Sunday

This is a selection of sessions for the Battle of Ideas festival 2021 for Sunday 10 October. Details of additional sessions will be added soon. Use the buttons below to view the whole weekend, Sunday only or check out strands of debates.

Sunday

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

17:00-18:30 Sunday 10 October

Balloon debate: What’s the greatest medical breakthrough?

Protection for me but not for thee? The equality conundrum

History wars

A ‘nudge’ too far? The rise of behavioural science and technocratic rule

From Gillick competence to vaccines: the parental consent conundrum

Stuck in the present with you: political change in an era of pessimism

Disunited Kingdom: the rebirth of nations?