All around us, we see dull conformity. In too many areas, the high culture of free-thinking professionalism has degenerated into a low reflex of jobsworth – keep your head down, tick your boxes, collect your pay packet and run. The government has played its part, finding ever-more ingenious ways (usually involving funds-with-strings or spurious manifestos) to suppress dissent and impose its own agendas. The Battle of Ideas takes a beater to this stifling blanket of dingy compliance, whacking out the dust, knocking it about, and generally showing it who’s boss. What use is freedom without thought? Let ideas reign! – and that’s why the ISM is glad to support the Battle.

- Neil Hoyle, Chief Executive, ISM