of a much-anticipated White Paper, and the launch of a consultation on SEND reforms. Their publication brought some good news. The restricting of EHCPs to those who really need them is controversial but a good thing in my view. However, the introduction of so-called inclusion bases (special provision in mainstream schools) is unlikely to meet the variety and volume of needs that kids are presenting with.

I talk in the book about the disruption that the needs explosion inevitably brings for all concerned, and the impossibility of meeting every child’s particular needs in the classroom. I am critical of the failure to tackle the ongoing mismatch of needs with support and provision – and how the ‘inclusion’ and ‘whole school’ ideologies are getting in the way of both children’s learning and of meeting genuine needs.

There are no easy answers to the questions I raise, but as I say in the concluding chapter – we can’t go on like this. The human and financial cost of both failed support and too much labelling are enormous. We need to get to grips with the underlying causes of the needs explosion. And that has to start by acknowledging that we have a problem. Too many are avoiding the issue or pretending that we can just throw more resources at it.

In the course of preparing for and writing The Crisis in the Classroom, I spoke to teachers who understood how bad things have got. But many are too nervous to speak out. They know it is taboo to ask questions. Others are admirably eager to appear autism-friendly, to go on the training, to accommodate fidgety ADHD kids, and attend to each and every ‘difference’ the kids in their classroom present with. There’s nothing wrong with this up to a point. But I think we’ve reached that point.

BUY THE CRISIS IN THE CLASSROOM

Listen to related debates

Battle Book Club: No More Normal – Mental Health in an Age of Over-Diagnosis
Battle of Ideas festival 2025

Should there be a mental-health professional in every school?
Battle of Ideas festival 2025

Share

An urgent question for the Labour government: does your left hand know what the right is doing?

Yesterday, the Guardian reported that: ‘Rachel Reeves is considering imposing a one-year rent freeze on private sector homes amid growing alarm in government about the impact of the Iran war on voters’ budgets.’ Under pressure from the Greens, who have been banging the drum for rent freezes, is the government using this as a last resort to shore up support, particularly with younger voters who are flocking to the Greens en masse? As recent polling from YouGov shows, that 36 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds intend to vote for the Greens, compared to 24 per cent who intend to vote Labour.

Yet Labour briefings about a rent freeze seem rather odd considering that just last week, the housing minister, Matthew Pennycook, told parliament that there were no such plans. ‘The government does not support the introduction of rent controls, which we believe could make life more difficult for renters. There is sufficient international evidence from countries such as Sweden and Germany, and from individual cities such as San Francisco, as well as the recent Scottish experience, to attest to the potential detrimental impacts of rent controls on tenants.’

Indeed, just yesterday morning, Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told Times Radio: ‘That isn’t something that we are actively considering, just to be completely clear, that is not the approach we will be taking.’ But the chancellor is concerned, as we all are, about the impact of the conflict in the Middle East on family finances and is looking at what more might be required to help get through this.’ By the afternoon, the ‘kite-flying’ exercise was being disowned by Downing Street.

Whatever is going on with rent controls, the government is doing its level best to make rental accommodation more expensive and less available, thanks to the Renters’ Rights Act. The law will make it harder for landlords to evict tenants, unless they are selling the property or moving into it. The idea of signing a fixed-term contract to rent your house out is now dead. And whatever the plans for rent freezes turn out to be, an independent tribunal will now decide if a rent rise is beyond the ‘market price’.

Along with other measures, these changes will certainly encourage many landlords to sell up, leaving renters fighting over a smaller pool of properties.

Pennycook is quite right to point to the voluminous evidence showing that rent controls aren’t in the best interest of renters – and that the Green Party’s housing policy – which seems to go beyond rent controls to abolishing private landlords altogether – is, frankly, boneheaded. The best way to reduce the price of something is to increase the supply. If we want to cut the cost of housing, we need to build more homes – yet another thing the Labour government has failed to do.

Yet all this talk of rent freezes isn’t the daftest announcement of a price control of late. The SNP’s manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections next month promises to cap prices for essential foods: ‘The system would require large supermarkets to make one example line of the listed essential food items available at the capped price and would not require them to make every variation of that type of food they stock available at that price.’

Hmmm… price controls don’t seem to be within the Scottish government’s remit. Never mind, it will be pushed through, the SNP says, as a public-health measure like minimum unit pricing for alcohol. But even if this ruse were to succeed, the groceries sector is probably the most competitive market sector in the UK, so the idea that prices can be significantly lowered by government diktat seems to be for the birds.

If the Scottish government attempts to push prices down below cost, supply will dry up or other prices will be increased to compensate. And if the UK government tells the SNP that they are acting beyond their powers? Well, it’s another excuse for the SNP to blame Westminster for something. One thing is for sure: Scots won’t be benefiting from lower grocery bills.

Meanwhile the Greens have another big idea: to regulate the price of labour. They want to impose a maximum differential on company pay, so the best-paid staff can’t be paid more than 10 times what the lowest-paid staff get. As many have pointed out, this would destroy football’s Premier League in a stroke. A top player can earn 10 times in a week what an average person earns in a year. Big corporations would struggle to recruit the best staff for their top jobs.

As Dominic Lawson pointed out in The Sunday Times on Sunday, price controls have been around since the Emperor Diocletian in 310 AD. Like a turd from a blocked sewage pipe, the idea floats up from time to time – and every time it is a failure. When prices are set too low, suppliers stop supplying. Rather than benefiting ordinary people, price controls end up hurting them. Pay less, queue more for the limited supplies.

Politicians should know this. But when the economy is moribund, with GDP per person currently flatlining – substantially because of other stupid government policies, like planning restrictions on building, higher employment taxes or Net Zero targets for climate change – then Something Must Be Done. That ‘something’ all too often makes things even worse. Rather than sticking one Band Aid on top of another, perhaps it would be better for governments to promise to get out of the way and let the market get on with it.

Share

Subscribe now

But look closer and the picture is less settled. The same forces reshaping politics in England and Wales – the decay of incumbent parties and the rise of anti-establishment sentiment – are present north of the border.

Our podcast guest Dean Thomson’s new book Scotland Undone: Nationalism, Dogma, and Decline in the Devolution Era casts light on these changes. His argument is blunt: there is a yawning gap between SNP rhetoric and reality. Scotland is sold by some as a story of renewal, bringing power closer to the people. But in practice it resembles a cautionary tale – less an exception to Westminster decay and more a laboratory for the institutional sclerosis and state dysfunction now spreading south. In many ways, the ‘Scottish Question’ - as I have put it in our Letter on Liberty - is both a long way from being settled and an encapsulation of the many issues facing the UK more broadly.

Labour’s woes

Labour has long been marginalised in Holyrood, out of office since 2007 and, by 2021, reduced to winning less than one in seven voter. Yet just two years ago, when Labour regained power in Westminster, hopes were high that Labour could also recapture Holyrood.

Certainly, Labour’s plight in Scotland is likely to be less eye-catching than elsewhere. In England, voters are set to eject 2,000 councillors amid near-total collapse of the Red Wall and even some of its urban heartlands. In Wales, one survey suggests that, after a century dominating the political map, Labour will become a small island in a sea of green and blue. Yet Labour’s Westminster catastrophe – a string of policy disasters and mounting public anger – seems to be feeding their Holyrood angst. Scots Labour leader Anas Sarwar even called for Keir Starmer’s head in an attempt to staunch a haemorrhaging Labour vote.

The beneficiaries of Labour’s woes – at least in the short-term – are the SNP, which continues to benefit from the exhaustion of traditional parties. But another term in office should not be interpreted as renewed strength. Indeed, while the SNP may win broadly similar seat numbers to 2021, they are being abandoned by supporters, with up to a third of voters expected to drift away.

That is hardly surprising. After years in office, the SNP presides over an anaemic economy, a collapse in public services such as health, education and policing, and infrastructure failures from ferries to roads. Controversial – and unpopular – policies on hate crime and gender have generated hostility; independence seems to be off the agenda; and simple appeals to anti-Westminster grievance no longer seems to suffice. Meanwhile, those committed to ‘progressive’ causes head to the Greens and their increasingly outlandish proposals, from prison abolition to colonial reparations.

Are Reform UK rising in Scotland?

Yet it’s the rise of Reform UK that does most to undermine the idea that Scotland is exceptional in the Union. Instead, it is clear that Scotland reflects the wider political divides in the UK and Europe. Despite having no presence in Scotland just five years ago, Reform are attracting levels of support that mean it may even form the main opposition in Holyrood.

To no-one’s surprise, detractors allege that Reform are playing the race card. But critics fail to recognise the growing tensions in Scotland over the UK’s porous borders. Glasgow is now Britain’s asylum seeker capital and asylum hotels also affect life in smaller centres like Falkirk and Perth. But this is far from the whole story.

Reform want to reduce Scotland’s eye-wateringly high taxes, tear apart the ‘quangocracy’, create opportunities for business, push back against Net Zero, and back Scotland’s oil and gas industry (the latter policy eventually helping shame the SNP into expressing mild support for continued drilling of oil).

Yet, just as Scotland mirrors political divides elsewhere in Britain, many political and cultural changes incubated over 25-plus years of devolution are now bleeding into the wider UK.

Deep-rooted failures in Scottish government

At the heart of Scotland’s malaise is a chronic failure of governance which actively degrades the economic and institutional foundations required for success. The so-called ‘wellbeing economy’ prioritises happiness metrics and environmental targets over growth. Predictably, this invites costly misadventures. Self-inflicted catastrophes like the Deposit Return Scheme have collapsed – but not before businesses had sunk £300 million into compliance. Likewise, the rush to decommission oil and gas in favour of wind – now echoed at UK level – risks long-term economic damage for the sake of virtue signalling.

The deeper problem is institutional. Devolution has weakened democratic accountability while empowering a managerial class more attuned to ideology than any outcomes rooted in public aspirations. Scotland has, in effect, pioneered the rise of the ‘lanyard class’ – credentialled professionals embedded within public bodies and quasi-state institutions, largely insulated from meaningful scrutiny.

These networks were not accidental. The devolved architecture set up by New Labour dispersed power into arms-length bodies, reducing accountability while giving activists free rein. The result is a politics that is detached from public priorities. High-profile controversies – such as health boards expending vast sums defending ideological causes such men’s access to women’s changing rooms, all while thousands join NHS waiting lists – illustrate the problem. We should all worry that Labour plans to roll out further devolution right across the rest of the UK.

As Thomson notes, political life once rested on ‘collateral organisations’ – local associations, trade unions, churches – which anchored power and enforced a degree of accountability. As that that ecosystem withered, it has been replaced by a pseudo civil society of state-funded NGOs and charities, while real decision-making drifts upwards to remote, unaccountable officials. The result is that Scottish politics has become increasingly detached from public priorities – and even from common sense – leaving the wider public bewildered.

Look across the UK and a similar pattern is hard to miss. Failures of the state to protect citizens or reflect their concerns – from the rape gangs to the failures revealed in the Nottingham or Southport inquiries – point to the same institutional drift. The dynamics first embedded in devolution-era Scotland now look less like an anomaly and more like the template quietly exported across Britain.

If the outcome of the 7 May elections is that Scottish voters have taken the opportunity to strike an anti-establishment blow against the current political class, then we should all raise a glass.

Subscribe now

Share

If you enjoyed this, or the video with Dean, please check out his work:

• You can find him on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/deanmthomson

• And you should read his book: Scotland Undone: Nationalism, Dogma, and Decline in the Devolution Era

You can read and purchase Alastair Donald’s Letter on Liberty ‘The Scottish Question’ on our website here:

• Letters on Liberty, The Scottish Question

Currently, there is a mad dash to shove through as many laws as possible before parliament is prorogued. Seeing the amount of horse trading and backroom deals involved – all resulting in worse laws being passed – would be enough to disillusion even the most earnest legislator. If only the public knew, I keep reflecting (while trying to reveal what I can).

But this corruption of law-making pales into insignificance compared to the never-ending scandal created by the Prime Minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson. It really reveals not just the shadiness of the SW1 machine, but at the same time the total emptiness of the politics of Keir Starmer. Even discounting what Starmer knew and when, one really thinks he brought this whole thing on himself; the arch technocrat undone by the most technocratic of scandals.

What an unedifying and dispiriting backdrop to the local elections. This important democratic exercise – which, to remind ourselves, the government tried to cancel a large part of – puts the power to shape politics in the hands of voters. Sir Keir’s sanctimonious managerialism – lashing out and blaming anyone but himself for the mess – seems to represent the antithesis of this kind of democratically accountable power. Indeed, Starmer’s evasiveness calls into question the very purpose of Government: the responsibility to steer and shape society, look out for its security, and ensure its public services are well-provisioned.

It is easy to become preoccupied with internal regime change. Calls for Keir Starmer to resign, demands for no-confidence votes and so on, were reinforced by the incompetence and cowardice on display in that excruciating two-hour Starmer-grilling in the Commons. The more we hear about the internal workings of Number 10, the worse it gets. There was the mind-boggling revelation that someone in Number 10 thought any comms guy (let alone a dodgy Comms guy like Matthew Doyle, recently suspended from Labour over links to ANOTHER paedophile) could be shoehorned into a senior diplomatic post. And let us not forget the utterly stupid decision to summarily sack Olly Robbins (rather ironic coming from a political party that has hectored employers about the importance of employment rights). The examples all point to a mammoth lack of judgement by Starmer.

Apart from anything else, this has turned a leading member of ‘The Blob’, into a martyred, hard-done-by victim. It has also lifted a lid on the intricacies of procedure: watching the forensic questioning of Sir Olly by (to her credit) Emily Thornberry MP, one might believe that all we need is to become better informed about the minutiae of vetting procedures.

But let us not get drawn into the technocratic weeds. In the first place, it risks painting the civil service (who we know are all-too-often a brake on democratic decision-making) as the victims of a political psychodrama.

But more fundamentally, a ‘Starmer-is-the-problem’ narrative misses the point of a deeper crisis of the state. How telling that ministers are so indignantly furious at the leak to The Guardian – the only reason the public now know that the Prince of Darkness failed a security vetting procedure – that they’ve set up an urgent Inquiry.

These are the same Ministers who endlessly and disgracefully prevaricated before setting up the rape grooming gangs inquiry in relation to one of the greatest state cover-ups of sexual abuse in modern history. The same Ministers who glibly tell us ‘Lessons will be learned’ in response to the shocking confirmation by the Southport Inquiry that the massacre of those three little girls by Axel Rudakabana was “PREVENTABLE” but state agencies ignored the evil hiding in plain sight.

And if you want a vivid, horrifying example of the state’s contempt and indifference to citizens’ safety, follow the Nottingham Inquiry into Valdo Calocane’s brutal murder of 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and caretaker Ian Coates. Also preventable. And as Labour peer Lord George Robertson framed it, calling out his own Government over their failure to rearm the UK at speed in the face of growing threats (while welfare spending rises exponentially), we have a political elite dominated by“corrosive complacency” about the state of the state. Something must be done.

Such examples – and there are so many more – remind us that while the state’s legitimacy can only be conferred by the people – the demos – it often appears the contemporary state is set explicitly against ordinary people, who are seen as a problem to be managed, a source of danger, as something for the state to be protected from. That’s one reason that I will be attending Ideas Matter’s Academy this year, aptly titled HOLLOW LEVIATHAN: THE STATE AGAINST THE DEMOS (August 22-23). Tickets and more here: Hollow Leviathan: the state against the demos - The Academy 2026 - Ideas Matter

And, as ever, some of my recent speeches below:

On the social media ban for young people

On the Southport Inquiry

On GB News discussing our zombie parliament:

Thinking through the issue of assisted dying at a deeper and more philosophical level than sound-bites is so important. It’s a morally charged, often emotional topic and can be polarising. But it’s also cuts to foundational values like autonomy, attitudes to death, how society views its most vulnerable citizens, and how the state should relate to its citizen’s end-of-life needs.

This Battle of Ideas panel gives a taster of what is at stake.

SUBSCRIBE TO BATTLE OF IDEAS YOUTUBE

This is an issue close to my heart as from many months now I have been entangled in debating the Terminally Ill (End of Life) Bill in the House of Lords. Indeed, next Friday will be the last scheduled debate on the Bill in the Lords. The legislation will not have been completed before prorogation the following week (we are due to ‘break up’ on 30 April or the start of May), so the Bill will fall – for now, at least.

For those who support assisted dying – many for understandable reasons because they have watched loved ones suffer at the end of life or because they themselves want the right to choose when they die having received a terminal diagnosis – this will be a disappointment. After all they were assured that having passed through the House of Commons, the House of Lords scrutiny of the Bill would be a formality. However, once we all read the proposed law change, many of us felt there were just too many dangers in a poorly drafted Bill to allow it to be nodded through without proper and detailed scrutiny, which is – after all – the whole point of a second chamber.

This led to a scurrilous campaign to discredit those who tabled the most amendments. There have been unjust accusations of filibustering, and unpleasant media briefing against a range of peers, not least two heroines of this story: Baroness Ilora Findley of Llandaff and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson. Together with a cross-party and cross-bench group of peers, they have tirelessly raised profound, well-evidenced, thought-provoking amendments.

I made a modest contribution – have spoken every week, read around all the issues and then tried to raise genuine issues and areas of concern. All of this was done in good faith and as a few of my speeches show below, were not slick, PR-driven, cynical attempts at stopping the Bill. Rather, we were tentatively pushing the sponsors of the Bill, led by Lord (Charlie) Falconer, to explain where there were safeguarding gaps or asking for clarification about exactly how a state-run / NHS assisted-death service would operate in practice, how it would be paid for, and what other provisions – such as palliative care or hospices – could be sacrificed to allow the government to cover the costs of this new provision.

So yes, I am glad to see the back of this particular Bill for now. And as a private members’ bill, it has been given far more time than any equivalent. We know that Keir Starmer promised a new law to Esther Rantzen. But law-making and legislative priorities should not be determined by keeping promises to the prime minister’s celebrity friends. If the government really believes we need this Bill, they should have the courage to table it themselves and put it in their manifesto, etc.

Claire Fox speeches on assisted dying

Question on assisted dying - 19 September 2025

Question on eligibility for assisted dying - 20 March 2026

Question on doctors raising assisted suicide - 13 March 2026

Question on assisted suicide/dying commissioner - 27 February 2026

Invitation to next week’s Bookshop Barnie

You are cordially invited to the next free Bookshop Barnie with Kathleen Stock to discuss her new book Do Not Go Gentle: The Case Against Assisted Death.

The discussion will be on ZOOM on Monday 20 April, from 7pm – 8:30pm UK-time. (Please pass this on to interested friends and colleagues.)

Please register here on EVENTBRITE

INTRODUCTION
Is the right to die a meaningful right? Lord Glasman has said that this is merely a ‘fetish of choice’, but is it compassionate to keep people alive against their will? What powers might this give the state – and what freedom might it give an individual?

This is an important and timely debate. While the Guardian says Stock’s book is ‘admirably clear and cogent’, David Aaronovitch in the FT is less complimentary, saying that she ‘knows what you really need better than you do’. The New Statesman says that it is ‘simplistic’, but the Telegraph says that it’s ‘intellectually powerful’. This is clearly a polarised discussion.

SPEAKER
Professor Kathleen Stock is a columnist at UnHerd and a co-director of The Lesbian Project. Until 2021, she was a professor of Philosophy at Sussex University and was awarded an OBE for services to higher education in 2020.

ABOUT BOOKSHOP BARNIES
Bookshop Barnies are ‘alternative book launches’ in that they ask authors to present the core ideas of their book in just FIVE minutes... and then we have a bit of a barnie before coming out for questions and comments from the audience.

NB: You DO NOT have to read this book in advance. Kathleen’s job is to convince you that it’d be a good idea. That said, the book is available via Amazon.

This event is FREE & ONLINE but please register on EVENTBRITE. We will send the Zoom link to registrants nearer the day.

DATE: Monday 20 April 2026

TIME: 7:00pm-8:30pm (UK-time)

I look forward to seeing you there.

Austin Williams
convenor, Bookshop Barnies

Share

Whenever I come across ideas from classical philosophy within contemporary social and political contexts, I try to make a point of highlighting them and explaining the link to Ancient Greece, especially in discussions on Plato’s work. Recently, the government’s announcement of plans to reduce the number of trials by jury, alongside the recent lecture named ‘Why I hate Classical Civilisation’ by Sir Grayson Perry at Kings College London, have highlighted the continued tilt away from Greek civilisational ideas in modern politics.

This leads me to a series of questions posed in the next session in our Plato’s Republic series at the Classical Philosophy Reading Group. (You can watch our previous sessions on YouTube.) These questions relate to the state of civilisational values today. What is the nature of justice in the abstract? How can you live a moral life? What kind of legal and political framework guides you in living a moral life?

Taking it back to Ancient Greece, Plato was not the first to engage with the problem of laws and morality in Athens. In The Republic, Glaucon recalls the tale of the Ring of Gyges, in which a shepherd finds a ring of invisibility and uses it to kill the king and seduce his wife. The challenge put to Socrates is how can he say the moral life is the better and more rewarding life? Would he refuse temptations put before him? [1] This had already provoked questions about the nature of justice in ancient Athens. Historically, how did the system of laws arise?

The realisation of a need for clear laws seemed to start with Drako’s laws. These were ‘draconian’, to say the least. Most minor infringements were to be met with the death penalty. Thus, they were later reformed to be more humane and, to some extent, equitable.

The Athenian statesman Solon tried to re-draft these laws so that they could, to some extent, be accepted by the entire community. Solon, who was recognised as one of the ‘seven sages of Athens’, left little behind, but his story is to be found in Plutarch’s Greek Lives. [2] His laws were formulated to bring about social peace and prevent social unrest between the elite and the lower castes. His most famous reform was to abolish the enslavement of farmers who went into debt, attempting to give everyone a stake in society and to challenge the highly rigid social hierarchy of the time.

More lastingly, Solon enshrined in the constitution the right to trial by a jury of your peers, albeit that his jury would consist of between 200 and 6,000 citizens. Socrates himself was tried before such a jury. According to Aristotle, Solon’s laws were the whole basis of Athenian democracy. [3] So, trial by jury was a foundation stone of democracy. Perhaps David Lammy, the justice secretary, should be reminded of this as he attempts to reduce the number of trials by jury. It would seem our government has a thing or two to learn from the ancient Athenians in this regard if they want to continue to call themselves democrats.

On the theme of the erosion of respect for the democratic principles of which Western civilization was founded, the second thing that struck me recently was the notice I received of the Kings College London (KCL) Classics department’s annual Rumble Fund lecture, This year’s lecture on 12 March was given by Sir Grayson Perry (the 2003 Turner Prize winner). The lecture was entitled ‘Why I hate Classical Civilisation’ and was devoted to illuminating Perry’s ‘grievance’ with the classics.

There seems to be a clear mismatch between Perry’s thoughts and the purpose of the Rumble Fund and KCL’s Classics department, but apparently not. KCL treated its audience to the insights of Perry who said: ‘There’s a ghost of classical civilisation that is haunting me in the back of my mind.’ He could hardly have been more explicit:

My dislike of ancient Greece and Rome is not necessarily aligned to any fashionable ideological causes. The classics are often used to bolster or lend credibility to a right-wing, authoritarian, patriarchal, Eurocentric, white-supremacist view of the world, but that is not principally why I dislike them. For me, it is more personal, more irrational, more enjoyable. I love a good grievance.

Surely this should have been seen as an affront to the KCL Classics department, as what was supposed to be a ‘thoughtful, provocative and personal lecture’, according to Will Wootton, professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at Kings, was actually more akin to a two-hour struggle session.

Perhaps this is not surprising, it feels like just the same trite messaging as Perry’s own art. I remember seeing Perry’s pottery in the run up to his winning the Turner Prize. His pottery looks beautiful from a distance (and undoubtedly has artistic merit). But when you get up close, the pots are emblazoned in ‘shocking’ images and slogans like ‘Never have kids’ and ‘All men are bastards’. [4] Being hectored by his ‘political’ art is not very illuminating at all, except for promoting explicitly arguably anti-civilisational messages.

But while an eccentric artist may be free to have his opinion on the ‘outdated’ ideas of classical philosophy, it was KCL’s decision to highlight this position over a more nuanced discussion – which suggests that even those seemingly most invested in promoting ancient philosophy seem to be retreating from some of its core ideas and principles.

Shockingly, not only was Perry’s invitation a potential intellectual betrayal, but it was also the last of the annual lectures put on by the Rumble Fund. This was the sign off. That’s the last word on the subject. In a context of broader focus in relation to the teaching of the classics – that they should be decolonised and deconstructed – KCL’s decision to put Perry’s hatred of classical civilisation centre stage, along with banal political messages from the elite’s playbook, seems like yet another insidious, passive-aggressive attempt at undermining Western culture, sweeping it under the carpet to be forgotten, driven by a self-loathing war on the classics.

Luckily, the Academy of Ideas, amongst others, will resist.

David Perks is convenor of the Classical Philosophy Reading Group. The next discussion is Plato’s Republic Session 4 - Stephanus number 376 to 412 – on Sunday 17 May, 18:00 to 19:30 (UK) via Zoom. Find out more and book via Eventbrite. David will be speaking at Leeds Salon on Saturday 6 June on the topic ‘Why Read Plato’s Republic Today?’, part of Leeds Lit Fest 2026. Find out more here.

Notes

[1] Plato, Republic, p47, translated by Robin Waterfield, 2008, Oxford World’s Classics

[2] Plutarch, Solon in Greek Lives, p47-77, translated by Robin Waterfield, 2008, Oxford World’s Classics

[3] Constitution of Athens, Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, edited by Jonathan Barnes, 1995, Princeton University Books

[4] Grayson Perry, We’ve Found the Body of Your Child, 2000, glazed earthenware