Jason Smith is a freelance journalist with a particular interest in the politics of food, equality & civil liberties and farming. He contributed a chapter on the Equality Act to the Big Brother Watch book The State of Civil Liberties in Modern Britain, Ed Alex Deane. He writes regularly for The Free Society and spiked.

Jason established the Birmingham Salon in February 2010 after attending the Battle of Ideas Festival in 2009, with the notion that Birmingham deserves the same arena to argue about important issues of the day. He currently works for Debating Matters, a national debating competition for sixth form pupils, as judges coordinator. He is convenor of the Food Fight strand at Battle of Ideas 2011 and a member of the Battle of Ideas Organising Committee.