A recording of a debate at the Battle of Ideas festival at the Barbican in London on 14 October 2018.
Over the past year, debates about democracy and its woes have been ubiquitous. There are fears tech giants and algorithms are undermining elections. Liberal democratic values such as free speech and universalism are questioned, even by liberals. Populism is variously claimed to be a threat to democracy or its very embodiment. Some claim undereducated voters were conned into voting for Brexit or Donald Trump and argue citizens should have to earn the right to vote by passing a test. Elected governments in Poland and Hungary have been censured by the EU. But managerial style of rule suggests anti-democratic tendencies have been developing for decades, excluding and ultimately angering voters. Many government powers are now exercised by unelected experts and quangos. Is it time to give more power to The People? What is democracy and what threatens it today? Can liberalism renew itself sufficiently to save democracy?
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES
editor-in-chief, The Economist
DANIEL MOYLAN
former deputy chairman, Transport for London; co-chairman, Urban Design London
STEVE RICHARDS
broadcaster; political commentator; presenter, BBC Radio 4’s Week in Westminster; author, The Rise of the Outsiders
BRUNO WATERFIELD
Brussels correspondent, The Times; co-author, No Means No
#BattleFest2019: Resisting wokeness with Andrew Doyle and Douglas Murray
#BattleFest2019: Health and genomics - what’s the score with polygenic scores?
#BattleFest2019: How can we create a new industrial revolution?
#BattleFest2019: Do we need a Green New Deal?
#BattleFest2019: From zero hours to apprenticeships - young people at work
#BattleFest2019: What’s the point of going to university?
#BattleFest2019: How can we create a construction revolution?
#BattleFest2019: Artificial intelligence in schools - where’s the humanity?
#BattleFest2019: Does the world need a government?
#BattleFest2019: A waste of a good crisis? A decade after the crash, with Larry Elliott
#BattleFest2019: What is the future of the Union?
#BattleFest2019: Caster Semenya running into controversy - genes, gender and sport
#PodcastOfIdeas: first thoughts on General Election 2019
#BattleFest2019: Assisted dying - a doctor’s poisoned chalice?
#BattleFest2019: The rise of toxic politics - can we be civil?
#BattleFest2019: Woke corporations - responsible capitalism or virtue signalling?
#BattleFest2019: What does it mean to be normal?
#BattleFest2019: Extinction or progress? Visions of the future
#BattleFest2019: The Life of Brian at 40 - are we more easily offended today?
#BattleFest2019: Titania McGrath - satire in the age of social justice
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free