A new agenda - 'Question Time'
Pledges for progress

Saturday 20 March, 3.30pm until 5.00pm, The Great Hall The Battle for Politics

What, if anything, is at stake in the 2010 general election? Are there important questions currently outside the remit of electoral politics, which ought to be subject to democratic deliberation?

Claire Fox, director of the IoI, will assess how voters might once again make history, rather than merely observing it, and launch an alternative election agenda with a set of pledges the Institute of Ideas believes would be worthy of support, before a panel of political thinkers and commentators take questions from the audience.

Invited guests from a variety of campaigns will also be invited to ‘pitch’ their agenda-setting initiatives and discuss how we can use the time between now and the election to ensure a serious public debate about the questions that are obscured by the mainstream parties.

Speakers
Dolan Cummings
associate fellow, Institute of Ideas; editor, Culture Wars; editor, Debating Humanism; co-founder, Manifesto Club

Ben Page
chief executive, Ipsos MORI; Editorial Board, International Journal of Market Research

George Lee
prospective parliamentary candidate, Conservative, Holborn & St Pancras; founding member, Black Police Association

Jo Phillips
consultant, New Deal of the Mind; co-author Why Vote? A guide for those who can't be bothered; West Ham season ticket holder

Peter Tatchell
human rights campaigner; Green Party human rights spokesperson

Chair:
Claire Fox
director, Institute of Ideas; panellist, BBC Radio 4's Moral Maze


Festival Buzz

Activist Revival or aimless hyper-activism?

"The arts and humanities need to be defended and we must fight for the freedom to extend barriers, not merely to work within them. What better arena than The Battle of Ideas?"
Professor Colin Lawson, Director, Royal College of Music