Overview

You can find details of the debates and events for Battle of Ideas festival 2021 below. You can narrow down the list by day, strand or theme. You can also download a PDF version of our print brochure.

Overview

Themes:

10:00-17:30 Saturday 9 October

Ideas Market 2021

10:15-11:45 Saturday 9 October

Pandemic or pandæmonium: are the kids alright?

The post-pandemic recovery: how is it going?

Should we resist the ‘new normal’?

Hate, heresy and the fight for free speech

Is the NHS fit for purpose?

Care for the elderly: the forgotten minority?

Vaccine passports: the key to the city?

12:15-13:30 Saturday 9 October

The Battle for Bitcoin

Grounded? Lockdown and the future of travel

Assisted dying: has its time come?

Letters on Liberty: The Freedom of the Open Road

Who are we? Identity in crisis

From GB News to Ben & Jerry’s: boycotts or censorship?

WHO, WTO, NATO… international order in crisis?

From teen vaccines to school strikes – who’s in charge?

Can culture survive the culture wars?

13:45-14:30 Saturday 9 October

Exercising our imagination: poetry and the public conversation

Is it all over for the royals?

From egg freezing to abortion: a woman’s right to choose?

Is there a case for fossil fuels?

Land of the unfree? Scotland under the SNP

14:45-16:15 Saturday 9 October

Can TV ever be impartial?

Girl, boy, other: how do we talk to kids about gender?

Remote working: will we be zooming out of the office?

The FSU files: how to fight Cancel Culture and win

Letters on Liberty: Unshackling Intimacy

Going green: eco-dogma or salvation?

From profits to prophets: why has big business gone woke?

Film Screening: Islamophobia – the accusation that silences dissent?

Is Cancel Culture killing comedy? Really?

16:45-18:15 Saturday 9 October

From Grenfell to the Green Belt: the future of housing

The social-justice march through the institutions

Social solidarity after social isolation

Will Green jobs save us?

20 years in Afghanistan: what happened?

Debating Matters: ‘Tech companies should act to stop online misinformation’

Andrew Doyle’s Free Speech Nation: Live (TV Recording)

10:30-12:00 Sunday 10 October

From China with love: social credit systems

What are Western values – and should we defend them?

Feminism’s civil war

Is it time to scrap exams?

Is it time to rethink the precautionary principle?

Let’s talk about race

From HGV drivers to bricklayers: how do we solve the skills crisis?

12:30-13:45 Sunday 10 October

Bookshop Barnie: Kerry Brown on China

Can sport survive the culture wars?

Selling out: The McDonaldisation of universities

From animal sentience to veganism: is human exceptionalism under threat?

Letters on Liberty: Taking Conscience Seriously

From Covid to climate change: challenging the culture of fear

What’s the point of reading novels in an era of Netflix?

Can our data be used for good? The ethics of research

The Irish border question: can the Union survive?

14:00-14:45 Sunday 10 October

Launch: The New Taboo

Is woke politics the death of rock’n’roll?

Climate change: are schools getting it right?

Is Levelling up really levelling down? The great inequality debate

The state of Brexit

15:00-16:30 Sunday 10 October

Reimagining schools

Who is the party of the poor?

Letters on Liberty: Art Against Orthodoxy

Disinformation and conspiracy: tackling the crisis of trust

Racism and how to fight it

The status of science after the pandemic

Publish and be damned?

The rise and rise of Big Tech

Onward Christian soldiers? The role of religion today