Battle of Ideas Festival Audio Archive

Are the old political parties over?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Are the mainstream parties facing extinction or can they bounce back by the time of the next General Election in 2029? Can the Tories recover from 14 years of misrule? Will the Labour Party survive from its current economic woes? Will the political vacuum be filled by Ed Davey’s Liberal Democrats or the ‘challenger’ parties like Reform or the Greens?
Take the Conservative Party: the oldest party in the world currently looks as if it is facing electoral wipeout. In a recent survey, 42 per cent of Conservative voters in the 2024 General Election said that even they wouldn’t vote for them. The party that squandered Brexit is desperately looking around for a purpose. Some Tories believe that Robert Jenrick poses a more credible alternative than the current leader, Kemi Badenoch.
But are they both fighting for a hopeless cause? Jenrick’s crime-fighting TikTok videos and Badenoch’s recent support of oil exploration got lots of media coverage, but Net Zero and the current failed model of policing were both introduced on their watch. Are they going back to their roots – if they can remember what those roots are – or are they simply mimicking Trump and Farage’s agendas from the sidelines?
Meanwhile, Labour seems to be imploding. A recent Ipsos poll ranked the current UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, as the most unpopular leader in modern times. In July 2024, his government won almost two-thirds of all seats, with a 174 majority in the Commons, yet a year later it is collapsing in the polls. The government has presided over cuts and tax rises, strikes and bailouts, two-tier justice and a zero-growth economy. The idea that if you pinned a red rosette on a donkey in Wales, it’d get elected no longer holds true.
Far from ‘smashing the gangs’, the immigration scandal that Labour inherited from the Tories means it is haemorrhaging support in Red Wall seats. Preferring Davos over Westminster, Starmer seems to prefer hob-nobbing with world leaders while taking British democracy for granted.
Yet the death of both Labour and the Conservatives has been declared numerous times before, only for them to revive. Is it too soon to count them out? Is Britain’s political map being redrawn, or torn up? Might proportional representation reinvigorate the mainstream parties? Must we wait for four more years? We’ll take a vote on it.
SPEAKERSRosie Duffield MPmember of parliament for Canterbury
Dr Richard Johnsonwriter; senior lecturer in politics, Queen Mary University of London; co-author, Keeping the Red Flag Flying: The Labour Party in Opposition since 1922
Mark Littlewooddirector, Popular Conservatism; broadcaster, columnist, the Telegraph and the Mail
Tim Montgomerieconservative journalist; founder, ConservativeHome, UnHerd and Centre for Social Justice
Graham Stringer MPmember of parliament, Blackley and Middleton South
CHAIRBruno WaterfieldBrussels correspondent, The Times

Letters on Liberty: Abortion and the Freedom to Forge Our Own Fate

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Since 2020, the Academy of Ideas has published Letters on Liberty – a radical pamphlet series aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom today and inspiring rowdy, good-natured disagreement.
In her Letter – Abortion and the Freedom to Forge Our Own Fate – Ann Furedi, an author and former chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, argues that debates about abortion often focus on when human life begins in the womb. Instead, she argues that it is important to consider a different human life – that of the woman.
Furedi argues that the future of a woman’s pregnancy should be for her alone to decide, and this decision ought to be regarded as personal and private. There is no clearer illustration of the way choice, agency and responsibility matters than the consequences of a woman’s decision about her pregnancy, she says. To prevent someone from exercising their own choice, in a personal and private matter, is to strip them of their dignity and their humanity. Most importantly, she argues, we cannot respect the principles of freedom without acknowledging the freedom of reproductive choice.
However, abortion is still regulated by law and legal limits, which can lead to a clash between an individual woman’s rights and policy priorities. This was vividly illustrated by the recent backlash after MPs voted to change abortion legislation to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending their pregnancy after 24 weeks. The landslide vote to decriminalise the procedure – considered the biggest change to abortion laws in England and Wales for nearly 60 years – was met with horror in some quarters and not confined to traditional anti-abortion circles. For example, even some feminists argued foetal viability creates a clash of rights. So, is abortion such a clear cut issue for women’s freedom?
Join Ann and respondents to discuss whether such controversies and public qualms might undermine UK abortion rights. How does a decision to continue or end a pregnancy relate to a woman’s freedom to shape her own life? With abortion regulation in many US states as well as other countries becoming more restrictive, does this reflect public sentiment? If not, how should we make the case for bodily autonomy in the twenty-first century?
SPEAKERSDr Piers Bennphilosopher, author and lecturer
Ann Furediauthor, The Moral Case for Abortion; former chief executive, BPAS
Margo MartinPhD student, Aberystwth University
Jacob Phillipsprofessor of systematic theology, St Mary’s University, Twickenham; author, Obedience is Freedom
CHAIRElla Whelanco-convenor, Battle of Ideas festival; journalist; author, What Women Want

Letters on Liberty: The Tyranny of Campus Wellbeing

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 on Saturday 18 October at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Since 2020, the Academy of Ideas has published Letters on Liberty – a radical pamphlet series aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom today and inspiring rowdy, good-natured disagreement.
In her Letter – The Tyranny of Campus Wellbeing – writer and student Felice Basboll argues that a focus on mental health and wellbeing is making us ill. The stressors that used to be considered inevitable parts of adult life are now seen as oppressive, she writes. Young people are assumed by everyone – themselves included – to be incapable of dealing with adversity. Rather than meet the difficulties that life might throw at them head on, she argues, the prioritisation of wellbeing means that disagreeable views must be censored, and harsh realities avoided. As a result, students and other young people are convincing themselves that they’re not able to handle real life.
Join Felice and respondents to discuss whether thinking about our wellbeing is good for us. While the destigmatisation of mental health has its benefits, is there a danger in blurring the lines between negative emotions and serious illness? Is wellbeing in danger of being weaponised as a means to censor views we don’t want to hear? And is it possible to push back when society’s priority seems to be feelings over action?
SPEAKERSFelice Basbøllhistory student, Trinity College Dublin; author, The Tyranny of Campus Wellbeing
Dr Jennifer Cunninghamretired community paediatrician; board member, Scottish Union for Education (SUE)
Maeve Halliganco-founder and president, Cambridge University Society of Women; postgraduate student, Eastern European literature; Living Freedom alumna
Ed Renniepsychotherapist; co-founder Climate Debate UK
Eloise Schultzlaw student; political activist
CHAIRDr Ruth Mieschbuehlersenior lecturer in education studies, University of Derby; author, The Racialisation of Campus Relations
 

Can Trump bring peace to the world?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
‘I want to end it. You know, we’re not losing American lives… we’re losing Russian and Ukrainian mostly soldiers. I want to try and get to heaven if possible. I’m hearing I’m not doing well. I am really at the bottom of the totem pole. But if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons.’
Donald Trump phoned in to a Fox News show to state his motivation for focusing so much on bringing peace to Europe after over three years of the biggest war the continent had seen since the Second World War. Trump might be genuine about his desire to see peace. But the question is whether Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ is cut out for the realities of geopolitics.
It is not just Ukraine where Trump has sought peace. Trump claims to have brought peace to six or seven conflicts in his two terms in office, including Israel-Iran, Pakistan-India and Armenia-Azerbaijan. His administration has also pursued an end to the conflict in Gaza. But in all cases, critics have attacked both the style and the substance of Trump’s peace efforts.
Most obvious have been his failures to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite promising to bring it to an end in 24 hours, and despite August’s high-profile meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin, and then Trump’s hosting of European leaders including Volodymyr Zelensky, the war seems little closer to an end than when he took office. Supporters of Ukraine have been outraged by his suggestions that Ukraine would have to engage in a ‘land for peace’ swap, and point to Trump’s see-sawing on military support to the beleaguered country and entertaining of ‘war criminal’ Putin.
But many of his supporters are disappointed for the opposite reason – he has refused to cut off the ‘ungrateful’ Zelensky. It seems that Trump’s belief that merely encouraging Putin and Zelensky to come to the table has floundered on the reality of a conflict with huge ramifications and deep roots – including the role of previous American administrations.
Elsewhere, results are more mixed. Trump seems to have successfully dealt with Israel’s conflict with Iran with a combination of an unprecedented use of American airpower against Iran and frantic social-media posts restraining Netanyahu. Trump’s role in India and Pakistan is unclear, but the exchanges did not escalate into war. Yet peace in Gaza remains elusive – the Trump administration has given almost unrestrained backing in practice to Israel whilst hinting at displeasure with the Israeli government, and yet seems to have little leverage over Hamas and its backers.
It is still too early to tell if Trump will succeed in ending Russia’s war or bring the Israeli hostages home. But are Trump’s efforts the result of serious geopolitical acumen or just a desperate desire for a Nobel Prize? Is Trump deluded in thinking that he personally can end major conflicts – and has the time when America could dictate world affairs come to an end? But if Trump can’t bring peace, can anyone? Or is it a mistake to think of these wars as a matter of personalities, when much larger geopolitical forces are at play?
SPEAKERSLord Tariq Ahmad KCMGforeign minister, diplomat, British businessman, and community leader
Mary Dejevskyformer foreign correspondent in Moscow, Paris and Washington; special correspondent in China; writer and broadcaster
Dominic Greenhistorian; columnist, Wall Street Journal and Washington Examiner
Blair Milosenior fellow, Sagamore Institute
Bruno WaterfieldBrussels correspondent, The Times
CHAIRTony Gillandchief of staff, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas

Why is my energy bill so high?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Heating or eating? That has become a burning question for many people. From struggling households to steel works and factories, energy prices remain a hot topic. Ed Miliband’s assurance that bills would fall by £300 per year looks wildly optimistic.
The cost of energy bills became a major political issue when a combination of a post-pandemic resurgence of the world economy and war in Ukraine sent the price of energy in general, and natural gas in particular, shooting up. Prices have come down a lot since then, but remain higher than before. The Ofgem energy price cap for a ‘typical household’ increased from £1,137 per year in January 2019 to £1,720 in July 2025 – a rise of over 50 per cent.
Supporters of renewable energy argue that the UK is still at the mercy of global prices for gas because ‘gas sets the price’ in the energy market, thanks to the way the ‘merit order’ works for wholesale energy prices: the most expensive form of energy that is used sets the price for everything. Generally, that is gas. Get rid of fossil fuels, we are told, and we would have lower prices and less exposure to world markets.
However, critics point out that the wholesale price is only part of the story. The retail price of energy includes a variety of subsidies for renewable energy that mean the actual price renewable producers receive is much higher. If renewables are really as cheap as their proponents claim, why do they need to be subsidised and why do countries that use a lot of renewables also have the highest energy bills? Will prices rise further as we use even more renewables? And if energy security is so important, why would we want to rely on intermittent energy sources like wind and solar?
In this session, energy experts will explain how our energy bills remain so high and what the consequences are for household finances and the wider economy.
SPEAKERSLord Mackinlaydirector, The Global Warming Policy Foundation
Kathryn Porterconsultant, Watt-Logic
David Turverenergy policy analyst, Eigen Values
CHAIRRob Lyonsscience and technology director, Academy of Ideas; convenor, AoI Economy Forum; author, Panic on a Plate

The rise and fall of private life

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt famously said: ‘If you have something to hide, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.’ Today, demands for privacy are often viewed with suspicion, and protecting secrets is seen as dodgy and evasive. Consequently, even the most sacrosanct or protected private exchanges face demands to be opened up or are regularly leaked – whether it is doctor/patient confidentiality, the sanctity of the confessional or ‘off the record’ briefings.
Making public our most private thoughts and activities has become fashionable. Reality TV cameras are invited into the family home and to record our breakups while celebrities and royals share intimate secrets on podcasts with millions. Teenagers broadcast their lives on TikTok and sexting is normalised while ordinary people facing terminal illness can become famous by revealing their struggles. Broadcasting personal sexual activity is now posited as positively taking control, in contrast with the old patriarchal clandestine pornographies. On OnlyFans, the bedroom has become a broadcast studio.
Unsurprisingly, with so many content to relinquish privacy, there are doubts about whether there is a public appetite for resisting more official incursions into our hard-won private space. From facial-recognition cameras to Digital ID, mindless clicks to routine app permissions, threats of ‘back door’ access to Apple users’ data or corporate recording of our purchases, campaigners worry that Britain is one of the most surveilled countries in the world. Where once we could walk around town, chat with mates in the pub or making off-colour jokes with friends safe in the knowledge these were essentially private matter, now they are subject to policy interventions and the glare of Big Brother. Yet concerns about these trends seldom find their way to the top of the political agenda and such interventions are frequently defended and justified.
How do we determine what should remain private versus public? As society changes, should we accept that that activities once considered private should now be accepted as public affairs? With the ubiquity of new technologies – from smartphones to social-media services to AI – eroding the capacity to protect our privacies in everyday interactions, do we need to move with the times and accept the inevitable: that technological forces will shape our attitudes toward privacy? Or should we resist, and at least dig deeper to understand why and how the right to privacy became a key civil liberty?
Could examining the history of the cultural, philosophical, social and moral importance of privacy, as Tiffany Jenkins does in Strangers and Intimates: The Rise and Fall of Private Life, help us navigate the balance between public and private, and why our right to privacy should matter?
SPEAKERSAndrew GoldYouTuber; host, Heretics
Abbot Christopher JamisonAbbot President, English Benedictine Congregation; author, Finding the Language of Grace: rediscovering transcendence
Dr Tiffany Jenkinswriter and broadcaster; author, Strangers and Intimates and Keeping Their Marbles
CHAIRTimandra Harknessjournalist, writer and broadcaster; author, Technology is Not the Problem and Big Data: does size matter?; presenter, Radio 4's FutureProofing and How to Disagree

The rise of the workplace speech police

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
The British workplace is now too often a toxic environment, a hotbed of grievance culture, lawfare and an ever-expanding number of disciplinary codes unrelated to the nature of specific jobs. Over the past year, there’s been a 23 per cent rise in cases at employment tribunals and a two-year waiting list, due to a growing backlog, with workplace conflicts estimated to now cost businesses £28.5 billion annually.
How did this come about?
The UK is a world leader in human relations (HR). With over half a million HR workers – almost double the number of 15 years ago – Britain stands second in the global league table for size of HR sector as a share of all occupations. Over seven in 10 FTSE 100 companies now boast a ‘chief HR officer’ on their executive committee, reflecting the elevated status of this newfound ‘profession’.
We might expect this might lead to happier more productive workers, fewer grievances and higher job retention. Yet the growth of the HR industrial complex doesn’t appear to have led to better workplace outcomes or harmony.
Arguably, HR is as much the problem as the solution. HR departments – until recently humdrum administrative hubs managing payrolls, processing sick notes and checking firms complied with employment law – have now morphed into real centres of power. They are the enforcers of workplace orthodoxies, controlling what workers can say or do, who keeps their job, and even shaping corporate missions. For example, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is charged with versing workers in new values, from DEI literacy to managing emotional security.
What’s more, the traditional defenders of workers’ rights – trade unions – are increasingly acting in lockstep with HR managers’ priorities. A recent paper by the Free Speech Union, Shopped Stewards, revealed the divisive nature of union bureaucrats’ adherence to identity politics, which means they often side with the DEI initiatives of their employers, as opposed to defending their members’ rights. For example, teacher Simon Pearson was fired by Preston College after a complaint from a Muslim representative of the National Education Union (NEU). Pearson was accused of being ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘racially discriminatory’ for social-media posts, such as saying Lucy Connolly ‘should not have been jailed’.
Another report suggests that specific legislation has led to a deterioration in workplace relations. The Don’t Divide Us report, The Equality Act Isn’t Working, reveals the ‘expansionary logic’ of the Equality Act 2010 has provided the legal scaffolding that supports a surge in (largely unsuccessful) workplace race–discrimination claims. This, DDU argues, contributes to a grievance culture where people resort to ‘lawfare’ to resolve ‘petty disputes and imagined slights’, while empowering thin-skinned employees to wilfully misinterpret perfectly innocent comments or interactions.
Can the workplace be detoxified? How can we tame the HR monster? Can trade unions return to a ‘one for all, all for one’ role of protecting workers’ rights? Can laws that are divisive in workplaces be reined in?
SPEAKERSPamela Dowchief operating officer, Civic Future
Paul Emberyfirefighter; trade unionist; author, Despised: why the modern Left loathes the working class; broadcaster
Maya Forstaterchief executive, Sex Matters
Dr Anna Loutfiemployment and human rights barrister; advisory council member, Don’t Divide Us
CHAIRPara Mullanformer operations director, EY-Seren; fellow, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

Tax on private schools: social justice or spite?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
In January 2025, as promised in its manifesto, the Labour government imposed VAT on private school fees, justifying the policy as ending the ‘luxury’ of private school ‘tax exemptions’. Supporters see this as social justice in action, a righteous attack on privilege. But according to the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the policy is simply a revenue raiser, one that she claims will fund 6,500 urgently needed teachers in the state sector. This narrative is somewhat contradicted both by real figures, which suggest the policy will raise far less than suggested, but also by Phillipson’s own X feed, where she referred, somewhat sneeringly, to private schools’ ‘embossed stationery’ and ‘new pools’.
There has been a loud backlash, with critics arguing this is a spiteful tax on aspiration, and an attack on parental choice over where and how to educate their children. Perhaps inevitably, the policy has led to increased school fees across the independent sector, and the closure of longstanding private schools, forcing parents to compete for limited places in local state schools.
There are many who sympathise with the education secretary on grounds of fairness. Why should asset-rich private schools enjoy charitable status when many of their students are not receiving bursaries or grants? Private schools have long been associated with higher exam attainment, smaller classes and networking opportunities that many state-school children do not enjoy. Perhaps a commitment to equality makes it justifiable that the private sector should provide revenue for less-privileged children.
Conversely, private-school parents claim the policy is unfair since they are already paying for their children’s education twice: once for a state school place through conventional taxation and again for private-school fees. Supporters of public schools also claim this is fundamentally about the right to educate your own children as you see fit.
Some note that when the state system is in a mess regarding, for example, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), having the option of independent schools that offer specialist help for children with learning difficulties is essential. Others note that this financial penalty will have little impact on those rich enough to send their kids to Eton. Rather, the real pain will be for the many parents who are not rich but aspirational, hard-working savers. Is there an inconsistency at work here, too, when some parents can supplement state-school education with private tuition that remains untaxed?
Is the government right to level up children’s opportunities through the taxation system? On principle, is private education an affront to fair play and a key reason for social inequality? If this debate only affects a minority of parents, does it matter? Or is there more at stake in terms of state over-reach into parental autonomy? Is this a crass form of chippy class vengeance that everyone should be concerned with?
SPEAKERSBaroness Joanne Cashlife peer and radical
Joe Nutteducational consultant; author, including John Donne: The Poems and An Introduction to Shakespeare’s Late Plays
Stella Tsantekidoupolitical commentator
Charlie Winstanleyauthor, Bricking it: The UK Housing Crisis and the Failure of Policy; public affairs & social policy development professional
CHAIRIan MitchellEnglish literature and psychology teacher; writer, Teachwire; member, AoI Education Forum

The Great Gatsby, 100 years on: understanding modern America

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
This year marks the centenary of one of the most famous novels of the twentieth century: F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The book is still taught in schools on either side of the Atlantic, has inspired countless film and theatre adaptations, and was described by Fitzgerald himself as ‘the best American novel ever written’. But what is it that has made the novel resonate with readers for so long?
In the book, Fitzgerald uses his naive narrator Nick, a wannabe stockbroker, to exploit the limits of social mobility in an affluent area of 1920s New York. A love triangle forms between Nick’s cousin Daisy Buchanan, a flapper, her aristocratic husband Tom, who is having a simultaneous affair with social climber Myrtle Wilson, and Nick’s neighbour Jay Gatsby, who has hidden his low-class and criminal past in order to reinvent himself as a member of the affluent elite.
After Daisy finds out about the actual source of Gatsby’s wealth, the central romance devolves into tragedy. Gatsby and Myrtle, the class ‘fakers’ in the story, get caught in the cross-hairs of the two affairs; neither comes out alive. Nick moves back to the Midwest, convinced that none of his group were meant to abandon the earthier values of rural America.
Could there be something special in its depiction of a fledgling consumer society? Gatsby’s backstory, appearance and famous nightly parties are engineered purely to win Daisy over – an all-consuming and ultimately pointless pursuit. Perhaps this resonates more than ever in our new age of keeping up appearances: our social media feeds have made us obsessed with cultivating the perfect image for those who might be watching, and corporations rely on paid influencers to sell an aspirational lifestyle ideal.
Or could the novel be used to explain America’s current political situation? A 2018 Atlantic article posed Tom Buchanan, Gatsby’s generationally wealthy unmasker, as a fictional answer to the then-ascendant Donald Trump. But there’s an equal argument that Trump is Gatsby: his opulent empire, scandalous background and anti-establishment positions have created a sense of pathos among his supporters, many of whom live far away from Fitzgerald’s decadent east coast.
Does ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ still hold sway over the American dream – or is cash and consumerism a more enticing prospect? Is there still truth in the book’s doomed depiction of class mobility? And why has Fitzgerald’s novel troubled our culture for so long?
SPEAKERSKara Danskylawyer; author, The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls (2023)
Jonathan Grantchartered accountant; arts critic
Dr Cheryl Hudsonlecturer in US political history, University of Liverpool; author, Citizenship in Chicago: Democracy, Race, and the Remaking of American Identity 1894-1924
Vinay Kapooreducation and engagement officer; Free Speech Union
Helen Searlsco-founder, Hyenas book club, Washington DC
CHAIRAlan Millerco-founder and chair, Together Association

Face time? The pros and cons of burqa bans

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
When Sarah Pochin used her first parliamentary question as a new Reform Party MP to ask about banning the burqa, she reignited a longstanding, smouldering issue. The issue is nothing if not controversial. From France’s 2010 prohibition on face-covering veils in public, to similar legislation in Denmark, Austria and Belgium, laws banning the burqa or niqab have become European flashpoints for debates about freedom, feminism, multiculturalism and social cohesion.
Some proponents of a ban in the UK, such as Pochin, argue it is ‘in the interests of public safety’ to ban an article of clothing which is ‘offensive to British culture’. They also see the veil as an obstacle to integration, a threat to British identity that allows ethno-religious enclaves to develop by encouraging immigrants not to integrate. For some, the burqa seems to embody a visceral symbol of certain migrant communities’ alienation and separation from British norms, frequently visible on British streets.
Others, especially women’s rights campaigners, focus on the burqa as inherently misogynistic, forcing women to cover their faces around men. Therefore, a ban would be an act of liberation in the fight for women’s equality.
Critics of a ban, however, are unconvinced. They see such measures as state overreach, swapping one form of control for another under the banner of women’s liberation. Many women wear the niqab or burqa voluntarily, seeing it not as subjugation but as a statement of devotion or privacy. And where coercion does exist, they argue, empowerment will more likely come through education and dialogue, not prohibition. To them, compelling a woman to unveil is as intrusive as compelling her to cover up. Some argue such a ban singles out Muslim women for special scrutiny, framing cultural difference as a threat, fostering resentment rather than cohesion.
More generally, the principle of freedom is at stake – especially women’s freedom – to choose their dress, faith and identity.  As Boris Johnson controversially said in 2018, ‘it is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes… [but with a ban] you risk a general crackdown on any public symbols of religious affiliation’.
Is the issue as binary as sometimes heated rows suggest? Even those who feel squeamish about a ban worry about a practice that prevents face-to-face interactions, upon which open societies depend. For the public square to act as a place of genuine exchange and human connection, and civil society to function openly, some suggest a third way of temporary restrictions in places as varied as schools, hospitals or banks.
Is the burqa a threat to British identity or an important aspect of tolerance in a pluralistic, democratic society? Does legislating the boundaries of cultural expression risk hardening difference instead of fostering cohesion? Which side best serves women’s freedom? When values clash – security, equality, cohesion, freedom – which should take priority?
SPEAKERSJosie Appletondirector, civil liberties group, Manifesto Club; author, Officious: Rise of the Busybody State; writer, Notes on Freedom
Faika El-Nagashidirector, Athena Forum; political scientist; former MP (Austria)
Khadija Khanjournalist and broadcaster; editor, A Further Inquiry; co-host, A Further Inquiry podcast
Ralph Leonardauthor, Unshackling Intimacy: Letters on Liberty; contributor, UnHerd, Quillette, New Statesman and Sublation Magazine
CHAIRDr James Pantondeputy head welfare, St Edwards School, Oxford; associate lecturer in philosophy, The Open University

Battle Book Club: Someone Else’s Music: Opera and the British

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Has society completely turned its back on opera? Alexandra Wilson says no, opera-going is closely connected to modern culture, and has been for at least the past century. While opera is routinely called elitist, Wilson – in her book Someone Else’s Music – challenges that belief, arguing that opera is part of the very fabric of British life and culture, transcending class divides.
Has opera been cancelled? Today, opera has faced much controversy due to the increased push for diversification. Should traditional opera be expanded to include voices previously unheard? Or is opera sacred, a reflection of an established past?
Opera is pervasive, necessary to understand modern debates about everything from education and art policy to public broadcasting. Music has shaped the modern British cultural landscape, and opera is included. Highlighting working-class Londoners, musically inclined Welsh miners, soldiers in wartime Italy and the modern socialite, Wilson proves that opera has always been for everyone, and it can be again. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings.
Examining the shifting cultural perception of opera over the past century, Wilson finds that opera has never gone truly out of style. While the perception has changed, mostly due to deep-seated British anxiety about class and education, opera’s popularity, up until recently, has not dwindled.
Why do we perceive opera as elitist? Is the age of opera over? Or will we see a renaissance of composition?
SPEAKERSYoel Gamzouconductor and composer
Elisabetta Gasparonilinguist; teacher; founder, Aesthetic Study Group
Professor Carl Gombrichuniversity dean, programme director
Ivan Hewettwriter and broadcaster; chief music critic, Telegraph; professor, Royal College of Music; author, Music: healing the rift
Alexandra Wilsonarts writer, author, academic
CHAIRLuke Gittoscriminal lawyer; author, Human Rights – Illusory Freedom; director, Freedom Law Clinic

Who’s afraid of the populist revolt?

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Too often, it is assumed that the spectacular rise of populist parties across the West has fueled discontent about a host of issues, from mass migration to reactions against EDI policies. We are told that if it weren’t for those charismatic populist leaders – political snake-oil salesmen – stirring the pot, there would far be less hostility to establishment institutions and mainstream parties.
But in his forthcoming book, Professor Frank Furedi argues this gets things the wrong way round. In fact, the enthusiasm for populist movements, he argues, arises from a prior popular demand for a new politics, driven by those who feel that their concerns have been systematically ignored.
The fact that so many professional political observers seem to have been taken by surprise at the sudden surge in electoral support for populist parties across Europe says much about official indifference to the long-standing frustrations that have been brewing for years. To those paying attention, these tensions were all too evident.
The populist zeitgeist seems to transcend particular problems faced by different countries. Populists are on the up in America, Germany, France, Italy, and even Japan. What do they all have in common? Yes, individual populist politicians and parties come in all shapes and sizes, with eccentric policies and political cranks, yet they all give voice to a sense of political and social homelessness, economic dislocation, deindustrialisation, feeling left behind by globalisation, and the disorienting effect of mass migration. This populist spirit shares an attachment to ideals like popular and national sovereignty, majoritarian democracy, and the search for pride in the nation.
Those in legacy parties who assume there’s a weakness in movements that don’t provide detailed legislative programmes miss a key point. Furedi argues that the populist mood is more cultural, existential and focused on values. There’s a general desire by the public that their wishes are at last taken seriously and not sneered at; that their traditions and customs are respected and not smeared as outdated and backward.
There’s undoubtedly a feeling in the air that enough is enough: that the era of being patronised by those who presume they know better about how ordinary people should live is being stridently rejected. But does this sensibility equate with an ideology? Can the sometimes-chaotic parties that are the vehicles for allowing more and more people to find their voice have any sustainable moral authority? If it’s concluded that we should vote now and sort out the details later, is there a danger of disappointment if the insurgent populist parties fail to deliver?
Is national populism any more than a democratic vibe? Does the political establishment’s dubbing of populism as ‘far right’ stand up to scrutiny, especially when more leftist and green movements are describing themselves as populist? Are we on the brink of a new and vibrant democratic era?
SPEAKERSFrank Furedisociologist and social commentator; executive director, MCC Brussels
Dr James Orrassociate professor of philosophy of religion, University of Cambridge
Graham Stringer MPmember of parliament, Blackley and Middleton South
CHAIRClaire Foxdirector, Academy of Ideas; independent peer, House of Lords; author, I STILL Find That Offensive!

Misinformation, the media and the fight for truth

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Earlier this year, Times columnist James Marriot wrote that ‘a successful society requires a shared moral and cultural reality. A democracy whose citizens are divided not only on policy but on fundamental questions of what is and isn’t true will grow increasingly dysfunctional’.
The arguments over what is and isn’t misinformation – especially as presented by the mainstream media – are now so commonplace that, arguably, people are losing trust in truth per se. ‘Narratives’ may well have always been subjective, Whether you were left or right, young or old, theist or atheist has always dictated how you might feel about a particular issue, on anything from tax reform to the Middle East. But today we have wildly conflicting ‘facts’, such as the vast disparity on how many attended the Unite the Kingdom demonstration, or whether people like Lucy Connolly or Charlie Kirk are malign figures or wholesome mums and dads, with opinions at odds with the commentariat.
Some suggest we need an army of fact-checkers and misinformation tsars to legitimise truth. Phrases such as ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth society’ hog the headlines. Those in power often claim views they consider beyond the mainstream are ‘fuelled by disinformation on social media’. For example, earlier this year, lawyers arguing that Epping’s Bell Hotel should be reopened to asylum seekers, invoked the spectre of misinformation to dismiss protestors’ concerns around the risks of housing illegal migrants.
But even when it comes to more objective issues, such as vaccine efficacy, defining ‘a woman’, or even election results, old certainties and ‘common sense’ views have become subject to vociferous dispute. Traditional gatekeepers of public conversations – experts and academics, newspaper editors and TV producers – are eyed suspiciously. This assault on all expertise can obviously be corrosive. But while dissenters to the range of new orthodoxies – around issues like race, gender and the environment – are personally vilified as pedalling misinformation for having alternative opinions, isn’t such cynicism an inevitable outcome?
Many now worry about the prospect for truth-seeking through reasoned debate – particularly in a world where online discourse prevails. Commentator Douglas Murray believes the problem is both cultural and political. Whereas in the first Dark Age, there was a dearth of information, today’s new ‘Dark Age’ is characterised by an information surfeit making it difficult to absorb a calculable portion of it and leading to concerns about what is true.
Other commentators have argued that, in the middle of a culture war, facts are no longer common currency across society, and its ‘vibes’ that matter. On the issue of immigration, Trevor Phillips recently argued, ‘when it comes to issues of identity, facts are largely pointless. In fact, an injudicious defence of reason may simply inflame passions.’
Has the destruction of elite authority been a triumph of freedom, or is it the seedbed of anarchy? Can democracy survive without some broadly shared definition of truth? How does the media endow ideas and information with authority, and on whose terms?
SPEAKERSFrank Furedisociologist and social commentator; executive director, MCC Brussels
Sonia Gallegoreporter, Al Jazeera English
Nicole Lampertjournalist
James Marriottcolumnist and writer, The Times
Michael Murphyjournalist and documentary filmmaker
CHAIRBruno WaterfieldBrussels correspondent, The Times

Gentle parenting vs smacking

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
In August, the New Statesman ran a front-page article entitled ‘The millennial parent trap: This generation are desperate to raise their children differently. Why?’ Certainly, one of the clearest generational divides between millennials and their boomer parents is found in parenting styles. ‘Gentle parenting’ – non-confrontational and positive-reinforcing – has been adopted by many young parents in opposition to their parents and grandparents’ preferred means of discipline.
In the midst of endless books and articles full of these new theories and methods of child-rearing, gentle parenting is embraced as respecting the emotions of a child and the motivations behind those emotions. If a child is naughty, has a tantrum, spits at toddler friends, even hits a sibling, it’s the parents’ job to try and get to the bottom of why, and to address the root cause of the child’s frustrations. As one commentator notes: ‘A child should be understood, never punished.’ Or, God forbid, smacked.
Because there hasn’t merely been a shift in methods – many now think that physical punishment is so wrong it should be illegal. The slipper, the belt, the wooden spoon – physical discipline that used to be the norm, particularly in Irish, African and Asian immigrant families – is now associated with the bad old days and characterised as on a par with child cruelty.
Smacking bans came into force in Scotland in 2020 and Wales in 2022. There are now calls for UK-wide criminalisation – removing the current allowance for ‘reasonable punishment’. NSPCC representatives, MPs and campaigners say that smacking – even when light and performative – causes physical and psychological harm leaving children with a warped view of violence.
Those who oppose a ban argue that there is a great difference between loving disciplinary methods and the kind of abuse that would harm a child. They also point to worsening behaviour standards among young children, arguing that the shift towards gentle parenting – in which parents don’t discipline at all, whether physical or verbal – is failing to provide the boundaries that children need to socialise.  But gentle parenting advocates suggest their child-centred approach is more holistic, that traditional discipline is too crude and cruel, and lazily avoids teaching children to express themselves and learn to think through what motivates their actions.
But if parenting – as a verb – becomes a demand for psychological sophistication in encounters with one’s own kids, does it undermine parents’ autonomy? Does it weaken confidence in Mum and Dad’s instinctive sense of knowing what’s best for their children? Already, the chatter amongst Gen Zers is that the fashion for gentle parenting makes the prospect of having children so demanding and daunting that they are nervous they won’t be able to live up to the task.
Are traditional methods of discipline, like smacking, so harmful that we should ban them, or are there consequences for allowing interference into private family decisions? Is gentle parenting creating a nation of naughty kids, or is it time to start rethinking how we socialise children without the need for physical discipline?
SPEAKERSNaomi Firshtjournalist and commentator
Dr Ashley Frawleysociologist; author, Significant Emotions and Semiotics of Happiness
Emma Gillandevent co-ordinator, Academy of Ideas; convener; Battle Book Club
Nancy McDermottdirector, Genspect USA; US editor, Inspecting Gender; author, The Problem with Parenting
Dr Lola Salemlecturer in French and music, University of Oxford; author; professional singer, Maîtrise de Radio France
CHAIRProfessor Ellie Leeprofessor of family and parenting research, University of Kent, Canterbury; director, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies

Letters on Liberty: AI – Separating Man from Machine

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2025 at Church House and the Abbey Centre, Westminster, on Saturday 18 October.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
Since 2020, the Academy of Ideas has published Letters on Liberty – a radical pamphlet series aimed at reimagining arguments for freedom today and inspiring rowdy, good-natured disagreement.
In his Letter – AI: Separating Man from Machine – Sandy Starr questions whether the fears and controversies caused by generative AI are really the fault of the machines, or due to the questions they pose to our understanding of humanity. He asks whether we are incapable of dealing with both the challenges and the opportunities of generative AI. Should we not be able to harness its creativity, using its power to aid to human possibility rather than taking away from it? Reflecting King Lear’s assertion that ‘Nothing can come from nothing’, much of what AI creates requires human imagination and input. Can we not take solace in some credit for what it produces?
Narratives of fear surrounding generative AI often deflect concerns around human nature onto the machine. Giving chatbots prompts to cheat on homework, or to create deepfakes, are dependent on the desire to use computers to cheat or deceive. What is it about the temptation to use AI for bad, or out of laziness, rather than for progress?
Join Sandy and respondents to discuss how AI changes our perception of what it means to be human, how this is so often shaped by the creative process, and why AI is seen as such a threat. Is it that while the speed and ability of machines have their benefits it distracts from the greater meaning of human creativity? Are there not greater possibilities of AI being used to further humanity, rather than to diminish it?
SPEAKERSDr Shahrar Aliformer deputy leader, Green Party
Simon Cullenfaculty research fellow; visiting research professor of civil discourse and artificial intelligence, Heterodox Academy
Dr Patrik Schumacherprincipal, Zaha Hadid Architects; author, The Autopoiesis of Architecture and Tectonism – Architecture for the 21st Century
Sandy Starrdeputy director, Progress Educational Trust; author, AI: Separating Man from Machine
Leo Villaarchivist and promotions manager, Academy of Ideas
CHAIRSally Taplinbusiness consultant, Businessfourzero; visiting MBA lecturer, Bayes Business School; former board member, Lewes FC