Anthony Barnett and Claire Fox Chaired by Stephen Law

Writer and campaigner Anthony Barnett and director of the Institute of Ideas Claire Fox discuss how we should go about healing our increasingly divided society.

Many argue that the Brexit vote revealed widespread anger and frustration with politicians and the political and media elites, who have been accused of cultural condescension towards ordinary people who do not share their views. Many feel a sense of detachment from the political machinery and a sense of there being no point in voting. People lower down the socio-economic ladder are finding themselves ever-more tightly squeezed, vulnerable, and indebted, while a few cash in.

Barnett is author of Lure of Greatness: England’s Brexit & America’s Trump (described as “blistering” by Zadie Smith and “one of the most important political books of 2017” in the Guardian New Year leader). He is the founder of openDemocracy in which he writes regularly (his photo essay on Grenfell Tower is relevant to this session). He also writes for the New York Review of Books Daily, the New Statesman and the Guardian.

Fox is director of the Academy of Ideas, a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and the Debating Matters Competition for sixth-formers. She is a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, a columnist for Times Education Supplement and Municipal Journal and author of a recent book on free speech, I Find That Offensive.

Discussions are chaired by philosopher and author Dr Stephen Law.

Note: James Bloodworth was originally scheduled to appear at this event but can no longer make it.