We’re bringing you five brilliant technical innovators who will be describing a scenario decades into the future when the desert will bloom with solar panel farms, nuclear reactors will produce energy from their own nuclear waste, people will travel in low-emission driverless car trains, coal will have been made clean and green, and high-tech, small-scale homesteads will be feeding the 10 billion.

Not that we have to take the experts’ word for it. This is Intelligence², where debate and challenge are sovereign. But whether you’re a believer or a sceptic, this is the event to be at if you want to learn about our energy future.

For most of western history, all sex outside marriage was illegal, and the church, the state, and ordinary people all devoted huge efforts to suppressing and punishing it. This was a central feature of Christian civilization, one that had steadily grown in importance since the early middle ages. Three hundred years ago this entire world view was shattered by revolutionary new ideas – that sex is a private matter; that morality cannot be imposed by force; that men are more lustful than women. Henceforth, the private lives of both sexes were to be endlessly broadcast and debated, in a rapidly expanding universe of public media: newspapers, pamphlets, journals, novels, poems, and prints.

In his account of this first sexual revolution, Dabhoiwala argues that the creation of our modern culture of sex was a central part of the Enlightenment, intertwined with the era’s major social, political and intellectual trends. It helped create a new model of Western civilization, whose principles of privacy, equality, and freedom of the individual remain distinctive to this day.

We’re lining up eminent economists and leading figures from the worlds of business and finance for Evan to grill on the most pressing issues of the day: Just how bad an economic mess are we in? Is this the end of capitalism as we know it or just one of capitalism’s periodic upheavals that we have to survive as best we can? And what if anything can and should be done to put things back on track?

But is this picture really fair? In Angola, for example, China’s low-interest loans have been tied to a scheme that has ensured that roads, schools and other infrastructure has been built. China has an impressive track record of lifting its own millions out of poverty and can do the same for Africa. And is the West’s record in Africa as glowing as we like to think? After decades of pouring aid into Africa, how much have we actually achieved in terms of reducing poverty, corruption and war? So which way should Africa look for salvation – to the West, to China, or perhaps to its own people?

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

The inaugural If Conference, from debate forum Intelligence Squared, took place on November 25-26th November in London. More than 30 celebrated scientists, award winning architects, farsighted futurologists and other brilliant minds shed light on the excitements and the dangers of tomorrow’s world. Visit http://www.iq2if.com for video and picture highlights and to sign up for information about If Conference 2012.

A Conversation with Umberto Eco.

* Writing fiction about the real * Exploring the persistence of conspiracies * Adapting “The Name of the Rose” for the internet generation * Grasping the infinity of lists * Exploring the future of books * Losing yourself in a 50,000-volume library

These are some of the topics Umberto Eco will be discussing with Paul Holdengräber, Director of LIVE at the New York Public Library.

Their wide-ranging conversation will in part focus on Eco’s latest work of fiction, The Prague Cemetery. The book is an historical pseudo-reconstruction set in a 19th-century Europe teeming with secret service forgeries, Jesuit plots, murders and conspiracies, and covering everything from the unification of Italy, the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus Affair to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It has been criticised by both the Vatican-backed newspaper the Osservatore Romano and the Chief Rabbi of Rome.

Hang on, though. Wasn’t the “green new deal” all about creating jobs in a new sort of economy? Making Britain a leader in an industry of the future? Not to mention making us just a little less dependent for our energy on geopolitically unstable regions of the world. Make China the focus of all our policy effort, and it will be China that reaps the knock-on benefits. Why would we realistically agree to that?

So does the art market tell us only about fads and fashion and the egos of multimillionaires? Or should we overlook the hype and remember that in the long run the market rights itself and reflects the consensus on what great art really is?

Jimmy Carter was U.S. President from 1977 to 1981. His administration’s main foreign policy achievements include the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of U.S. diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. After stepping down, he decided to establish the Carter Center along with his wife Rosalynn in 1982 to wage peace, fight disease and build hope worldwide. He was a pioneer in what has now become the widespread practice of putting prestige and status to good use in the world. The Center’s programmes have operated in 76 countries to resolve conflicts, advance democracy, human rights and economic opportunity, prevent disease, improve mental health care and teach farmers to increase crop production.

So say the pundits but what would they put in democracy’s place? Would they prefer India to be ruled by a Mubarak or an Indian version of the Beijing politburo? Democratic politics is always messy and often corrupt but it is the inevitable price of seeking the will of the people, which will always be preferable to the will of the dictator.

It’s an antiquated mode of transport, and yet hundreds of thousands take it up every year in Britain. Clean, green and cheap, it can turn your journey from A to B into a flight of inspiration, give you a sense of speed, grace and limitless potential, and add a frisson of danger to your otherwise humdrum existence.

Intelligence² are bringing together the most articulate amateurs and professionals from the world of cycling to celebrate the endeavour and endurance, the risk and reward of this extraordinary partnership between man and machine.

Taking part will be:

Bella Bathurst, author of “The Bicycle Book”, who will introduce us to the diverse and unpredictable world of the bicycle with stories from the past and quirky anecdotes from her more recent observations.

Vin Cox, record holder for circumnavigating the globe by bike, will argue that the bicycle is the fastest and slowest form of transport you’ll ever need.

Geoff Dyer, novelist and keen amateur cyclist, will discuss how photography can capture the romantic allure of two-wheeled bliss – and nowhere is that bliss more ecstatically displayed than at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

Patrick Field, founder of the London School of Cycling who’ll be proposing a city cycling manifesto for the 21st century.

Graeme Obree, Scottish cyclist who twice broke the world hour record on a home-made bicycle who’ll be talking about design and innovation.

Will Self, writer and keen amateur cyclist who’ll expand on his love of the bicycle’s purity and simplicity.

But it neglects the realities of 9/11, which was itself a declaration of war. And besides, Al-Qaeda had essentially merged itself with a government – the Afghan Taleban – and its capacity to disrupt the muslim world was and remains a threat that requires aggressive counteraction, not a bunch of policemen back home looking at screens. For all the cost in money and lives, the Iraq invasion toppled a tyrant and brought its people democracy, however imperfectly. Left alone in their hiding places in Pakistan and Yemen, the militants of Al-Qaeda will continue their training and plotting and America is quite right to be stepping up its drone and jet attacks against them.

That’s what the defenders of the war on terror say. Come to the debate and see if you agree.

But it hasn’t quite happened – not yet at least – and if anything, the public appetite for the fight against global warming seems to be waning. In the current economic gloom, everyone seems to have reverted to their more immediate priorities; we’re happy to wallow in the reassuring belief that consumption drives growth, as we click “confirm” on another short haul flight.

So perhaps we’re now suffering from environmental fatigue, and perhaps we’re fed up with being lectured to by a bunch of lentil-munching cyclists. Have the eco-warriors pushed us too far in their attempt to amend our ways? Have we discovered that, when all is said and done, we’re just not that bothered about rising tides in the Maldives? Of course, there are those who dissent from the consensus that we’re headed towards a catastrophe, and advise us to ignore the people they feel are doom-mongers peddling pseudoscience.

How then, should the threat of global warming influence our behaviour? Should we heed the warnings of floods, droughts, burning forests and a world of environmental refugees and change our ways? Or should we maintain that we’re not going to allow the polar bears and our grandchildren to ruin our lives while we rev up our engines and revel in and the pleasures of unabated consumption?

At least, this is what the tech-topians and cyber-lovers would have you believe. But whilst they’ve been queuing to get their hands on the latest iPad, another breed – of slow cooking, off-grid, deep-thinking back-to-basics types – have been pushing their vision of how the world should work.

They feel that people today are too busy staring at the computer screen to see what’s going on around them, that children are ignoring the real world in favour of computer games, that family and work life is being blurred by BlackBerrys, that our ability to focus has been corroded by endless tweets and ‘Urgent’ emails.

So, do we live in a world which is dangerously addicted to being ‘switched on’? Are Twitter and Facebook a threat to our privacy? Should the unbridled advancement of all things robotic, electronic and web-based be reigned in before it tears at the very foundations of civilisation?

One of Europe’s foremost Marxist theorists, Žižek criticised modern leftist groups who, he argued, didn’t really know how to cope with the upheaval of the ‘sublime’ moment (revelation that an assumed state of total happiness is actually non-existent). The question of ‘what happens next’ has been asked since the dwindling exhaustion of modernism into postmodernism. Žižek asks us to put ideological pressure on modern life, confirming the presence of ideological symbolism even in blatant popular culture (such as two Oscar-winning films, The King’s Speech and Black Swan [2010]).

His manner was sometimes serious, sometimes comic and vaguely apocalyptic (he is a self confessed pessimist), which all together made for an engaging talk, dense in historical, anecdotal and political references. The combination of issues allowed the modern audience member to examine their own behaviour alongside Hegelian optimism, Freudian self-commodification and Marxist ideas of social roles, in a non ‘academic’ sense, referring to the purchasing of Starbucks coffee as a subconscious purchasing of social solidarity built into the price. An audience member asks ‘isn’t it the case that people know that what they’re doing is buying a coffee that will then, in some sort of self-serving way, make them feel better about themselves?’, thus showing that ideology is no longer a ‘smokescreen’ of sorts. Žižek answers by claiming that we follow things, knowing that they are ideologies, and this does not necessarily make them ‘right’ or true. This is where the notion of ideology seems to be headed; to a total self consciousness – as with a Hegelian resolution of the ‘Zeitgeist’ (Žižek is actually close to the publishing of an 800 page book on Hegel).

In his relatively brief talk, Slavoj Žižek managed to expose our susceptibility to certain ideologies, thus proving their ever present role in modern society - not bad for a Friday night in West London, perhaps the capital of the British bourgeoisie.

In this special Intelligence² event, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband and other leading experts from Oxford Analytica, the global strategic analysis and advisory firm, will chart the tumultuous path since September 11th and show how it will shape tomorrow’s volatile global order.

Why did the hunt for Osama bin Laden take so long? Is counterterrorism counterproductive? Have the “Wars of 9/11” been worth the money and lives expended? What has their effect been on the Middle East and the Muslim world? How have Russia and China responded and, in Beijing’s case, managed to strengthen its geopolitical standing during the decade following the attack?

But isn’t that taking the “art as religion” line a bit too seriously? It implies that museums have a social function, even a didactic role to play. Do we want to visit museums in order to be told by invisible curators to think and feel in a certain way? And while it may be the case that religious art was created to instruct the minds and improve the souls of the congregation, can that be said of modern art whose purpose is to challenge, question or shock the viewer? And don’t ever soaring visitor numbers prove that our museums are already doing a brilliant job?

Come and hear the arguments presented by Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, set to be one of the most talked about books of 2011, and on the opposite side Justine Roberts, co-founder of Mumsnet, the phenomenally successful parenting website.

This event, part of the Project Ocean series, took place at Selfridges, on 2nd June.

An evening of true stories of passion, adventure and disaster told by four very different ocean-going explorers. David de Rothschild will talk about his mission on board Plastiki, Surfers against Sewage champion Chris Hines will relate his journey from beach bum to MBE, Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale will explain his fascination for the giant mammals of the ocean, and Willie MacKenzie will tell stories from the frontline of Greenpeace.

In this conference, organised jointly by the Oxford Martin School and Intelligence Squared, four of the school’s most brilliant experts will be showcasing their vision of the future before addressing challenges from you, the audience, about the potential perils that such visions may bring with them.

After a scene-setting presentation by Dr Ian Goldin, in which he will lay out a vision for the world in 2020, the evening will be divided in to two halves:

TRANSFORMING HUMANS

Why accept frailty as part of the human condition when science is poised to keep us healthy and sane? Dr Bennett Foddy will present the case for biological enhancement of the human body. Should we embrace therapeutic cloning and genetic manipulation so that we can live longer and healthier lives, or is this eugenics by another name? As for the human brain, Professor Gero Miesenböck will tell us how his cutting-edge work in the new science of optogenetics – developing genetic strategies for observing and controlling the function of brain circuits with light – can help us understand our brains and potentially manipulate them. What are the ethical problems we’ll be facing if these visions of ‘mind control’ are fulfilled?

TRANSFORMING THE ENVIRONMENT

No less revolutionary are the ideas being put forward to transform the world in which we live. Professor Liam Dolan will be arguing that new techniques for manipulating crop genes hold the key to increasing yields and alleviating concerns about global food security. Professor Gideon Henderson will explain how the global warming problem could be solved by manipulating the natural system of the oceans to make them take up more carbon. GM crops. Altering the patterns of nature. Are these our route to survival or will we be unleashing unstoppable changes in the environment that we – or future generations – may live to regret?

But is this view all too pessimistic? The fundamental barrier of fear has been removed and the new democrats are mobilising themselves to make sure that the benefits of change trickle down to all. There’s even talk of a possible split amongst the Islamists between the reactionary old guard and a more open-minded younger generation. As one of the two young Egyptians taking part in this debate will argue, if their demands aren’t met, “the Egyptian masses know their way back to Tahrir Square!”

That at any rate is the view of 26 eminent historians (Professors Niall Ferguson and Antony Beevor included) expressed in a recent letter to The Times. But in a subsequent letter, their view was given a good kicking by 20 eminent lawyers (including Baroness Kennedy QC and Michael Mansfield QC) who argue that it is precisely because your vote is so seldom given equal weight in practice, that we need AV. Look at all those MPs who, under First Past the Post, regularly get well below 50% of the local vote, yet still get returned to Westminster even though a majority of their constituents don’t want them there. AV will create genuine contests for seats that sitting MPs at present take for granted as “theirs” – a situation that empowers a few thousand voters in “marginals” to decide elections. Is that the hallowed system you really want to keep?

So are the academics right? Or the lawyers? Or – whisper it quietly – is it all a lot of fuss about very little?

Sam Harris, the American philosopher and neuroscientist, comes to the Intelligence² stage to argue that these views are mistaken – that amidst all the competing arguments about how we should lead our lives, science can show us that there are right and wrong answers. This means that moral relativism is mistaken and that there can be neither a Christian nor a Muslim morality – and that ultimately science can and should determine how best to live our lives.

Sam Harris will be discussing his latest book The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values with Revd Dr Giles Fraser, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral.

Parag Khanna asked why it was that South America has been so perennially excluded from the conversation of geopolitics? This came down, he suggested, to the naïve assumption that hegemonic power moves in cycles from East to West to East again. To the view of South America as predominantly a resource provider rather than a resource deplorer and to the continent’s historic subservience to the United States. The US has realised that South America is ‘its turn-key solution to it’s two greatest challenges: energy security and economic competitiveness’. What is more, Asia – the world’s crowded arms bazaar – is turbulent and wracked with divisions along national and ethnic fault lines. The advantage of South America, explained Roberto Jaguaribe (Brazil’s Ambassador to the UK), was that we are ‘living in the most extensive, cohesive, and homogenous region of the world’. The region is prospering, much like the US was in early 20th century, in a context of splendid, (safe and stable) isolation.

Alright, conceded the other side of the panel, progress in South America has been spectacular, but we must recognise the weaknesses that plague the continent. After all, explained Bill Emmott, ‘Argentina is usually one president away from its next default. It is the world’s champion sovereign debt defaulter. Anyone looking for worries about the Euro and future models for how you do a sovereign debt default always reaches for the file marked “Argentina” in their file.’

What is more, suggested Gideon Rachman, while we might regard Brazil as the ‘cuddly BRIC – the one that everybody likes and they give all the tournaments to,’ we mustn’t ignore the drug wars raging in Mexico and the questionable Human Rights record in Venezuela. Take no comfort from the fact that Hugo Chavez was the 2009 winner of the Muammar Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights. ‘That’s not one that you want to keep on your mantelpiece.’

Rana Mitter and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera took the debate to the question of culture. Mitter, against the motion, pointed to the permeating influence of Mandarin and the ‘universalising cultural phenomenons’ of Bollywood and Japanese Manga anime. He suggested there simply wasn’t a South American equivalent. What about Shakira? shot back Guardiola-Rivera.

How did the universe begin?

Will we ever find the mysterious “God particle”? What would it mean if we did?

How soon will we all become space tourists?

These are some of the big questions surrounding man’s existence….and Intelligence² are bringing together some of the world’s leading scientists, astronomers and space pioneers to attempt to answer them.

Particle physicist and BBC presenter Brian Cox will talk about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, and specifically about what the world’s largest scientific experiment might tell us about some of the great questions in cosmology. What is dark matter? Why is gravity so weak? What happens in the heart of neutron stars?

Charles Simonyi, the former Microsoft technology architect and space tourist, will tell us what it’s like to be aboard the International Space Station, focusing in particular on weightlessness: What does it mean? What would Newton have said about it? And how does it actually feel? He’ll illustrate his talk with images from Newton’s books and video taken aboard the space station.

Royal astronomer Martin Rees will outline how a mysterious ‘big bang’ gave rise to atoms, galaxies, stars, planets – and at least one biosphere. Having introduced us to the exciting discoveries that suggest there are billions of planets orbiting other stars in our galaxy, and that there are billions of other galaxies, he will speculate on whether our ‘big bang’ is just one of many, on the probabilities of life on other planets, and on the long-range future for life, here on earth and far beyond.

Biographer Richard Holmes will lead us back in time for an historical overview of space – from Ptolemy to Galileo to Herschel. How did astronomers of the past understand the cosmos? What impact did they have on poets and writers such as Shakespeare and Keats?

And planetary scientist Colin Pillinger will talk about space exploration past, present and future using manned and robotic spacecraft. As the man who led the Beagle 2 project to send a spacecraft to look for evidence of life on Mars, he will be asking the big question: Is there life elsewhere in the universe?

The event will be chaired by Rick Stroud, film-maker and author of The Book of the Moon.

Watson is known as the enfant terrible of molecular biology. In 1968 he published his account of the DNA discovery, The Double Helix. The book became an international best-seller, but some in the scientific community were scandalised by Watson’s portrayal of the faults and foibles of his colleagues and the snipings and rivalries of the scientific world. Since then he has frequently been embroiled in controversy for his views on genetic screening and genetic engineering. But Watson insists that devotion to the truth as he sees it is as essential in dealing with the general public as it is in scientific research.

James Watson will be in conversation with Brenda Maddox, biographer of Rosalind Franklin, the scientist who made a significant contribution to learning about the structure of DNA but whose role was largely unacknowledged in her lifetime.

The democratic convulsions now rocking the Arab world have forced us to confront anew the key question driving western foreign policy: how far should the West be involved in the democracy promotion business?

Perhaps the lesson of the Arab Spring is that toppling oppressors is better left to the oppressed. Maybe Iraq would have had its own Arab Spring if we’d just let Saddam be? But then what about Saudi Arabia? Little sign of an end to autocracy there. Do we just keep cosy with the Saudi king, or do we take steps to push him to democratise?

And once the dictator is falling or has fallen… what then? Do we just stand back and hope that democracy will flourish in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere? If not, how should we intervene to promote the spread of democratic ideals and institutions?

These are some of the questions that two of the sharpest debaters on the subject – Rory Stewart and David Aaronovitch – will be crossing swords over this Thursday. Why not come and join the fray?

Does this man sound like a serious threat? The Islamic regime in Iran loves to bare its claws and snarl, but isn’t this all just am dram posturing? It may suit Israel to portray Iran’s sabre-rattling as an existential threat and it may suit the US to play up that threat. But even if Iran does acquire a nuclear strike capability won’t it be primarily for exhibitionist reasons? And won’t that threat be dwarfed by the far more sophisticated weaponry that Israel and the US could muster in response?

That’s the argument of those happy to dismiss Iran as a paper tiger. But have they got it horribly wrong? Would Arab governments really have beseeched the US to bomb Iran – as revealed by Wikileaks – if its regime were no more than a duff joke? Could it be that a nuclear-armed Iran is every bit as bad as the scaremongers say it is?

http://www.intelligencesquared.com/events/iran

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In this talk historian Simon Sebag Montefiore will take us on a 3000-year journey through Jerusalem’s many incarnations, through the wars, adventures, love-affairs and messianic revelations of the men and women who created, destroyed and left their mark on the city – from Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad to Cleopatra, Herod and Caligula, from Saladin to the Kaiser and Churchill, from Disraeli and Lloyd George to Moshe Dayan, King Hussein and Yasser Arafat.

Canada is the largest importer of oil to the United States, shipping 2.5 million barrels across the border every day. These shipments alone account for close to 5% of all global oil exports. And with Oil Sands production expected to grow to almost four million barrels per day by 2020, Canadian citizens are having to evaluate the worth of the Oil Sands to their country’s development, just as the world grapples with the place of oil consumption in its future.

It was clear, even before the smoke cleared over the tiny South Korean island bombed by North Korea on Tuesday afternoon, that this would be one of the most serious crises the peninsula has faced. Some 200 North Korean artillery shells killed two marines, and later the bodies of two civilians were found on Yeonpyeong Island. Dozens of locals and military personnel were injured, and villages burned.

South Korea retaliated, firing some 80 shells back across the border, and scrambling jets. The event reawoke the anger that followed the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel earlier this year, killing 46 sailors – almost certainly caused by a North Korean torpedo, although Pyongyang denied responsibility. And it also stoked the fears caused by the totalitarian state’s recent exhibition of its nuclear facilities to a small group of invited American experts, who reported that Pyongyang has some 2,000 impressively high-tech centrifuges capable of producing the fuel for nuclear power stations – and nuclear weapons.

Some see the seeds of new global tension in the conflict - the US, Japan and Europe have declared strong support for Seoul, and America embarked on military exercises off the coast of the peninsula. But both South Korea and the US have been careful to avoid immediate threats of retaliation which might escalate the conflict, the US has not repositioned its 29,000 troops in the South, and nor has it explicitly agreed to provide South Korea with nuclear protection. Meanwhile China – a longstanding ally of North Korea – held back from any strong statements, with a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman yesterday urged both sides to “do more to contribute to peace and stability in the region”. Although Beijing has distanced itself from the Pyongyang regime in recent decades – in the 1980s the two countries previously claimed to be “as close as lips and teeth” – it is concerned about instability in the North and the prospect of a unified Korea dominated by the US.

But while the superpowers pussyfoot around the crisis, discussion and doubt has centred on North Korea’s motivation for such a blatant act of provocation – and the question of what can possibly be done about it.

Simon Tisdale argues in the Guardian that “North Korea uses military power, or the threat of it, where others use diplomacy. It is the only real leverage the regime has.” It wants respect, an end to sanctions and diplomatic isolation and no more threats of regime change. The leaders want “food aid, electricity, financial assistance, investment, trade. Finally, the ailing dictator wants backing for the postulated dynastic succession of his youngest son, a scheme that could yet collapse amid acrimony or worse.” What are they offering in return? An end to their troublemaking. This may not be popular in the west, but in the end, Tisdale argues, a deal is “doable and desirable”.

Writing in the Times, Bronwen Maddox argues that “preparations for the succession to Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Leader, are the root cause of rising tension. Kim Jong Un, his son and presumed successor, needs the support of the army – hence, many think, the upsurge in military provocation this year.” She also argues that the regime has been destabilised by the recent increased availability of international television to North Korean viewers, which lets them see that “another life could be – and should be – theirs.” On her reading, then, the attacks are a show of strength intended for North Koreans as well as the enemies on the peninsula.

In the Financial Times, Robert Kaplan also interpreted North Korea’s behaviour as an internal issue, a way of shoring up the splintered leadership. As he wrote, “the heightened aggression shown by North Korea therefore may be a sign that the regime is in deep trouble. A sudden implosion could unleash the mother of all humanitarian problems, with massive refugee flows toward the Chinese border and a semi-starving population of 23m becoming the ward of the international community – in effect the ward of the US, Chinese and South Korean armies. Yet while regime change in the North is welcome in the abstract, we should remember that the only thing that might be worse than a totalitarian government is no government at all: a lesson we all should have learnt from Iraq.”

And it seems that not even the biggest superstars of contemporary fiction are immune from occasional lapses into purple prose. Salman Rushdie once wrote that “[Boonyi] pulled her phiran and shirt off over her head and stood before him naked except for the little pot of fire hanging low, below her belly, heating further what was already hot.” Philip Roth, whose novels like Portnoy’s Complaint and Sabbath’s Theatre are amongst the horniest in the English language, wrote that “It was as if she were wearing a mask on her genitals, a weird totem mask, that made her into what she was not and was not supposed to be.” In Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, a character’s clitoris is described as a “protuding pencil of tenderness”.

Negotiating the rocky path between ham-fisted metaphors and dull mechanics of the “he unbuttoned her top, she nibbled his ear” sort is certainly tricky. And the sniggering ridicule of those who judge - and comment on - the Bad Sex Award may well play some role in discouraging writers from writing about sex. Indeed, no less a writer than Martin Amis, whose debut The Rachel Papers revolves around a series of adolescent bedroom antics, recently said that writing about sex was practically impossible. “It’s not that surprising,” he said, “Of all human activities this is the one that peoples the world. With that tonnage of emotion on it, if there is going to be one thing you can’t write about then that would be it. It’s a bit like why it’s so difficult to write about dreams.”

Many readers feel that contemporary authors aren’t taking the risks they should when writing about sex; the sort of risks which DH Lawrence took in Lady Chatterley’s Lover. “She clung to him unconscious in passion,” Lawrence wrote, “and he never quite slipped from her, and she felt the soft bud of him within her stirring, and strange rhythms flushing up into her with a strange rhythmic growing motion, swelling and swelling til it filled all her cleaving consciousness, and then began again the unspeakable motion that was not really motion, but pure deepening whirlpools of sensation swirling deeper and deeper through all her tissue and consciousness, til she was one perfect concentric fluid of feeling, and she lay there crying in unconscious inarticulate cries.”

So, writing about something as profoundly personal as sex is difficult but doable. We invited Sarah Duncan, whose Kissing Mr Wrong has been longlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year award, and Guardian journalist Susanna Rustin, to debate what they thought was the way to do it.

Where do you stand on this? The law limits in all sorts of ways the harms that one can do to others. Intentional physical harm is criminal; harm to people’s interests through theft, for example, is illegal. But in the USA, you can cause a great deal of emotional and mental harm in the exercise of your free speech rights. Not so in the UK, where hate speech is much more subject to control. Which is the better system?

Listen to American writer Wendy Kaminer, an ardent critic of censorship, clash with Femi Otitoju, a British equality campaigner.

This is the short 2.45minute version. Visit http://www.intelligencesquared.com for the full version

Speakers for the motion - Abbas Daneshvari, Heather Mills and Peter Singer

Speakers against the motion - Julian Baggini, Robin Dunbar and Paul Levy

An elected second chamber. Who could argue with that? Surely it’s what all good democrats would like to see in place of the present House of Lords with its party appointees and hereditary rump? Or is it? Never forget the overweening dominance of political parties in British political life. If members of the Lords have to submit to the same electoral cycle as MPs won’t they just suffer the same fate as MPs and become entirely dependent for advancement on the party leadership? Become the Cabinet’s creatures?

Elections may confer the patina of legitimacy to political arrangements, but in Britain’s elective dictatorship, as Lord Hailsham called it, they simply end up reinforcing the power of the executive in parliament. And since the purpose of a second chamber is to serve as a check on the arrogance of executive power, since an independence of spirit is required whenever members of that chamber revise legislation and use their suspensive veto, then open elections to the Lords are surely the last thing we need?

Appoint them; elect them indirectly; choose them from pre-selected professional categories; any system you like, but not direct elections. Or so those resistant to reform like to argue. Are they just being ante-deluvian diehards? Is this just cover for the retention of existing privileges? Or are they right?

Speakers for the motion - Vernon Bogdanor, Shami Chakrabarti and Sir Simon Jenkins

Speakers against the motion - Lord Adonis, Billy Bragg and Polly Toynbee

Although the Swedish royal family was flung into controversy recently, when a new book, Carl XVI Gustaf - The Reluctant Monarch, alleged that the eponymous King enjoyed wild sex parties and whirlpool liaisons with strippers, for years the Scandinavian royals have been known for their modest style; the term the “Bicycling Monarchy” was coined following the former Danish Queen Juliana’s fondness for bicycling, and her often unscheduled interaction with the public. Here, we invite LabourList columnist Paul Richards and writer Jerome di Costanzo to debate if Britain would benefit from a modernised Royal Family, or whether the pomp, ceremony and constitutional fudge is a

South Korea retaliated, firing some 80 shells back across the border, and scrambling jets. The event reawoke the anger that followed the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel earlier this year, killing 46 sailors – almost certainly caused by a North Korean torpedo, although Pyongyang denied responsibility. And it also stoked the fears caused by the totalitarian state’s recent exhibition of its nuclear facilities to a small group of invited American experts, who reported that Pyongyang has some 2,000 impressively high-tech centrifuges capable of producing the fuel for nuclear power stations – and nuclear weapons.

Some see the seeds of new global tension in the conflict - the US, Japan and Europe have declared strong support for Seoul, and America embarked on military exercises off the coast of the peninsula. But both South Korea and the US have been careful to avoid immediate threats of retaliation which might escalate the conflict, the US has not repositioned its 29,000 troops in the South, and nor has it explicitly agreed to provide South Korea with nuclear protection. Meanwhile China – a longstanding ally of North Korea – held back from any strong statements, with a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman yesterday urged both sides to “do more to contribute to peace and stability in the region”. Although Beijing has distanced itself from the Pyongyang regime in recent decades – in the 1980s the two countries previously claimed to be “as close as lips and teeth” – it is concerned about instability in the North and the prospect of a unified Korea dominated by the US.

But while the superpowers pussyfoot around the crisis, discussion and doubt has centred on North Korea’s motivation for such a blatant act of provocation – and the question of what can possibly be done about it.

Simon Tisdale argues in the Guardian that “North Korea uses military power, or the threat of it, where others use diplomacy. It is the only real leverage the regime has.” It wants respect, an end to sanctions and diplomatic isolation and no more threats of regime change. The leaders want “food aid, electricity, financial assistance, investment, trade. Finally, the ailing dictator wants backing for the postulated dynastic succession of his youngest son, a scheme that could yet collapse amid acrimony or worse.” What are they offering in return? An end to their troublemaking. This may not be popular in the west, but in the end, Tisdale argues, a deal is “doable and desirable”.

Writing in the Times, Bronwen Maddox argues that “preparations for the succession to Kim Jong Il, the Supreme Leader, are the root cause of rising tension. Kim Jong Un, his son and presumed successor, needs the support of the army – hence, many think, the upsurge in military provocation this year.” She also argues that the regime has been destabilised by the recent increased availability of international television to North Korean viewers, which lets them see that “another life could be – and should be – theirs.” On her reading, then, the attacks are a show of strength intended for North Koreans as well as the enemies on the peninsula.

In the Financial Times, Robert Kaplan also interpreted North Korea’s behaviour as an internal issue, a way of shoring up the splintered leadership. As he wrote, “the heightened aggression shown by North Korea therefore may be a sign that the regime is in deep trouble. A sudden implosion could unleash the mother of all humanitarian problems, with massive refugee flows toward the Chinese border and a semi-starving population of 23m becoming the ward of the international community – in effect the ward of the US, Chinese and South Korean armies. Yet while regime change in the North is welcome in the abstract, we should remember that the only thing that might be worse than a totalitarian government is no government at all: a lesson we all should have learnt from Iraq.”

The news – announced to the press before being discussed in Parliament – has been greeted with approval by many on the right. Tim Montgomerie, writing on Conservative Home, welcomed it as a move that will “threaten [the] workshy,” while The Sunday Times reported that “Layabouts who have become so dependent on benefits that they do not know how to work are to be forced to take jobs or be stripped of their benefits.” Melanie Phillips argued in The Daily Mail that the reforms did not go nearly far enough – the coalition should have introduced a time-limit on benefits alongside the work placements.

Some on the left have also given the reforms a cautious welcome – Jackie Ashley wrote in The Guardian that “it’s right to admit that in some families morale collapsed long ago, leaving two or three generations in a passive, depressed no-man’s land, outside the rest of society,” and that if placements get them back on their feet, they are to be welcomed. James Purnell, a former Labour Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, wrote in The Times that there is a “covert consensus” on welfare – a cross-party agreement that welfare needs to be “supportive enough, otherwise poverty becomes a trap; but it must also be tough enough or the support itself becomes a trap.”

However, Purnell warned that there are good and bad ways of reforming welfare – and many people believe that the coalition plans fall on the bad side. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said in a radio interview that forced work could push the unemployed into “a downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair.” Meanwhile, Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group said, “Doing a job should always mean getting paid.”

Speakers for the motion - Alexandra Munroe and Iain Robertson

Speakers against the motion - Matthew Collings and Richard Wentworth

Chaired by Tim Marlow

This is mainly about budget tightening here and outre-Manche. The economic crisis has made the entente become frugale. The deal has shocked many former military officials and some Tory backbenchers, and the right-wing press has enjoyed bringing up historical disagreements such as Agincourt and Trafalgar.

Colonel Tim Collins, a leading figure in the British army during the Iraq war, has said he is skeptical. “The truth is that for years, the French have punched below their weight.”

True? Does moving the entente from “cordiale” to “intime” threaten the security of the nation? Philip Barber wrote in The Telegraph letters that it will, whereas George Grant, of the Henry Jackson Society, feels more cocorico about it. Listen to them debate the matter out.

Research by Oxford academic Professor Kathryn Sutherland has found that Jane Austen, famous for her polished prose, in fact produced rambling manuscripts studded with errors that had to be pruned into shape by her editor. And last year, the publication of a collection of Raymond Carver stories in their original form showed the startling contrast between Carver’s intentions and editor Gordon Lish’s interventions.

Catherine describes the contrast as between “ellipsis and waffle,” although she prefers Carver’s versions partly on the grounds that using a lot of words can reveal more about the painful difficulties of communication than using very few. In defence of the judicious editor, David discusses Maxwell Perkins, the legendary New York editor who worked with F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway among others. Both our debaters agree that a good editor is something very similar to a good reader: attentive, understanding and attuned to the writer’s voice.

So are we right to be disappointed to discover that favourite novels were collaborative enterprises rather than the work of one brilliant soul? Or is it, perhaps, our emphasis on the romantic image of the literary genius that is at fault? See what you think after you’ve heard David and Catherine discuss the various editorial relationships of Raymond Carver, DH Lawrence, Philip Roth and others. Literary agent David Godwin and writer Katherine Humble discuss the motion ‘Great books are edited, not written.’

Underneath the brilliance of the performances lies some of the most serious questions of our time: should the state be neutral when it comes to religion? how far from neutrality is Britain today? and what special dispensations from the laws of a secular liberal society can we contemplate in the name of religious belief – how far does tolerance require us to tolerate intolerance?

You can read tomes of political theory on this. Or you can watch and listen carefully to this beautiful set of performances and find embedded in them encapsulations of almost every position taken on these tricky, subtle and crucial questions of our time.

Speakers for the motion - George Carey, Peter Hitchens and Howard Jacobson

Speakers against the motion - Matthew Parris, Geoffrey Robertson QC and Dom Antony Sutch

Chaired by Jonathan Freedland

In this Intelligence Squared debate, AA Gill concedes that photography “revolutionised the nature of art,” but interprets the motion as implying otherwise. Was it not, Gill asked, fundamentally about the exclusivity, about “who is allowed into the club and who is merely a snapper?”

Stephen Bayley disagrees. He opened his argument by saying that, “questioning photography would be like questioning sight, but the motion is about the medium, not what is art.” As such, paint is more subtle, wider in “scope and variety…far more susceptible to human interference and therefore allows for a better message.” In contrast, photography is “powerful but limited in expressive range,” as it depends most of all of on technology and equipment: “photographers are ‘dominated by their medium, not masters of it.” The photographer, Bayley concluded, is “more passive, less creative. He has to wait for his great moments; he cannot create them.

Speakers for the motion - Stephen Bayley, José María Cano and Michael Mack.

Speakers against the motion - A A Gill, Chris Steele-Perkins

The mega-church movement is closely associated with the rise of American evangelical styles of worship in Latin America and Africa. When the Chilean miners emerged from the mine two weeks ago, they were wearing T-shirts sent to them from a megachurch in Georgia. Evangelical churches have been credited with - or implicated in - re-building the grass-roots of the American right over the past 15 years, with the Tea Party being the latest vehicle for that coalition.

The evangelical movement has a globally influential role, and the megachurches are an important element of it. They have huge congregations with inspirational, charismatic pastors. They are run like businesses and, it might seem, often with rather business-like objectives of raising funds and satisfying customers.

In this Skype debate which brings together a London audience and speakers from the US, we wanted to hear from insiders to American Protestantism. This is not a debate about the rights and wrongs of religion, but rather a very specific debate from within Protestant Christianity about the form of worship found inside the megachurches.

It’s not quite the same message as Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto but then Facebook never claimed to have a personality. It was just a vessel for users to interact through supposedly allowing each of us to impose our personalities on the site.

The Social Network movie portrays the birth of Facebook as a Shakespearian tragedy, with love, betrayal, greed and more than a few bodies left on the stage. But as we become more and more entwined with the fabric of our Facebook existence are we really being exposed to the brave new world where everything and everyone is there at our fingertips? Or are we being distracted from true engagement with the world and simply herded into appropriate marketing boxes? Are we working for the machine, turning our social lives into the greatest Tupperware party in history, or are we learning to use a freedom-enhancing tool?

Debbie Purdy, a woman from Bradford who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has led a high-profile campaign to change the law. She took on the Director of Public Prosecutions in the High Courts, seeking clarification that her husband wouldn’t be prosecuted if he helped her to travel to Dignitas. But despite her best efforts, the realities of ever-ageing politicians and public support, so far politicians have been squeamish about changing the law.

Many of our audience were swayed into changing their mind over the course of this debate. Will you be?

Speaking for the motion - Emily Jackson, Debbie Purdy and Mary Warnock

Speaking against the motion - Alex Carlile QC, Richard Harries and Patrick Stone

At the Conservative party conference, Education Secretary, Michael Gove urged; “the great tradition of our literature – Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Austen, Dickens and Hardy – should be at the heart of school life.”

This front in the culture wars pits conservatives and traditionalists against a diverse army of feminists, multiculturalists, anti-colonialists and other proud minorities. Another skirmish in this war has been unfolding around Katharine Birbalsingh, once a Marxist teacher who delighted the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham with her very traditional educational opinions. She argued that children are “lost in a sea of bureaucracy”, that teachers are “blinded by leftist ideology” and that children love nothing better than to be told what to do by an authoritarian teacher. She won Michael Gove’s friendship but lost her job as deputy head of a South London academy for her comments about the shocking failures in the school system.

So, should the government - or indeed the State - be behaving as super-head-teacher and telling us what to read? And if so, should it be the Govian canon?

The intention of the film was to use slapstick comedy (the exploding children die in a blaze of ketchup-like gore) to shock viewers into reassessing their lethargy on climate change. Headed by Franny Armstrong, the documentary filmmaker behind The Age of Stupid, 10:10 are concerned that climate change is no longer receiving the emphasis that it should from either the media or the public, and they wanted to get people talking about it once again.

Global warming sceptics, who claim that the media is saturated with stories on climate change, have seized upon the video as a spectacular own goal by the environmental movement, and claim it betrays the underlying anti-human sentiments of ‘eco fascist’ green leader. One of the criticisms levelled at the video is that, in a few years time, there may well be an eco-terrorism movement. On the other hand, many environmentalists, often accused of failing to see the funny side themselves, believe that with the world teetering on the brink of ecological calamnity, No Pressure is both funny and deeply necessary.

This Intelligence Squared event at Cadogan Hall in London saw the coming-together of two great believers in the vibrancy and power of the present: William Gibson and Cory Doctorow. Despite the discussion covering topics unrestrained by time - reaching back to the age of the Victorians and stretching, via 1940 and our ‘increasingly interesting’ present, to 2060 - or location (we were taken from the Far East to western Canada, with stop-overs in Shoreditch and Brooklyn), Gibson repeatedly underlined the centrality of the present in his work. He stressed that good science fiction writing is based on looking at ‘all the things around you’ and finding ‘the ones with the most obvious legs to carry you into the future.’

What sort of a future that will be, however, remains a mystery to Gibson. There are simply ‘too many wild cards in play,’ he said, for us to casually erect accurate futures. One thing that seemed certain was the sustained threat to any genuine subculture. We are now left, he lamented, with only ‘splinters of Bohemia,’ the violation of which seems almost complete in a world where ‘the way D. H. Lawrence looked is … much more important than what D.H. Lawrence wrote.’

In the UK, where Irish travellers are the largest nomadic group numbering around 300,000, recent research has shown that the average traveller has a life expectancy of about 50 years – some 25 years shorter than the settled population. Infant mortality is three times higher among travellers, and a traveller mother is nearly 20 times more likely to lose her child before their 18th birthday than the UK average. Some see in these facts a manifestation of Europe’s ongoing prejudice against travellers, a form of racism which, they believe, perpetuates stereotypes about dirt, crime and illiteracy, holding back travellers who would like to work or integrate and pushing the community into further isolation.

Others, however, say that travellers must take responsibility for their own plight, and argue that the problems travellers face can be blamed – at least partly – on their failure to educate their children, respect the planning codes, work for a living and obey the law. Beyond such chicken-and-egg arguing - which came first, the prejudice or the exclusion? – lies more abstract questions about whose way of life has primacy. Should the settled community acknowledge that travellers have different attitudes and approaches to home, property, family and ways of life, and make space – physically and culturally – for the travellers to live in their own way? Or should travellers – and their politically correct, over-indulgent supporters - acknowledge that gypsies cannot live on land without planning permission, and that if their lifestyles are incompatible with the world today, they must change them?

In this Intelligence Squared audio debate, barrister David Watkinson of London’s Garden Court Chambers, who regularly acts for travellers and recently fought on behalf of the travellers encamped on the site of the London Olympics, will argue for the motion, maintaining that Britain has badly let down its own travelling community, pushing them into unstable, unhealthy ways of life by depriving them of the space and the legal protection that they need.

The motion will be opposed by journalist Harry Phibbs, who writes for The Mail and is a Conservative councillor in West London, who argues that British and European law is too generous to travellers, who should be expected to abide by the same rules as the settled community – and who claims that Sarkozy’s decision to eject France’s foreign-born Roma is justified.

Musharraf hasn’t always been so pally with the West. When he came to power in a military coup in 1999 he was shunned by many as a dictator. And his tenure in what TIME Magazine described as “the most dangerous job in the world” was not without its difficulties.

He had to face the escalation of hostilities with India over Kashmir, which brought the two countries to the brink of war in 2002, a 2005 earthquake that killed over 73,000, the threat posed by the AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network and two assassination attempts on his life.

“Singularitarianism”. Remember the name. It is the most respectable of the quasi-religious movements to come out of Californian techno-libertarianism. Its basic beliefs are that:

* computers are about to become better problem-solvers than humans * humans, still in charge, will get the computers to make nano-robots that can repair organic tissue

* we will also direct them to the problem of downloading our consciousness onto digital back-up systems

*our conscious selves will then be able to replicate, be uploaded into other physical devices, etc

* nano-technology, consciousness engineering and old-fashioned big iron computing will solve any problems of energy supply and climate control that might limit the infinite plenty ahead

* humanity will thus create the kingdom of heaven and live eternally in a world of plenty, all of it built by the people and technologies of Silicon Valley The movement’s Pope is Raymond Kurtzweil, an otherwise thoroughly bona fide inventor and entrepreneur. Its Mecca is in the area between the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto and Mofett Field airbase, with Google’s headquarters a stone’s throw away. There, Kurtzweil presides over the Singularity Institute, which, like the early Church councils, is busy working on the details of eternity.

What if they were right? Should we want eternity on those terms? Is it really time to put an end to death?

Arguing in favour of the motion are Shlomo Ben-Ami, Mustafa Barghouthi, and Edward Luttwak.

Shlomo Ben-Ami believes that there is a very serious asymmetry in the positions of the two parties. Whenever Zionism is faced with the choice of more land without a Jewish majority or less land with Jewish hegemony, they choose the latter.

Mustafa Barghouthi states that the talks are taking place between unequal sides. Israel is strong and Palestine is weak; in the absence of any serious international pressure on Israel, the peace process has become the substitute for peace.

Edward Luttwak says that throughout history it has been war itself that has brought peace, not Swedish diplomats, US senators and former British prime ministers. The peace process perpetuates the illusion of peace.

Arguing against the motion are Manuel Hassassian, Jonathan Paris, and Martin Indyk.

Manuel Hassassian concedes that, for some Palestinians, the very idea of making peace with the perpetrators of so much Palestinian bloodshed and misery is hard to fathom, but that without peace, their suffering will only be prolonged.

Jonathan Paris is “cautiously optimistic” that, this time round, the peace process has a chance. Among his reasons he lists the threat of Iran, the slowed rate of settlement building under Netanyahu’s government, and the popular support for the peace process among Israelis and Palestinians.

Martin Indyk agrees with Luttwak that peace has to come out of the “education of war”, but he says that this is exactly what is happening. He points to certain encouraging new factors in the case for peace, most tellingly an uncharacteristic willingness in right-wing Netanyahu to support the process.

First vote: 407 For, 315 Don’t know, 332 Against

Final vote: 543 For, 521 Against, 40 Don’t know

The motion is carried by 22 votes.

Meanwhile, the internet has been a-flutter with responses to the ‘meat dress’ Lady Gaga wore to the MTV Video Music Awards, which has been variously interpreted as a protest against the objectification of women and a meaningless fashion statement. Whatever your opinion on Lady Gaga – and even if you have none at all – her music, her videos and her public persona have become battlegrounds for debate around porn, pop culture and the status of women in the music industry.

But Max Mosley and many who support him think this is wrong, which is why he is applying to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for a change in the law that would make it compulsory for journalists to inform people before publishing private information about them. Has he got a good case? Or is he making an outrageous assault on press freedom?

To discuss whether imitating these policies would benefit others is Tim Lynch, who was closely involved in producing the report from the CATO Institute.

Arguing against the motion is Anders Ulstein, the Secretary General of Europe Against Drugs, a European not-for-profit drug policy foundation.

Here, British science writer and medical doctor Ben Goldacre describes the problems with science coverage in the mainstream media. In the Times Literary Supplement there are plenty of references to authors you’ve never heard of, yet with scientific pieces editors insist on dumbing down the content. Goldacre laments the lack of challenging and interesting science writing and points to the approach of Radio 4, in which the vast majority of material comes from the scientists themselves, as the correct approach.

Clearly in the case of the cervical cancer vaccine, the reports were not about the suitability of the trial process or the validity of the scientific conclusions but about political agendas; this is Goldacre’s main grievance with science writing not by scientists.

He does, however, identify the huge potential of the new mass media to change the way science is reported. Whether it be a lecture recording that goes viral or a fantastically entertaining and eloquent blogger, there are many channels to bring great science to the public sphere.

Evidently, the man who led Britain between 1997 and 2007, perhaps the most prosperous period in its history, still inspires enormous ill-feeling from both sides of the political spectrum. Gideon Rachman, columnist for the Financial Times, defends the motion that “Hatred of Blair has been much overdone”. He approves of Blair’s record on domestic and economic policy and feels that Blair was wrong, but not blameworthy on the decision to invade Iraq. Clare Short, who resigned from Tony Blair’s Cabinet two months after the invasion, responds. By trampling on international law, Blair not only condemned the Iraqi peace to failure but also did long term damage to security in the world.

To debate that happiness should not be a matter for government policy are economists Paul Ormerod and Juliet Michealson.

Paul Ormerod, arguing that happiness does not play a policy role is best-selling author of many books and papers, including, Why Most Things Fail. He is a founder and director of Volterra Consulting, he has co-authored a pamphlet for the Institute of Economic Affairs called, Happiness, Economics and Public Policy.

Juliet Michaelson arguing that happiness does have a role in formulating and prioritising policy, is a research at the Centre for Well-being of the New Economics Foundation (NEF). She has worked on NEF’s National Accounts of Well-being and a Happy Planet Index.

The finger has also been pointed at green groups who, some say, are deliberately playing up the scale of the spill in order to discourage us from using oil at all. Others argue that it was a huge catastrophe, and that the Gulf of Mexico and the Louisiana coastline have been devastated by the spill, and will continue to be so for years to come.

But some feminists have accused it of being sexist for its low ratio of female toy characters, and for the fact that they display stereotypical feminine behaviour. The comments provoked outrage from many who had enjoyed the film. Do they hold water?

But now the Conservative-led coalition, anxious to implement austerity measures, think that by gunning for Gatsos, they have alighted on a popular way to cut spending. Mike Penning, the road safety minister, has announced plans to cut back drastically on central funding. “This is another example of this government delivering on its pledge to end the war on the motorist,” he boasts. The impending cuts have already led Oxfordshire County Council to announce that it will do away with its 72 fixed speed cameras, with Wiltshire and other counties likely to follow suit. Road safety groups have responded to the news with dismay.

The debate over speed cameras seems to divide people between right and left. Libertarians and individualists believe that safe driving should be solely a matter of personal responsibility; speed cameras are symbols of the nanny state. For their supporters speed cameras represent the benevolent state in an unambiguous form. And then, at the base of the argument, there are the road safety statistics on fatalities and injuries, which both sides claim support their case.

Professor Shaun Gregory, Professor of International Security at Bradford University, and Farzana Sheikh, Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs Asia Programme, debate the motion “Pakistan is guilty of supporting terrorists and David Cameron was right to point it out”.

Now, after three decades of tireless work on the part of more than a thousand brilliant minds, the question has become more insistent: does string theory actually work?

Lynn Barber Sunday Times journalist and author of “An Education”, a coming-of-age memoir which was made into an Oscar-nominated film last year.

Kelvin MacKenzie Media entrepreneur and former editor of The Sun.

Speakers against the motion:

Professor Germaine Greer Feminist author, academic and broadcaster.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Professor of Global Environment History at Queen Mary, University of London, and William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame. Formerly a history master at Charterhouse School.

Chair: Dr Anthony Seldon Master of Wellington College.

Speakers include: Andriy Shevchenko - member of the Parliament o Ukraine and journalist Katerina Yushenko - Chairman of the Ukraine 3000 Foundation and wife of the Third President of Ukraine, Victor Yushenko David Aaronovitch - British journalist and broadcaster Irina Khakamada - Economist and former Russian Presidential candidate

But more significant than her rise, in many ways, has been the fall of a man whose anti-fat cat, green agenda had inspired many on the left. Yet neither Rudd’s emissions trading scheme, nor his retro-active 40% super-tax on mining, nor many other of his cherished schemes ever saw the light of day. Should the left rue the departure of an idealist, or welcome the more pragmatic Gillard, learning to recognise that in a capitalistic system there are limits to how far you can go in antagonising capitalists.

Turning back the clock: Dr Paul Fairchild will explain how a breakthrough in stem cell research – enabling pluripotent cells to be harvested from the patient’s own cell tissue rather than from embryos – has brought us much closer to the point where we will be able to replace or regenerate diseased and worn out tissue.

Beating Alzheimer’s: Scientists at the Institute for the Future of Mind have come up with an important new theory to explain how brain cells degenerate. Professor Susan Greenfield will argue that this could be a crucial step to finding a cure for two of the most widespread neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

A cure for cancer: Professor Bleddyn Jones and his colleagues at the Particle Therapy Research Institute are working on a new form of radiotherapy – known as CPT – which targets cancer cells while avoiding the damage that conventional radiotherapy does to healthy tissue. As Professor Jones will show, this could prove a highly effective way of dealing with cancer.

Combating the superbugs: A major problem confronting modern medicine is the spread of “superbugs” resistant to all conventional types of antibiotic. Dr Sonia Contera will show how by creating a completely new form of antibiotic made out of nanoparticles, she and her colleagues at the Institute of Nanoscience for Medicine are on the verge of cracking the problem.

Speakers for the motion: Madelaine Levy, Britt Lintner, Paula Reed

Speakers against the motion: Stephen Bayley, Susie Orbach, Grayson Perry

Chair: Peter York

But such international sporting jamborees are never just about the games themselves. They are a chance for nations – and even continents – to host the world, attract tourism and investment, and generate national pride. The flip side is that they are also a chance for the hosts to bankrupt themselves, pursuing dreams of sporting grandeur which cost billions but bring little public benefit – a risk that South Africa, with its impoverished population, can ill afford. In the long run, when the flags, trumpets and face-paint are packed away, will Africa have lost out by hosting this World Cup?

Speakers for the motion Con Coughlin, General Jack Keane, Bill Kristol

Speakers against the motion Philip Bobbitt, Bernard-Henri Levy, Simon Schama.

The chair is Zeinab Badawi

The debate will be broadcast by BBC World News on Saturday 5th June at 09:10 and 21:10, and Sunday 6th June at 02:10 and 15:10 (all times in GMT). Video highlights are now available on the Intelligence Squared website where the full video will also be available on-demand from 5th June.

For many on the liberal left who scorned George W Bush’s gung-ho foreign policy, Barack Obama’s more dovish, multilateral approach is far more likely to make headway. Ever since his inauguration, Obama has been offering an extended hand of friendship to America’s enemies. But his detractors say that all he gets in return is a fist in the face. Is too much accommodation - to China, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Iran and others - just capitulation in another guise? Is Obama simply hastening American decline?

Tufte has had solo shows of sculptures and prints at Artists Space in New York and the Architecture and Design Museum in Los Angeles, and in 2009 - 2010 a major sculpture show at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Since 1999, he has completed 50 large-scale outdoor pieces, 150 table pieces, and many steel engravings and digital prints.

In this rare appearance in England for Intelligence Squared, Tufte will discuss his theories of visual thinking and analytical design.

Writer and broadcaster who has spent much of his adult life travelling in and writing about the Middle East and North Africa. He fell in love in Cairo in the 1980s and has been a regular visitor ever since. His books include the highly-acclaimed The Pharaoh’s Shadow, an account of his search for surviving ancient culture in Egypt, and The Gates of Africa, the story of the 18th century search for Timbuktu. His forthcoming book, A Winter on the Nile, tells of the journey Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert made in Egypt in 1849-50.

This week’s debate looks at the prospects of a hung parliament on the traditional two-party system.

Speakers for the motion are Tom Bower, Dominic Lawson, Ed Smith

Speakers against the motion are Garth Crooks, Hunter Davies, David Sheepshanks

The Chair is Angus Scott

This week’s debate looks at Goldman Sachs

This week’s debate coincides with the live debate “The beautiful game? You’re having a laugh!” which is available live online at www.intelligencesquared.com/live at 6.45pm on Thursday 29th April.

England’s national game excites fanatical loyalty and passion from its millions of followers, many of whom make lavish claims for its aesthetic appeal, its underlying moral qualities and its positive effects on society.

But there are those who see this very adulation as evidence of the stupidity of football’s legion of fans and followers. Can they not smell the stink of rotten money and rotten morals. The so-called “beautiful game”, say the malcontents, is spectacularly corrupt and decadent – and it isn’t even that much fun to watch.

This week’s debate looks at the possible effects of search giant Google scanning and digitising some ten million books

This week’s debate looks at tolerance. Gay rights are back on the agenda after a gay couple, Michael Black and John Morgan, were prevented from taking up a booking they had made at a B&B in Berkshire: the owner, Susanne Wilkinson, had disapproved of their relationship for religious reasons. The row was further inflamed last weekend when Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling sympathised with Wilkinson’s views.

Is such dislike of gay sex always an unacceptable prejudice? Or should homosexuals learn to tolerate the limits to other people’s tolerance of their lifestyles?

This week’s debate considers drug legalisation after recent calls for the popular street drug, Mephedrone, to be banned.

This week’s debate considers whether politicians’ domestic lives should be privatised.

David Elstein Chairman of DCD Media plc and the Broadcasting Policy Group, formerly Chief Executive of Channel 5.

Claire Enders Founder of Enders Analysis, a research service focusing on technology, telecoms and media across Europe.

A. A. Gill Journalist and author, currently the Sunday Times’s restaurant and television critic.

Turi Munthe Founder of Demotix - www.demotix.com - a street-journalism website and newswire.

Andrew Neil Former editor of the Sunday Times; publisher of Press Holdings and Chief Executive of the Spectator, broadcaster and business consultant on media matters.

Matthew Parris Times newspaper columnist, television and radio broadcaster.

Jacob Weisberg Editor-in-chief of the Washington Post’s Slate Group of online magazines.

Chair:

Simon Jenkins Columnist for The Guardian and the London Evening Standard and former editor of the Times newspaper. He is also Chairman of the National Trust.

Chaired by Simon de Pury.

Arguing for the motion are Louisa Buck, Jasper Joffe, and Matthew Collings.

Arguing against the motion are Richard Wentworth, Matthew Slotover and Sir Norman Rosenthal.

Speakers: Tariq Ramadan, Zeinab Badawi, Petra Stienen, Douglas Murray, Flemming Rose

Joseph Stiglitz Chairman, Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School.

Evan Davis Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme; BBC Economics Editor from 2001-2008.

Speakers for the motion:

David Aaronovitch Author and columnist on The Times.

Martin Rowson Satirical cartoonist and novelist. He was London’s Cartoonist Laureate under former mayor Ken Livingstone.

Francis Wheen Author and broadcaster. His latest book is “Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia”.

Speakers against the motion:

Mary Beard Professor of Classics at Cambridge University and author of the blog “A Don’s Life” which has recently been published as a book.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto Professor of Global Environment History at Queen Mary, University of London, and William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame. Formerly a history master at Charterhouse School.

Barnaby Lenon Head Master of Harrow School.

Chair:

Francine Stock Broadcaster and novelist. She presents BBC Radio 4’s “The Film Programme”.

The distinguished panel of speakers for this event includes Imran Khan, William Dalrymple, Jaswant Singh, Anatol Lieven, Farzana Shaikh, Jonathan Paris and Sir David Richards.

This is the first of eight IQ² events planned for the first half of 2010, all of which will be broadcast live on this page over the coming months.

In opposing the motion, Rowan Pelling targets the British man in particular in her argument, noting that in Britain, it is frustrated women who will do almost anything to get laid. She begins by outlining the British male’s characteristic ambivalence toward sex in literature and other media, from Sherlock Holmes to Dr Who. At heart, she says, men want to live with their best friends, not with women - just look at all the things men do to make themselves less atrractive to women - trainspotting, computer games, etc. All of Britain’s great historical figures, from Shakespeare to Churchill, achieved what they did because they deliberately avoided spending too much time with women.

Seonding the motion, Satoshi Kanazawa points out that as humans are no different to any other species in being governed by the laws of nature, they too are driven, through evolutionary urges, towards ‘reproductive success’. However, the fact that mating is essentially a female choice means that males are driven to great lengths to impress women, by writing symphonies, authoring books, or conquering lands.

Rejecting the motion, Howard Jacobson begins by stating that in Britain, men do not “get laid’ - “they make love”. He makes the point that if all you wanted to do was “pull a bird”, then there are easier ways to do it than painting the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel. Humanity has also discovered sexual activites that hold no possibility of reproduction - a man having sex with another man is not striving for reproductive success, for instance. For men, sex is something that has to be done only so it is over with, leaving them free to do other things.

David Buss draws on his experience of teaching evolutionary psychology to suggest that, for females, there are many variables to consider when choosing a mate - males look for a more limited range of qualities. Men are also more inclined to sleep with strangers, and often exaggerate their athletic, intellectual, or physical prowess to impress women. Buss suggests that these differences arose because men can afford to sleep with as many mates as possible - indeed, it is in their evolutionary interests to do so. However, whilst the male’s contribution to a pregnancy might only last minutes, the female has to consider her choice of mate carefully before beginning a nine-month pregnancy. This difference in attitudes towards reproduction means that men try to propagate their genes as frequently as possible.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic argues that the motion is impossible to prove or disprove scientifically. He suggests that it has no predictive value, as most of the time when people do things with a view to get laid, they don’t end up achieving their goal anyway. As Chamorro-Premuzic points out, Sigmund Freud suggested that Leonardo da Vinci achieved so much because he was asexual.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Derek Tokin, Frank Smithuis, and Thant Myint-U.

Derek Tonkin proposes the motion by suggesting that, whilst the sanctions against Burma are supposed to be targeting the regime, they are making no difference. He calls for all sanctions against Burma (except the arms embargo) to be lifted, as they are harming Burma’s ordinary citizens more than they are harming those in power.

Frank Smithuis draws on his experience of working in Burma to suggest that sanctions have had no effect - only negative side-effects. Not only have trade sanctions led to a decrease in jobs in the textiles and tourist industries, but development and humanitarian aid has also decreased, leading to increased poverty and disease.

Thant Myint-U outlines how sanctions have decimated ‘employment-generating’ industries such as textile manufacture and tourism in Burma. The upshot of these sanctions is that the poorest people and the middle classes have suffered, not the generals. If the West continues to isolate Burma, it is China who will shape the future of the country, and Myint-U questions whether the Chinese are the most desirable state to be in that position.

Arguing against the motion are Benedict Rogers, Mark Farmaner, and Brad Adams.

Benedict Rogers outlines the shocking brutality that the Burmese government is capable of, and suggests that lifting sanctions would send out the wrong message to the Burmese government. We should only lift sanctions, he says, when the government agree to measures such as releasing political prisoners and declaring a ceasefire on the ethnic nationalities. He proposes more targeted sanctions - on oil, gas, and financial institutions - to hit the generals where it really hurts: in their pockets.

Mark Farmaner points to the strong support that sanctions have from Burma charities and the Burmese population themselves. Sanctions were originally introduced in response to human rights abuses, and are still in place because these abuses have not abated. He also points out that there are no sanctions on humanitarian aid – levels of aid to Burma have decreased since 1988 because of fears that it will fall into the hands of the corrupt government.

Brad Adams acknowledges the failure of previous sanctions such as America’s trade embargo, but says that what advocates of sanctions are calling for are more specific measures designed to force the generals to the negotiating table. Adams also advocates putting pressure on China and India to enforce sanctions on Burma.

First vote: Agree 106, Disagree 98, Undecided 91

Final vote: Agree 120, Disagree 157, Undecided 23

The motion was defeated by 37 votes.

Speaking for the motion are Richard Harries and Charles Moore.

Richard Harries outlines the features and the history of fundamentalism, arguing that many of the criteria required for it are in fact apparent in today’s atheists. He portrays a set of people with narrow views, arguing against a specific view of God, who forget that some of the greatest philosophy, art, poetry and music has been inspired and supported by Christianity – the very belief system that is accused of restricting the creative process by its refusal to allow for ‘the grand perhaps’ (Browning).

Charles Moore insists that his opponents cannot see the true complexity of the argument, and that they emphasise the physical and the scientific aspect of humanity at the cost of any spiritual understanding. He criticises Richard Dawkins for embodying this crude and narrow pursuit of literal truth above all else.

Opposing the motion are A.C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins.

Professor Grayling maintains that since 9/11, the nature of the debate on religious commitment has become far more serious. He distinguishes between atheism, secularism and humanism. He refutes Moore’s suggestion that atheists cannot fully understand the complexity of the religious experience, insisting that many atheists understand it all too well, having been brought up in a religious family or community.

Richard Dawkins defines fundamentalism as the following: blind obedience to scripture regardless of evidence, allied to extremism. He argues that far from being entrenched fundamentalists, atheists have a commitment to exploring evidence, and a readiness to embrace change, and that we should not mistake the passion of their arguments or their refusal to remain silent for fundamentalism.

Speaking in favour of the motion are David Aaronovitch, Sir Ian Blair, and Conor Gearty. David Aaranovitch explains that over the past half century the state has become weaker, not stronger. Power has steadily been decentralised, and the government is under more scrutiny than ever before. For Aaronovitch, the citizens are the mighty, not the state. Ian Blair assesses the changing nature of contemporary crime, explaining that the collection of information via surveillance is a necessity that has solved, and will continue to solve and prevent, serious crimes that threaten society. Conor Gearty discusses different ways civil liberties can be approached. He refutes the notion that the yard stick ‘golden age’ ever existed and explains in detail how protective legislations have often been misunderstood.

Speaking against the motion are A C Grayling, David Davis, and Shami Chakrabarti.

A C Grayling discusses the fine line between civil liberties and security protection. He looks at the nature of crime and proportionality and questions the threat to society posed by terrorists, compared to the threat posed by bankers. Grayling lists the intrusive measures and Acts that the government has introduced in recent years. David Davis assesses the risk and effects of terrorism and counterterrorism laws to the individual. He criticises the detainment policy, explaining that it is no longer about security, but about politics, and that this reductionism has had dire effects of innocent people. Shami Chakrabarti explains that the motion is not simply a choice between security and liberty. She asks which is the greater risk – hyperbole or complacency, and explains that even if laws are passed with positive intentions they can be used to negative effect.

First vote: 137 For, 291 Against, 106 Don’t know

Final Vote: 220 For, 281 Against, 22 Don’t know

The motion is defeated by 61 votes.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Paul Mason, Ian Bremmer and Jean Pisani-Ferry. Paul Mason begins by explaining his definition of free-market capitalism. He focuses on the ideology itself rather than the actual system of capitalism as, surprisingly; true free-market capitalism has never been put into practice. He states that actual free-market states are ‘rigged and un-free’, and believes that capitalism has been empirically proven wrong, due to its failure to warn of impending crisis. Ian Bremmer continues by stating that non-western countries are ‘moving on’ economically, yet the west is not. China, Russia and Saudi Arabia are experiencing ‘state capitalism’, where the state is the principle actor and arbiter of the economy. Therefore, power is shifting from the commercial to the political. Jean Pisani-Ferry finishes by arguing that markets and governments are both imperfect institutions. However, they must be effectively combined to promote our collective values. He also notes that western nations are entering into an economy of scarcity, which will be further affected by climate change and an aging population.

Arguing against the motion are Stephen King, Kim Campbell and Vince Cable. Stephen King begins by stating that free-market capitalism did not exist in the 20th century, yet did in the 19th, as the size of the state has increased massively over the last one hundred years. He also notes that the huge tax revenues from risky bank practices encouraged governments not to intervene before the financial crisis. Kim Campbell argues that the free-market principles of Adam Smith have never been properly implemented. Furthermore, Adam Smith was deeply committed to notions of public morality, and firmly believed that capitalism should operate within an ethical framework – the kind of framework that was totally deconstructed during the Bush administration. Vince Cable argues that free-market capitalism is the world form of economic system – except for all the others. He believes that capitalism does not have to be laissez-faire, and does have a role for public goods and government intervention. The answer lies in breaking up institutions that are too big to fail and force them to compete. Cable believes that the ideal models of free-market capitalism are the systems used by the Scandinavian nations.

First Vote: 178 For, 281 Against, 156 Undecided

Final Vote: 162 For, 419 Against, 35 Undecided

The motion is defeated by 257 votes.

Initial Vote: 678 For, 1102 Against, Undecided 346

Final Vote: 268 For, 1876 Against, Undecided 34

Arguing in favour of the motion are Archbishop John Onaiyekan and the Rt Hon. Ann Widdecombe MP.

Archbishop Onaiyekan begins by insisting that if the Catholic Church were not a force for good, he would not have devoted his entire life to serving it. He says that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church exists because of its 1.6 billion members worldwide, rather than in spite of them. He points not only to the spiritual assistance that his Church provides, but also to the tangible aid that is given internationally through Catholic projects. Finally, he admits that Catholics are not infallible, but are by necessity sinners trying to improve themselves through their faith.

Ann Widdecombe suggests that in trawling all the way back to the Crusades to find something to blame the Catholic Church for, Christopher Hitchens merely demonstrates how flimsy his argument really is. Why would the Pope have hidden 3,000 Jews in his summer palace during the Second World War if the Catholic Church was an antisemitic organisation? Admittedly, the New Testament does blame a Jew for the death of Christ; but it also blames a Roman, Pontius Pilate. Are we to infer then that Catholicism is anti-Italian as well as antisemitic? Widdecombe insists that the actions of the Catholic Church in the past should be judged with a degree of historical relativism; they were not the only people to murder and torture those deemed guilty of wrongdoing. She entreats us to imagine a world without the benefits of the Catholic Church, which provides hope, education and medical relief all over the globe.

Arguing against the motion are Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry.

Christopher Hitchens asserts that any argument trying to identify the merits of the Catholic Church must begin with a long list of sincere apologies for its past crimes, including but not limited to: the Crusades; the Spanish inquisition; the persecution of Jews and the forced conversion of peoples to Catholicism, especially in South America. He illustrates the vacuity of recent Catholic apologies by drawing on the case of Cardinal Bernard Law – shamed out of office in the US for his part in covering up the institutionalised sexual abuse of children – whose punishment from the Vatican was to be appointed a supreme vicar in Rome, and who was among those assembled in the 2005 Papal Conclave to choose the next Pope. Hitchens concludes by reminding the Archbishop that his own Church has been responsible for the death of millions of his African brothers and sisters, citing the Church’s disastrous stance on Aids prevention, as well as the ongoing trials in Rwanda in which Catholic priests stand accused of inciting massacre during the 1994 genocide.

Stephen Fry concedes that his opposition to the motion is a deeply personal and emotional one. He criticises the Catholic Church not only for the horrors it has perpetrated in the past, but also for its ideology, and for its sinister temerity to preach that there is no salvation outside of the Church. With two words he refutes Anne Widdecombe’s suggestion that the Catholic Church does not have the powers of a nation state: “The Vatican”. As a homosexual, Fry reflects how bizarre it is to be accused of being “immoral” and “a pervert” by an institution that has persistently hushed up the rape and abuse of children under its care, and whose leading members, abstentious nuns and priests, all share an attitude towards sex that is utterly unnatural and dysfunctional. He concludes by questioning whether Jesus, as a humble Jewish carpenter, would have approved of all the pomp and excess of the Catholic Church, and whether he would even have been accepted by such an arrogant organisation.

Dalrymple divides his lecture into two parts. Firstly, Delhi in the time of his 1994 travelogue City of Djinns which, he argues, is a Delhi which vanished long ago. Today it is a city diametrically at odds with its historical reputation, and a deeply uncultured philistine city. He asks the question ‘where is the city of the Mughals?’. The Delhi of today is instead, a massively vibrant media centre, and a magnet for people from the south and Mumbai seeking employment.

He reads from City of Djinns about meeting the author of Twilight in Delhi, which he describes as one of the great examples of Indo-Islamic culture in Delhi, and the lifestyle of the old Mughal elite.

Secondly, he discusses the Delhi of his 2006 historical book The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi 1857. He begins by reading an excerpt which describes 1850’s Delhi – that being a place lacking in any real political power, yet still having a strong sense of its own self-confidence and power as a centre of manners, poetry and civilization.

He continues by discussing the role and history of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, and concludes by outlining the the anti-colonial revolts, and the final downfall of the last Mughal.

Dr Ian Goldin asks why predictions about the future often turn out to be wrong. He argues that the recent history of globalisation has been an incredible coming-together of humanity, and an explosion of innovation, surpassing anything seen in the last 1000 years. He claims that the biggest uncertainly is fertility, as the world is converging below replacement levels. While the ageing population will be a major burden on the youth, they may be replaced by migration. He continues by discussing the ‘information big bang’, specifically the evolution of computer power. He believes that whilst risks will continue to come from nature, they will increasingly come from human activity. The biggest threat is climate change, but these risk also include also pandemics such as H1N1. As globalisation continues to shrink the world, the frequency and severity of these threats is only likely to increase. Another great risk we face is that we are stuck with a global governance system that that has not changed since the Second World War. Finally, Goldin believes that it is in our power to eradicate poverty and disease by 2050 - but it also within our power to destroy ourselves.

Dr Malcolm McCulloch notes that human energy use is rapidly increasing, and that we are on a climate change trajectory that is far worse than the worst-case scenario predicted five years ago. He notes that in nature there is a cyclical system, whereby one animal’s or organism’s waste is another’s nutrition. However humanity is addicted to single use resources. If humanity continues in the manner in which it previously has then energy use will increase by three times and the temperature of the earth by six degrees. The cost of transport and food will rise massively and humanity would likely not survive past 2100.

Professor Julian Savulescu discusses the human genome, personalised genomes, cloning, stem cells and purely artificial life. He believes we will see radical biological modification of humans. Any genes in the plant or animal kingdom can potentially be used to enhance humans – the vision of a hawk; the hearing of a dog; the sonar of a bat. He states that humans are altruistic, but only to about 150 people - their immediate and extended family and their friends. Yet the problems humanity faces, such as climate change, require humans to cooperate and act altruistically in ways they are not disposed to behave. In order to make progress we have to understand our own biological limitations. Savulescu believes that by 2050 there will be hope in bio-liberation, but that the root of bio-threat will remain large.

Professor Sarah Harper discusses the problems that are likely to arise as the world’s population continues to age. By 2050 the global population is likely to swell to 9 billion people, but 3 billion people will be aged over 50. As we witness increasing age, we will also see falling fertility in most parts of the world. As medical science constantly progresses and even chronically ill people begin to live longer, generational succession will be an issue, as wealth and status will not be handed down the family line until much later in life. Harper’s greatest concern is in human longevity becoming the new global inequality - the West must ensure that a child born in Africa has the same potential longevity as a child born in the West.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Pat Buchanan, Nigel Knight, and Norman Stone. Pat Buchanan opens the case for the motion by acknowledging Churchill’s role during Britain’s ‘Finest Hour’ in 1940, but goes on to state that for the rest of his career, “no other career of a western statesman was more calamitous for his country and civilisation than that of Winston Spencer Churchill”. Buchanan lists the gravest British military disasters of which Churchill was the architect (Gallipoli in WW1, Norway in WW2). He also cites Churchill’s role in establishing the starvation blockade around Germany in WW1 and the RAF’s ‘terror-bombing’ of German cities in WW2 as evidence that Churchill helped to precipitate the West’s descent into barbarism. Nigel Knight criticises Churchill for his decision to put Britain on the gold standard - a decision which worsened the effects of the Great Depression when it eventually came. Knight also criticises Churchill’s underestimation of the significance of aircraft carriers and the threat of U-boats in naval warfare, and his failure to recognise Japan as a major threat to Britain’s naval superiority. Norman Stone decries the ‘myth’ of Churchill as a dangerous thing, and condemns Churchill’s disastrous imperialist attitude, such as trying to salvage the Empire in the east whilst only just hanging on in a European war. He also questions the wisdom of the RAF’s bombing of German cities in 1944-45 when Britain was shortly to become allies with Germany.

Arguing against the motion are Andrew Roberts, Anthony Beevor, and Professor Richard Overy. Andrew Roberts begins by praising Churchill for ensuring that the British fleet was ready for action at the start of the Great War. He also warned Britain in the 1930s - at great political cost to himself - of the threat that Adolf Hitler posed, and in his famous ‘Iron curtain’ speech in 1946, warned the world of the threat that the Soviet Union posed . Roberts concedes that Churchill made mistakes but, he says, Churchill’s political career spanned nearly two-thirds of a century, and he was only flesh and blood - of course he made some mistakes. Anthony Beevor focuses his argument on World War 2, beginning by stating that Churchill was correct to delay D-Day, allowing the American Army to gain experience fighting in the Mediterranean. He also notes that Churchill championed the freedom of the central and eastern European states. Firstly, he wanted to push through the Mediterranean and out of Italy to save the central and eastern European states from the perils of the Soviet Union, and secondly, at the end of the war he asked his chiefs of staff to assess the possibility of pushing the Red Army back out of these states, a measure that they decided would be impossible. Beevor lays the blame for Stalin’s carving up of central Europe squarely at Franklin Roosevelt’s door. Richard Overy says that Churchill cannot be blamed for all of the things of which he is accused because all of the decisions he made were as part of a committee. He decided policy by committee and he waged war by committee. Also, unlike some other leaders, such as Hitler, Churchill was amenable to advice. But most of all, Overy says, Churchill was a man driven by a love of liberty and a deep-seated hatred of tyranny.

First Vote: 118 For, 1167 Against, 422 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 181 For, 1194 Against, 34 Don’t Know

Speaking in favour of the motion are Rosie Boycott and Dr Anthony Seldon.

Opposing the motion are Dominic Lawson and Christine Hamilton.

Arguing in favour of the proposal are Theodore Dalrymple, Dorothy Rowe and Jeffrey Masson. Theodore Dalrymple begins by arguing that the negative cultural effect of psychotherapy outweighs any potential good done to individual patients. He believes it elevates feelings over objective evidence, and treats human life as a technical problem to be solved - standing in the way of human happiness. Dorothy Rowe states that therapy can help, on very rare occasions; however, nobody really knows how this occurs. Whilst therapists must take account of everything in a person’s life, any therapy that is unable to do this causes harm. Finally, Jeffrey Masson states that the prejudices of the therapist affect the participants; however, participants cannot know the background of the therapist. Therapists’ abilities are also deeply limited as no one is an expert when it comes to sorrow, happiness, or love.

Arguing against the proposal are Andrew Samuels, Lorna Martin and Professor Lord Layard. Andrew Samuels begins by arguing that psychotherapy does not create a victim mentality - in fact, it has the opposite effect. He states that growth and risk are connected, while anti-psychotherapy belief comes from upper middle-class repression. Lorna Martin believes that psychotherapy is not a cure for the human condition, but it helps you understand what your “default position” is. She rejects the notion that it has caused the human condition to become medicalised - this has occurred from outside influences. Professor Lord Layard states that therapy is exactly the same as medicine – meaning there are good and bad practitioners. He believes that Cognitive Behaviour Therapy saves lives, and strongly supports the increased role of mental health services offered through the NHS.

First vote: 167 For, 304 Against, 195 Don’t Know

Final vote: 204 For, 421 Against, 35 Don’t Know

Motion defeated by 217 votes.

David Cannadine begins by to growing unrest with the government in Britain, fed by scandals such MPs’ expenses and the ‘cash for honours’, as well as the perception that both New Labour and the Conservative Party are responsible for the economic crisis. Cannadine argues that this short-term outrage is not the basis on which to base long term reforms, and that this period of transition - in all likelihood from a New Labour to a Conservative government - is not the time for radical reform. He also runs through the possible parliamentary reforms - a written constitution, a second elected house, reform of the Lords - and suggests why it is unlikely that any of them will be implemented. Helena Kennedy agrees that the public is currently disillusioned with politics and politicians, as evidenced by low voter turnouts. Politicians, she says would have us believe that these low turnouts are down to voter empathy, but surveys reveal that people feel that their votes don’t count and are frustrated at the homogeneity of the political parties. In this sense, the outrage caused by the expenses scandal is symptomatic of a deeper mistrust of politicians. Kennedy calls for a great public input in the political process in Britain, and a system of representation that allows people to feel that their voices are heard even when they do not vote for a majority party. Peter Oborne accepts the fact that there is something wrong with British politics but refutes calls for root and branch reform. He emphasises the significance of the expenses scandal, suggesting that it is indicative of a higher level of fraud and corruption in the House of Commons, and that the sackings in the wake of the scandal are token gestures by Gordon Brown and David Cameron. Oborne suggests that, in the short-term, we need to clean up British politics, by making sure that individuals who defraud the taxpayers are brought to account.

After a short break for questions, Vernon Bogdanor resumes the debate by citing public disillusionment as the reason for low voter turnouts in Britain, pointing to the fact that a large number of Britons regularly participate in voluntary activities and attend voluntary organisations - the problem is more people are members of, for instance, the National Trust or the RSPCA than all the polticical parties put together. Bogdanor suggests that this points to disillusionment with British politics, and calls for a more inclusive democratic system - one that does away with safe seats and makes more use of mechanisms such as referendums and primary elections. John Keane calls for a greater degree of ‘monitary democracy’ in British politics. He suggests that Britain has fallen behind other democracies in this respect, and cites the extra-governmental agencies used in other countries to keep parliament in check and crack down on fraud and corruption, such as the Australian ‘Integrity Commissions’ or Canada’s 2006 Federal Accountability Act. He parallels the current state of British politics to that of late nineteenth century America where public disillusionment at state corruption was high. But he also suggests that, like in that period of American history, positive changes can emerge from the public anger at the corruption of politicians; this will take a greater degree of public engagement with the problems, from journalists and citizens’ assemblies, to blogs, and political satire. Referring again to the expenses scandal, Sir Malcom Rifkind suggests that new technologies - the internet and email - will make it easier for the public to scrutinise the activities of politicians, and calls for parliament to regain greater control over the government. David Aaronovitch refutes claims that the current parliamentary system is rotten and suggests that the furore surrounding the expenses scandal is more indicative of the antagonistic relationship between MPs and the population - we hate them, he claims, and they hate us. However, he still advocates a reform of the system, suggesting the need for the population to become more involved with electoral process, and delegating more responsibilities to a local level - he gives the example of giving budgetary control to school governors. This would compel parents to become more involved when mistakes are made.

At the end of the debate, chair Simon Jenkins asks for a show of hands for each of the main questions of the debate. First, is the current parliamentary system in desperate need of reform? And second, should we stay with a first past the post (FPTP) electoral system or change to proportional representation (PR)? In the first case, the audience vote narrowly in favour of reform, and in the latter, the audience favour a move to PR.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Deepak Lal, Sir Mark Tully, and Gurcharan Das.

Arguing against the motion are Lord Powell, Danny Quah and Sir David Tang.

Arguing for Palladio are Robert Adam and Dr Manolo Guerci.

Robert Adam begins the defence of Palladio by criticising the way in which Ruskin prioritised architectural theory over architecture itself. Adam sees this as the main reason why architects are now marginal figures in the construction process. He argues that it is the ‘practicality’ of Palladio’s architecture that has ensured Palladio’s place as the ‘Godfather of the greatest period in British Architecture’. Palladio’s four books, Adam argues, contain a combination of lessons in classical architecture, examples of ways to design up-to-date classical buildings, and a method of using these principles for any design.

Dr Manolo Guerci declares that Palladio has been misunderstood. Beginning with an examination of who Palladio was and his beginnings in 16th century Veneto, Guerci emphasises that he epitomises a balance between practice and theory, while Ruskin represented theory only. That he invented a formula was a reason for his success, but his architecture was hardly ever formulaic. According to Guerci, Ruskin’s charge that Palladio’s architecture does not work in its context is wrong: without the context you can’t have Palladio.

Arguing for Ruskin are Robert Hewison and Simon Jenkins.

Robert Hewison begins the defence by criticising Palladio’s desire to impose his own vision on the world, when he himself often deviated from his own strict rules governing that vision. Whilst Palladio was just an architect, he argues, Ruskin was also a critic, an artist, a geologist, a botanist, and a naturalist. But above all, Ruskin saw the Classical architecture that Palladio championed as an attempt to cut mankind off from ‘God’s creation’, and tried to use Gothic architecture to reconnect people with nature.

Simon Jenkins explains how he has never looked back since his personal discovery of Ruskin’s Venice. He says the debate is not about whether Palladio is a bad architect, but about preference. For him, Palladio is unexciting, dreary, and rule-bound, and is about the mathematics, not the magic, of building. Jenkins uses Parliament Square as an example of gothic imagination, excitement and liberation. It is not rule-bound like Palladianism, which is at its best only when the rules are broken. He ends with the suggestion that Palladio is the forbear of the least exciting elements of architecture, and asks that we vote for Ruskin and beauty instead.

The Final Vote was declared a draw.

Championing the motion are David Starkey and Roger Scruton.

Arguing against the motion are Germaine Greer and Stephen Bayley.

Stewart’s courageous solo walk across Afghanistan in 2001-2002, combined with his existing expertise in the politics, history, art and architecture of the region, has made him one of the foremost authorities on Afghanistan.

Having given a brief outline of the history of Kabul, including the Afghan revolt against the British, Stewart brings us all the way forward to the present, to the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, the hugely successful urban regeneration programme that he founded in 2005. The project operates exclusively within the Murad Khane district of Kabul, and aims not just to improve the living conditions of Afghanis, but to enhance their own sense of cultural and historical identity, by repairing old buildings and restarting the teaching of traditional Afghan trades. At one point, Turquoise Mountain employed every man of working age in the Murad Khane district.

Stewart’s message is clear: in order to give Afghanistan any chance of successfully developing in the future, we must be aware of of the responsibilities we bear from the destructive British engagement there, and should encourage a natural, gradual reconnection of Afghanis with their cultural identity. Any approach which is heavy handed, or oversimplifies the sheer complexity of creating a climate conducive to legitimately rebuilding this nation, is bound to fail.

Following his lecture proper, Stewart fields questions on the culture of Kabul, as well as on US and British strategy in the region. He refers to troop surges as “positively noxious”, and insists that we must try to find a political solution in Afghanistan, but that it requires the international community to create a realistic space for that to happen.

Matthew Parris begins by arguing that Afghanistan has nothing to do with Britain – that it is beyond our sphere. He believes that the money spent on waging war in Afghanistan would have been more effectively spent, and Britain would be safer as a nation, if we had invested in anti-terrorism projects and policing. Lord Inge believes that we must have clearer aims for what we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. He believes that the aim should not be to create a democracy, merely a more stable nation. Therefore, we must increase western military levels, and improve the Afghan army. Clare Lockhart argues that the ‘war’ was supposed to be a global partnership. She states that western governments funded the aid effort rather than the Afghan government. She believes the West must invest money in developing the skill of the local population, improving and developing their universities, and equipping Afghans to establish their government and civil society.

Rory Stewart states that the West lacks power, knowledge and legitimacy in Afghanistan. He believes the approach we should take involves a light footprint, fewer troops and less money – as this is more sustainable. Christina Lamb now believes that we must not increase troop levels, but argues strongly that Afghanistan is the West’s problem. She states that Afghans are stuck between a vicious Taliban, who they fear and respect for their swift justice, and a slow, corrupt and useless government. She believes that if we cannot send enough troops then we need to think about other ways out of the situation.

Anatol Lieven argues that Pakistan is more important than Afghanistan, due to their population, army and nuclear weapons. He believes that the main driving force of radicalisation is our presence. We should study the Russian experience in Afghanistan, train their army and then get out. He believes that if we do withdraw troops from the country, the Afghans will start thinking about what they need to do to secure their own future. Paddy Ashdown strongly disagrees that it is nothing to do with Britain - he believes it is about our security. If you turn your back on a lawless state, where the destroyers of peace can operate, then retribution is possible. Our aims must be consistent with the desires of the people of Afghanistan, even if we feel that the society that they create is somewhat offensive to our values. Furthermore, we must speak to the Taliban.

At the end of the debate, chair Richard Lindley asks the audience to vote, with a show of hands, for each of the following propositions: 1. All foreign military forces should leave Afghanistan now; 2. Foreign forces in Afghanistan should negotiate a deal with the Taliban; 3. Foreign troops should remain in Afghanistan until the Taliban have been defeated. Interestingly, all three propositions are defeated, with the third garnering only a few votes.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Oliver Kamm, Pankaj Mishra and Professor John Gray. Oliver Kamm begins by arguing that the financial crisis has affected America’s desire and ability to play their traditional role as head of the international order. He believes that there will soon come a point where Asia will no longer invest in low yielding dollar assets, and the dollar itself will be rivaled by the Euro. He states that the factual reality of the motion far outweighs its desirability. Pankaj Mishra argue that America was never really dominant in Asia and India, as dominance requires consent – which was never present. He believes that the Chinese economy will rebound much sooner than America’s, specifically because it is less capitalistic. Finally, Professor John Gray argues that America will remain the most dominant power, but less dominant than it has been in the past. The decline will be both bad and good, he claims, as we move into a world without a dominant power. The likely outcome of this is a far more dangerous world.

Arguing against the motion are Sir Christopher Meyer, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Felipe Fernandez-Armesto. Sir Christopher begins by arguing that the world economy cannot improve until the American economy does, as no other nation has the consumers and resources to protect the global economy. He argues that other global economies are intrinsically linked to America’s, and that their economies are currently faltering. Sir Lawrence continues by stating that American dominance never began, so it cannot be over, as an external force has always contained US power. He believes that no one else is going to take over the role of defining the world order, as there is no potential challenging ideology. Finally, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto states that we should not judge America by the iniquities of its government, but by its people. American dominance is actually intellectual, due to their investment in learning, research and culture. Therefore, he states that American dominance is increasing.

First Vote: 223 For, 334 Against, 162 Undecided

Final Vote: 103 For, 527 Against, 89 Undecided

The motion is defeated.

In favour of the motion are Joan Smith, Jeremy O’Grady, and Professor Raymond Tallis.

Arguing against the motion are Germaine Greer, Rod Liddle, and Belinda Brooks-Gordon.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Sir Ivor Roberts, Mischa Glenny, and Dragan Županjevac. Sir Ivor Roberts begins by criticising the US for removing any incentive for a Serbian-Kosovan consensus before their talks had even begun, by telling Kosovo that the US would support it whatever the outcome. President Bush’s argument that this support was necessary to bring stability to the region was also specious, given that Serbia’s democratic government was clearly destabilised by international support for the Kosovan declaration. Finally, Roberts argues that multi-ethnicity has failed in Kosovo, and that temporary partition would be the best interim policy. Misha Glenny argues we must accept the political reality that European countries will not reverse their decision to accept Kosovo’s declaration of independence, but he criticises the flawed process by which this acceptance was made. The resulting confusion caused by European disunity means that Kosovo has not even been properly recognised by FIFA, let alone the UN. Glenny even suggests that the recent territorial adventurism from Russia in Georgia is linked to Kosovo’s treatment: that their actions have been legitimised by the free-for-all created by countries recognising Kosovo’s independence without full agreement from Serbia or the UN. As the only Serb on the panel, Dragan Županjevac wholeheartedly supports the motion. He insists that any recognition of Kosovan independence without agreement from the UN directly contravenes international law. He supports the notion that the ruling on Kosovo is a “toolkit for separatism worldwide”, and draws attention to some often “forgotten” victims of the conflict: the 200,000 Serbians who have been forced to leave Kosovo to live in refugee camps.

Opposing the motion are Wolfgang Ischinger, Paddy Ashdown, and Veton Surroi. Wolfgang Ischinger insists that, with all other options exhausted, Kosovan independence was the only satisfactory course of action remaining. Subjecting Kosovo to Serbian rule once again would have been unthinkable after the horrific events of 1999. Ischinger rejects Ivor Roberts’ support for partition within Kosovo, insisting that Europe must remain true to an ideology that always permits multi-ethnic spaces. Paddy Ashdown argues that there are important parallels between the secession of the Republic of Ireland from the UK and of Kosovo from Serbia: through prolonged misgovernance and finally brutality, both ruling countries lost the moral and practical right to govern. Ashdown strongly rejects the parallels drawn by Misha Glenny between Kosovo and South Ossetia, as well as Roberts’s idea of creating partition in Kosovo. Any attempt to impose mono-ethnic regions in the Balkans will, he says, lead inevitably to conflict and further bloodshed. Veton Surroi brings to bear his personal experience of Milosevic’s regime on this debate; he explains exactly how Milosevic divided up different ethnic groups into first and second class citizens in Kosovo, and how this discrimination even extended into the classroom. He praises the intervention of the UN, who for the first time in the 20th century, actually prevented genocide from occurring.

First Vote: 171 For, 184 Against, 275 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 311 For, 364 Against, 22 Don’t Know

Arguing in favour of the motion are Tom Kelly, Lord Soley and Colin Stanbridge.

Arguing against the motion are Mark Lynas, Sir Peter Hall and Vince Cable.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Oleg Rybachuk, Denis Macshane and Giorgi Kandelaki.

Arguing against the motion are Lord Skidelsky, Alexey Pushkov and Sir Christopher Meyer.

Dan Gillerman begins by stating his optimism that the Israel-Palestine conflict can be resolved, and cites the 2007 Middle East peace conference in Annapolis as a turning point. He suggests that Islam has been hijacked by fundamentalists and that the only way for peace to be negotiated between Israel and Palestine is if the Muslim and Arab worlds can unite. Dr Hanan Ashrawi is also optimistic, she states that unilateral or bilateral negotiations will not work, and that a multinational approach involving third parties is the only way forward, and stresses the need to include the Arab countries if they are prepared to be involved.

Efraim Halevy is less optimistic about the chances of reaching a settlement in the near future. He first lists the conditions that are necessary for a resolution to the conflict and then how far we currently are away from them. He diverges from the previous speakers in saying that this is a problem that is to be solved bilaterally - by Israel and Palestine together, without third party intervention. Mustafa Barghouti cites a lack of political will as the main reason why the Israel-Palestine situation has not been resolved. He suggests that a one state solution will result in a state with unequal rights for Palestinians and Israelis, and suggests that in resolving the situation we should go back to basics - the Israeli occupation must end, Arab initiatives must be discussed, and there must be an international peace conference.

Yael Dayan begins by saying that she doesn’t want to talk about who is to blame, but instead wants to focus on the future. However, she believes that there is no way that Israel can justify a 40 year occupation, and suggests the only way forward is a two state solution, with Israeli forces ending their occupation of Palestinian territory. Sir Malcolm Rifkind suggests that we have good cause to be optimistic about resolving the conflict - firstly because of historical precedents such as the settlements reached between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan, and also because the majority of Palestinians and Israelis agree to a two state resolution. He also cites the 1955 treaty that saw Austria, by pledging to remain neutral, become an independent nation, as a possible model for a Palestinian peace treaty. This would allow Palestine to become an independent state whilst guaranteeing Israel’s security.

A show of hands at the end of the debate showed that the overwhelming majority of the audience did not think a settlement could be reached within the next five years. However, a show of hands among the panellists revealed that they were more optimistic, with five out of six of them believing a settlement could be reached in that period.

Speakers for the motion: Simon Jenkins, Leon Krier and Roger Scruton.

Speakers gainst the motion: Sean Griffiths, Stephen Bayley and Alain de Botton. Chaired by Anna Ford.

Roger Scruton opens the case for the motion arguing that the debate concerns the rule not the exception - the modern office and apartment block are not made for the city but against it. Simon Jenkins reaffirms the motion highlighting the changing history of modern architecture; Le Corbusier and the Utopian 1960’s-70’s new society were a form of social engineering through architecture; examples of which are being demolished across the world. Finally HRH The Prince of Wales’ Poundbury architect, Leon Krier, defends the motion, and calls for a return to tradtional architecture.

In opposition to the motion, Stephen Bayley warns against HRH’s criticism of advancement, and describes him as fearful for the future and dismissive of the present. Alain de Botton defends modern architecture on its cultural and social merits celebrating design and architecture’s great achievements. Finally, architecture professor at Manchester University Sean Griffiths proclaims the motion as the swan-song of a debate that has been running for 24 years, calling for a closer examination of important issues concerning the government of Britain over the last two decades.

First Vote: For 199, Against 365, Don’t know 119.

Final Vote: For 266, Against 391, don’t know 29.

Arguing in favour of the motion are John Kay, Polly Toynbee, and Anthony Hilton.

Arguing against the motion are James Bartholomew, Lord Anthony Jacobs, and Kelvin MacKenzie.

Speaking for the motion are Professor John Gray, Matthew Parris and Will Self.

Arguing against the motion are Simon Schama, Martin Amis and Howard Jacobson.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Alexey Pushkov, Anatole Kaletsky and Norman Stone.

Alexey Pushkov begins by arguing that Russia has been extremely supportive of the US since 9/11, yet the Americans have not reciprocated. He suggests that by encouraging other members to join NATO, pulling out of the ABM treaty and interfering in Moldavian politics the West has shown itself to be the aggressors.

Anatole Kaletsky argues Russia no longer believes it holds the moral high-ground, and it no longer wants to impose its values on the rest of the world. He believes that Russia’s issues are internal, and that its choice not to live by our political standards, whilst regrettable, is understandable, and should not be interpreted as a hostile act.

Norman Stone argues that in the late eighties, at the height of its failure, the West had no plan for Russia. Now, however, Russia is succeeding again, yet it is no longer oppressing other people. Furthermore, he believes that the West is constantly provoking and criticising Russia.

Arguing against the motion are Edward Lucas, Dr Lilia Shevtsova and Ronald D. Asmus.

Edward Lucas begins by describing a ‘thought experiment’ using the Third Reich as a model, to demonstrate the relationship between modern Russia and her neighbours. He suggests that eastern Europeans are rightly worried about their futures considering Russia’s desire to dominate its empire and divide and disrupt the Atlantic alliance.

Dr Lilia Shevtsova continues by suggesting that Russia wants the West to not meddle in their domestic affairs and endorse their regime, recognise their areas of influence and allow Russia to play according to its own rules. While recognising that both sides are responsible for a revival in Cold War attitudes, she suggests that Russians are not anti-Western – as demonstrated by the elite’s desire to ‘live in Kensington and send their children to Cambridge’.

Finally, Ronald D Asmus argues that the motion is based on a historical fallacy. He believes that the United States has not broken any of their promises to Russia. Arguing from his own experience in the Clinton administration, he believes that the US wants to consolidate democracy in central Europe, reach out to Russia and try to ‘pull it West’.

First Vote: 158 For, 359 Against, 236 Don’t know

Final Vote: 181 For, 528 Against, 43 Don’t know

The motion is defeated by 347 votes.

Speakers against the motion are Vernon Bogdanor, Sir Stephen Wall and David Aaronovitch

Chaired by Andrew Neil

Arguing in favour of the motion are Emanuele Ottolenghi, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Bruno Tertrais.

Arguing against the motion are Professor Ali Ansari, Sir Richard Dalton and Simon Jenkins.

The panel include William Shawcross, Lt. Peter Hegseth, Sir Christopher Meyer, Ali Allawi, Tony Benn and Rory Stewart.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Angus Robertson MP and Dr Rebecca Johnson.

Arguing against the motion are Sir Michael Quinlan, Oliver Kamm and Sir Malcom Rifkind MP.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Tim Harford, John Redwood, and Eric Bettelheim.

Arguing against the motion are Lord Lawson, Frances Cairncross, and David Rieff.

Proposing the motion are Ibn Warraq, David Aaronovitch, and Douglas Murray. Ibn Warraq proposes the motion by pointing out some of the bases of western civilisation - rational thinking, self-criticism, the search for truth, the ability to separate cultural and secular values and so on - and how these values have improved the societies that have imported them, such as in China and Japan. His main argument is that Western civilisation respects the rights of women, homosexuals and members of non-western religions, whereas other cultures, and particularly those influenced by Islam, do not. The Qur’an is not, he says, a document that promotes equality. David Aaronovitch argues that Western values may not always be applied very well by all Western societies, but that the conduct of, for example, the British and American governments in allowing imprisonment and torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, is not advocated by the majority of the population. Douglas Murray draws a distinction between asserting values peacefully, as in this debate and asserting them violently. He suggests that there are no Islamic governments that Westerners would choose to live under. The West endorses a dialogue, he argues, that is not reciprocated by the non-Western world - if we do not assert our Western values then there is no help for those people suffering civil and human rights abuses in other parts of the world.

Opposing the motion are Charles Glass, Tariq Ramadan, and William Dalrymple. Charles Glass suggests that the West does not so much assert or export its values as ’shove them down people’s throats’ and that a culture which gave the world two world wars and colonial rule all over the world has no right to assert its superiority. Tariq Ramadan argues that the West asserts its own values because it is scared of losing its ‘European’ identity, and that, anyway, perceiving ‘The West’ and ‘The Rest’ as separate worlds is an historical and scientific mistake. He notes that Western values are often misused in the West, and points to the way immigrants are often treated badly even in Europe. William Dalrymple points out that the concept of ‘Western’ values is in some way flawed, as they are based on Judeo-Christian ideals, which are not Western at all. The first law codes, he notes, were laid down in Iraq, and the concept of reason originated with Arabic philosophers. The West also perpetrated such historical events as the Spanish Inquisition, and western ideals such as Marxism, Fascism, and Nazism, have caused millions of deaths. By asserting ‘western’ values, he argues, we are cherry-picking our favourite values and claiming them as our own.

First Vote: 313 For, 221 Against, 207 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 465 For, 264 Against, 18 Don’t Know

Arguing in favour of the motion are Peter Godwin, Tendai Biti MP and RW Johnson.

Arguing against the motion are John Makumbe, Chenjerai Hove and David Coltart MP.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Toby Young, David Elstein, and Tim Gardam.

Arguing against the motion are Stephen Bayley, Lloyd Evans, and Howard Jacobson.

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Speaking in favour of the motion are Dr Charles Murray, Theodore Dalrymple, and Dr David Green. Charles Murray begins by pointing out that, whilst prisons are not entirely effective as rehabilitation facilities, they do reduce crime rates. He points to the fact that England in the 1950s was one of the safest countries in the world, and that it is no coincidence that it also had one of the strictest legal systems in the world. He also notes that the people who choose to let prisoners go free (i.e. judges) are often not the people who have to live alongside them. Theodore Dalrymple points out some of the horrific crimes that reoffenders are capable of committing. He points out that it is often not the poor who suffer from criminals or reoffenders: “Failure to imprison is”, he says, “a regressive tax imposed upon the poor by the wealthy”. David Green highlights the ineffectiveness of community programmes, and suggests that the way to reduce reoffending rates in prisons is to keep prisoners inside for periods that are sufficient to effectively rehabilitate them, and to improve the quality of education and vocational training they receive.

Arguing against the motion are Lords Woolf and Ramsbotham, and Juliet Lyon. Lord Woolf begins by disagreeing with Charles Murray’s comments, stating that prison is not working because people do not feel safe. He points out that 67% of criminals reoffend within two years of being released. His suggestion, in light of the government’s dwindling resources for dealing with criminals, is to make our approach fit the resources, tackling the problem at source, and focussing attention on the worst offenders. Lord Ramsbotham suggests that we are imprisoning the wrong people. Too many prisoners, around 70%, have underlying psychological conditions that could be treated. Similarly, many people are imprisoned simply for breaching ASBO’s. For these individuals, prison is not always the right answer, says Lord Ramsbotham. He goes on to argue for a system whereby prisoners are integrated more successfully into their local community, not imprisoned hundreds of miles from home. Juliet Lyon suggests that prison should only be used as a last resort. Instead she advocates better supervision by parents, treatment for drug addicts and alcoholics, and mental healthcare for those that need it. She also points out that aftercare can be effective: reoffending rates are much lower when individuals have a job, stable housing, and a good contact with their family and the community.

First Vote: 170 For, 288 Against, 249 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 351 For, 337 Against, 38 Don’t Know

Proposing the motion are Christopher Hitchens, Professor Richard Dawkins, and Anthony Grayling. Christopher Hitchens begins by making the case for religion being at the root of many conflicts that have shaped the 20th-21st century world, citing the current situations in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Northern Ireland. Here, it has been intra-faith disputes that have caused or aggravated the conflicts and slowed political and social progress. Professor Richard Dawkins focuses his support for the motion on the blind faith that leads even intelligent people to deny key scientific principles, citing many American students’ opposition to the theory of evolution as an example. Anthony Grayling illustrates how the Bible’s view of what constitutes a good person is at odds with the modern Western view of what constitutes a good person, arguing that it is possible to appreciate the natural world and feel such emotions as empathy, sympathy, and love without holding religious views.

Opposing the motion are Dr Nigel Spivey, Roger Scruton, and Rabbi Julia Neuberger. The case against the motion is mainly focussed on religion being a force for good in the world - a force that empowers people spiritually and seeks to provide answers to humankind’s purpose and position on earth. Dr Nigel Spivey opens the opposition by offering an archaeological and anthropological perspective. Pointing to the “Creative Explosion” of 40,000 years ago, he suggests that religion is a concept that is part of the human nature, and that a world without religion would be one without such fruits of human creativity as Venice, the Taj Mahal and King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Rabbi Julia Neuberger argues that whilst atheism preaches certainty and disrespect of other religions, religion preaches uncertainty and tolerance. She suggests that it is certainty and conviction – not religion – that produced the Crusades, fascism, and Jewish, Christian, and Islamic fundamentalism. Roger Scruton argues that rejecting religion on some of its irrational principles does not make sense, and that science is just as capable of producing disasters as religion is. Religion, he says, offers help to people who are affected by man-made or natural disasters, and provides “why” answers – the reason why things happen and what life is for –whilst science can only provides causal explanations.

First Vote: 826 For, 681 Against, 364 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 1205 For, 778 Against, 103 Don’t Know

Arguing in favour of the motion are General Charles Vyvyan, Michael Griffin, and Clare Short.

Arguing against the motion are Christina Lamb, Dr Whitney Azoy, and Lawrence Freedman.

Arguing for the motion are Claire Fox, Jenna Nicholas and Anatole Kaletsky.

Claire Fox begins the defence by suggesting that the university education students are now given access to is a ‘pale imitation’ of what universities formerly offered. Going to university, she argues, is now treated as a means to end, a way of boosting a student’s CV and employability.

Jenna Nicholas argues that the government’s numerical targets for graduates must not be allowed to get in the way of providing high quality education. She suggests that many university students would be better suited to vocational training, and that too many graduates are leaving university without the qualifications necessary to prosper in the workplace, or even to find employment.

Anatole Kaletsky declares from the outset that he differs in opinion from that of his colleagues. He does believe in ‘prizes for everyone’ and does indeed have a rose-tinted view of university. However, taken from an economic perspective, the exponential growth in numbers of people attending university must surely have negative impacts.

Arguing against the motion are Baroness Onara O’Neill, Ceci Mourkogiannis and Mary Ann Sieghart.

Onara O’Neill argues that the role of the university has changed over the last fifty years. They are now valuable institutions for poviding students with the correct skills to improve their chances of attaining a job. Even if students do not leave university more qualified, they will at least be more educated.

Ceci Mourkogiannis argues that, far from denying people the chance of attending university, we should be allowing more people to attend. University offers individuals a chance to improve themselves, and, by improving individuals’ knowledge and employability, provides a valuable service for the economy and scoiety in general.

Mary Ann Sieghart compares the UK to other leading global powers, noting that the three most economically prosperous countries of the last decade have a highly educated workforce. She states that we are increasing participation only half as fast as our competitors.

First Vote: 458 For, 144 Against, 120 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 453 For, 280 Against, 3 Don’t Know

The motion is passed by 173 votes.

Arguing in favour of the proposal are Aidan Hartley, Frederik Erixon, and David Rieff.

Arguing against the proposal are Ian Goldin, Marucs Manuel, and Rory Stewart OBE.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Rosie Boycott, Jamie Whyte and Camilla Cavendish.

Arguing against the motion are Dr Mark Collins, Julie Lynn-Evans and Joe Studwell.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Peter Hitchens and Jeremy O’Grady. Peter Hitchens begins by explaining how, from his point of view, the Tory Party has lost sight of its core values. Furthermore, he continues, the change within the party will determine the results of the next elections. Jeremy O’Grady explores what he perceives as changes in the party’s interpretation of conservatism. In particular, he argues that floating voters such as himself do not care if the Tory Party should be seen as conservative or not, and provokes his opponents by asking “Can a jellyfish be conservative?”.

Arguing against the motion are Charles Moore and Michael Gove MP. Charles Moore starts by making a clear distinction between what is to believe in a religion and a political party – “A political party is not a faith”. He adds an interesting comparison with modern leadership candidate David Cameron and the 1980s leader Margaret Thatcher, apoint returned to throughout the debate. Michael Gove provides a critique of Hitchens’ position earlier in the debate, defining him as “a reactionary, not a conservative”. Using a useful comparison with the English Civil War, he explains the different points-of-view held inside the Party. Finally, reversing the title of the debate, Gove suggests that, under David Cameron’s leadership, the Conservative Party is back in the main stream of conservative tradition.

First vote: 248 For, 196 Against, 247 Don’t know.

Final vote: 285 For, 338 Against, 94 Don’t know.

The motion is defeated by 53 votes.

Arguing in favour of the motion are David Trimble, Frank J Gaffney Jr and Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi.

David Trimble draws on his experiences as a Northern Irish politician to propose the motion that we should never negotiate with terrorists. He states that we shouldn’t see terrorists as deluded, and that instead of responding with repressive measures we should try to win the ideological war. This involves intelligence and penetration of terrorist organisations, but not negotiation.

Frank Gaffney Jr then explores the context of terrorism in the modern world. He states that negotiation is especially ill-advised given that terrorists use it as a tool for a political purpose, and discusses the characteristics of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, stating that the movement is more about power than faith. He then outlines four main reasons why we should not negotiate with terrorists and ends with the warning that negotiation entails real costs we cannot afford.

Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi admits that the global ‘war against terror’ is not working. However, he still maintains that we should never negotiate with terrorists for several reasons. First, that terrorist groups have been defeated in the past, and while there has sometimes been a heavy price, it can be done. Second, that while addressing the complex grievances of terrorism – something that is difficult in itself – we should maintain the fight against the reality of its acts of violence.

Arguing against the motion are William Sieghart, Colonel Lior Lotan and Jason McCue.

William Sieghart begins with the assertion that most terrorists are driven by a sense of grievance often shared by many. Therefore, we should negotiate primarily for the simple fact of realism. A war against terror has been shown to be extremely difficult while repressive measures clearly did not work in Northern Ireland. Not negotiating therefore justifies perpetual war, while dialogue with the most implacable of enemies usually proves fruitful.

Lior Lotan begins by debunking the myths of negotiation upon which the proposers of the motion rely. He then puts forward the benefits of a pragmatic and practical approach to negotiation, such as the opportunity to gain access to more information, or the moral value it grants the negotiating party.

Jason McCue declares that it is time for a wholesale review on the policy of fighting terror, suggesting that we need to deal with the causes rather than the effects. He draws from his legal experiences of negotiating with terrorists to put forward several reasons for dialogue. These range from a legal analogy that illustrates the importance of out-of-court settlements, an illustration of the hypocrisy shown by Western governments and the idea that common sense surely shows there must always be a preference for dialogue.

First Vote: 241 For, 247 Against, 201 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 289 For, 381 Against, 55 Don’t Know

The motion is defeated by 92 votes

Arguing in favour of the motion ‘Long live Tesco’ are are Dominic Lawson, Lucy Neville-Rolfe and Emma Duncan.

Arguing against the motion are Simon Jenkins, Joanna Blythman and Giles Coren.

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Arguing in favour of the motion are Professor Sir David King and Professor John Kay.

Arguing against the motion are Professor Joseph Rykwert and A N Wilson.

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Arguing for the motion are Kenan Malik, Lisa Appignanesi and Alain Finkielkraut.

Arguing against the motion are David Cesarani, Francesca Klug and Tariq Ramadan.

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Arguing in favour of the motion are Tim Lott, Philip Norman, and Howard Jacobson.

Tim Lott suggests that the vast body of secular opinion holds that women are equal to men. He then runs through examples of inequality, and takes them on individually. He states that there are few societal restrictions left on women and that any remaining inequalities stem from much more than just gender discrimination.

Philip Norman declares himself to be a male feminist and explores the reasons why that is possible. He points out how the feminist strategy has changed throughout the ages – female independence is now expressed in clothes that were previously the targets of feminist outrage. In short, he believes the fight is now clearly over.

After pointing out that the more persuasive the male panel’s argument, the closer the motion edges to defeat, Howard Jacobson sets out to lose the battle, but in so doing, win the war. What follows is a humorous concession to the victory of women: he points out that he has always been losing to women, apologises for the behaviour of men in the past and concedes to the power of the opposing panel.

Arguing against the motion are Kathy Lette, Mariella Frostrup, and Beatrix Campbell.

Kathy Lette launches a humorous assault on the idea that we are all feminists. She insists that it is still a man’s world, before outlining numerous situations in which this is plainly obvious. They suffer from facial prejudice and ageism, as well as the long-suffered accusation that women have no sense of humour.

Mariella Frostrup begins by exploring the global inequalities and abuses suffered by women. The fact that women’s rights are restricted globally suggests that the men on the other side of the panel offer a picture of misguided new manhood. She says we need a society in which both sexes can flourish, but we remain stuck in a patriarchal world.

Beatrix Campbell reaffirms Mariella Frostrup’s examination of global inequality suffered by women and suggests the issue is far more serious than many take it to be. Campbell ends by stating that the journey towards equality has stalled and that we now live in a neo-patriarchal world.

First Vote: 218 For, 293 Against, 196 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 238 For, 447 Against, 31 Don’t Know

The motion is defeated by 209 votes

Arguing in favour of the motion ‘The threat posed by Iran has been greatly exaggerated’ are Iradj Bagherzade, Professor Ali Ansari and Martin Woollacott.

Iradj Bagherzade believes that the demonisation process of Iran is self-defeating and explains how the powers of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are actually extremely limited. He suggests that Iran poses no immediate danger of obtaining nuclear warheads. Bagherzade would encourage a policy of involvement, not isolation, in Iran, and asserts the importance of the Iranian self-perspective.

Ali Ansari highlights the importance of addressing situations without hysteria and heightened emotion. He explains that in the absence of evidence, we invent threats, and that in the case of Iran, there is a sensitive issue at stake, but by exaggerating it we trivialise it.

Martin Woollacott explains that weapons don’t make wars, confrontations between nations do. He asks that cool heads be maintained and threats be measured, not inflated. Woollacott believes the real threat is anxiety in Washington, not the situation on the ground in Iran.

Arguing against the motion are Dr Mehrdad Khonsari, Dr Patrick Clawson and Roey Gilad.

Mehrdad Khonsari believes Iran is a bastion of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism – the two largest threats to the modern world. He explains that the Islamic regime in Iran is an intimidating, blackmailing, brutalising and torturous force that should not be underestimated, as they will stop at nothing to remain in power.

Patrick Clawson discusses the potential of Iran to set off a Nuclear arms race, not only in the Middle East but across the world. He explains how foreign money and advice can make a productive – and positive – difference.

Roey Gilead outlines the history of terror since the revolution in Iran and the Iranian involvement with the Hezbollah in Israel. Gilead, unlike some other panelists, takes the President’s words seriously and believes Iran to be a threat to the region and to the world at large.

First vote: 253 For, 268 Against, 214 Don’t know

Final vote: 387 For, 293 Against, 77 Don’t know

The motion is passed by 94 votes.

Tom Kremer: Born and raised in Transylvania, he was deported to Bergen Belsen, escaped to Switzerland and in 1945 emigrated to the land that emerged as Israel. A philosophy graduate of Edinburgh and the Sorbonne, he became involved in child psychology and then turned his talents to inventing games, including the Rubik’s Cube. He is the author of “The Missing Heart of Europe: Does Britain hold the key to the future of the Continent?”

Larry Siedentop: A fellow of Keble College, University of Oxford. In 2000 he published ‘Democracy in Europe’, which immediately became a classic essay on European Integration.

Anatole Kaletsky: Associate Editor of The Times and one of the country’s leading commentators on economics. Anatole was previously Economics Editor of The Times, and has won many awards for his financial and political journalism. Before his appointment at The Times, he worked for 12 years on the Financial Times in a variety of posts.

Speakers against the motion:

Giscard D’Estaing: Former President of France. A strong supporter of the European Economic Community, while in office he played a crucial role in several international initiatives including the creation of the European Council, the European Monetary System, the Disarmament Institute and the North-South Conference.

Robert Cooper: Director-General for External and Politico-Military Affairs at the Council of the European Union in Brussels. His most recent publication is “The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-First Century” (2003), a book that builds on his earlier essays on Europe and the post-modern state.

The Rt Hon Kenan Clarke MP: Former President of the Union and Chairman of the University Conservative Association at Cambridge. He was also the National Chairman of the Federation of University Conservative Associations and served on many of the national committees of the Conservative Party. He was elected to the House of Commons as the Member for Rushcliffe in 1970, gaining the seat from Labour. He has held it ever since, increasing his majority at the 2005 general election. He has held ministerial office in no less than seven government departments.

Chair: John Kampfner Editor of the New Statesman. He has just finished touring the country promoting his latest book, Blair’s Wars - the inside account of how the Prime Minister has taken Britain into conflict five times in six years.

Speaking for the proposal are Chris Woodhead and Dr Martin Stephen, and endorsing it is Lord Tebbit.

Arguing against the proposal are David Blunkett MP and Fiona Millar, and endorsing it is William Atkinson.

Arguing for the motion are Dr Rosemary Hollis, Alastair Crooke and Sir Simon Jenkins.

Rosemary Hollis argues that the military contingent in Iraq should immediately prepare a military exit. She suggests that Britain should now switch the effort to a more positive, ‘hearts and minds’ emphasis on the civilian sector.

Alastair Crooke points to two key developments: the perception everywhere that the US (and therefore UK) is on its way out and that the Shia victory has granted the tools of influence to the government of Tehran. Cooke breaks down the arguments in favour of staying and ends with a call for diplomacy, pointing out that we need to establish a dialogue with all countries involved.

Simon Jenkins says we need to give Iraqis what we promised them, but that, at the moment, we are not doing this. Overall, he suggests that the Iraqi government will be undermined if it is seen as a puppet of the west – if it is regarded in this way, democracy will never take root. In Jenkins’ view, this is surely grounds enough for a complete military withdrawal.

Arguing against the motion are Amir Taheri, Tim Spicer and William Shawcross.

Amir Taheri hasn’t heard requests for coalition forces to quit Iraq, either from Iraqis or from other coalition countries. Even those who opposed the invasion are not saying we should leave, but rather say that if you have broken something, you have to fix it. The only group that would benefit from immediate withdrawal of Allied forces is the insurgents.

Tim Spicer notes the horrible suffering experienced by Iraqis under the rule of Saddam Hussein. He says that the insurgency comes as no surprise, describing many insurgents as no more than criminals. He suggests that, until a proper police force is in place, insurgency will continue to flourish. Spicer emphasises that there is no civil war waging in Iraq, that the Iraqi army are making great steps forward, and that we need to give them the breathing space in which to prepare.

William Shawcross believes the idea that we should quit now to be frivolous. This is not an imperial venture, but a liberation. Iraqis have made an extraordinarily good start; why then are we running scared and why have we so little patience? Shawcross suggests that we should look beyond the Iraq seen in news reports and remain there until the Iraq behind the scenes is able to slowly rebuild itself.

First Vote: 246 For, 283 Against, 198 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 272 For 431 Against, 36 Don’t Know

The motion is defeated by 159 votes

Arguing in favour of the motion ‘Apart from chavs, the British have no class’ are Deborah Moggach, Boris Johnson, and Howard Jacobson.

Arguing against the motion are Kate Fox, Ferdinand Mount and Simon Fanshawe.

Arguing in favour of the motion are The Rt Hon Charles Clarke MP and Alasdair Palmer.

Arguing against the motion are Sir Jeremy Greenstock and Edward Fitzgerald QC.

Arguing in favour of the motion are John Lloyd, Denis Macshane, and Clive Soley.

Arguing against the motion are Peter Oborne, Lance Price, and Robert Fisk.

Arguing for the motion are Edward Luttwak and Lord Skidelsky.

Edward Luttwak uses the example of Sicily as a place of strong resistance to foreign intervention or liberation. He then discusses Iraq, exploring the different ways in which the invasion has been seen by Iraqis, above all stressing that democracy in Iraq is not understood in Western terms. He believes that the one thing you cannot achieve with military force is political change.

Lord Skidelsky claims that, contrary to the opinion of James Rubin, we are indeed talking about military intervention, since sanctions do not put pressure on tyrants. He doesn’t believe that tyrants should be allowed to get away with anything, especially genocide, but thinks there are many ways of bringing pressure against tyrants, including sanctions.

Arguing against the motion are James Rubin and Ian Buruma.

James Rubin asserts that this debate is about whether one should do anything at all to prevent tyranny, not just about whether we should intervene militarily. He believes the debate is not about the Bush administration, and has nothing to do with whether you like George Bush’s aim of spreading democracy. Rubin suggests that if you supported sanctions on South Africa against apartheid, or support sanctions against the military junta of Burma, then you have to vote against the motion.

Ian Buruma says the panel all agree on a number of things, including the opinion that Iraq was a mistake. He reminds the audience that the West also has a history of toppling democratically elected leaders. However, he argues, not only are there other ways of getting rid of dictators, and that American support/ intervention is often supported by local people and can achieve success. He says we cannot act aggressively against all tyrants (not dictators) in the pursuit of democracy, but do need to take action against some. He ends with one simple word of warning: Munich.

First Vote: 178 For, 291 Against, 224 Don’t Know

Final Vote: 245 For, 393 Against, 78 Don’t Know

The motion is defeated by 148 votes.

Professor Laurie Taylor: Professor of Sociology, University of York. Author and broadcaster.

Howard Jacobson: Author, critic and broadcaster whose latest novel is entitled “The Act of Love”.

Leonie Frieda: Translator, historian and biographer whose books include the biography of Catherine de Medici.

Speakers against the motion:

Christopher Booker: A weekly Columnist in the Sunday Telegraph and author of “The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union” and “The Seven Basic Plots: Why we tell stories”. He was the founding editor of Private Eye, to which he still contributes.

Rosie Boycott: Former Fleet Street editor, author and founder of Spare Rib. She has recorded her new life as a smallholder in the book “Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes: A Year in the Life of Our Farm” and has been appointed the capital’s “food champion” by the Mayor of London.

Claire Fox: Director of the Institute of Ideas, a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Moral Maze’ and comments on developments in culture, education and the media on TV and radio.

Chair: Joan Bakewell Journalist and broadcaster.

Final vote: 319 For, 333 Against

Arguing for the motion are Michael Binyon, Christopher Granville and Mary Dejevsky.

Michael Binyon states that liberalism is not something bestowed by a government on a people, but a much more organic process. He believes that Putin’s enemies are nationalists crying out for a stronger state and that there are no opposition liberals waiting in the wings.

Christopher Granville believes that legitimacy and the oligarch system are incompatible. He suggests that an individual occupying a majority position as president is by definition the best hope for Russian liberalism. Elections in Russia, he argues, are much fairer today than they were in Yeltsin’s day.

Mary Dejevsky suggests that elections have been free, fair and democratic under Putin. She claims that it’s the presence of the opposition which places constraints on Putin’s ability to plough a reformist furrow, because this opposition comes from conservative and nationalist forces.

Arguing against the motion are Dr Boris Berezovsky, Andrew Jack and Dr Alex Pravda.

Dr Boris Berezovsky declares that Putin destroyed independent parliament, media and business. While he promised reform, he did not deliver it, and the people are not prepared to fight for freedom as in the UK. For Berezovsky therefore, Putin put an end to the fight for democracy in Russia.

Andrew Jack believes that Putin should have stood down after his first term; now in his sixth year of rule, Putin’s excuse that he has inherited such a long and difficult history is no longer viable. Though he concedes it is difficult to replace Putin, Jack feels that media centralisation has now gone too far and that parliament has become captive.

Dr Alex Pravda says that while Putin is committed to modernising Russia, his attachment to liberal economic ideas is highly pragmatic. He suggests that Putin is not just illiberal and creating an authoritarian culture, but that he is also not performing well as measured by his own criteria.

First Vote: 168 For, 299 Against, 265 Don’t know

Final Vote: 277 For, 377 Against, 98 Don’t know

The motion is defeated by 100 votes.

Arguing for the motion are Bruno Comby, Bishop Hugh Montefiore and Lord Parkinson.

Arguing against the motion are Mycle Schneider, Zac Goldsmith, and Tony Juniper.

Sir Andrew Green: Former British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Syria. Former Director of the Middle East at the Foreign Commonwealth Office.

Robert Lacey: British historian who has lived in Saudi Arabia and is the author of the international bestseller (banned in Saudi Arabia) “The Kingdom: Arabia and the House of Saud”.

Senator Wyche Fowler: Served in the US House of Representatives and as US Senator from Georgia before his appointment by President Bill Clinton as US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1996.

Speakers against the motion:

Dr Mark Heller: Principal Research Associate, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, and author of numerous works on Middle Eastern political and strategic affairs, including The New Middle Class and Regime Stability in Saudi Arabia, Harvard Middle East Papers No. 3 (co-authored with Nadav Safran).

John R Bradley: Lived in Saudi Arabia for 21/2 years and has written extensively on Saudi and wider Middle East issues for many publications, including The Economist, The New Republic, The Daily Telegraph, Prospect and The Independent. He is the author of “Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis” (Palgrave-Macmillan, May 2005). His website is www.johnrbradley.com.

Jason Burke: Chief reporter of The Observer and the author of “Al-Qaeda: the true story of radical Islam”. He has been working for British national newspapers for 12 years, spending much of that time in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Burke lived in in Pakistan in the late 90s and covered the rise and fall of the Taliban and has spent much of the last two years in Iraq. He is a regular contributor to television and radio in the UK and overseas. His book has been translated into seven languages. Burke graduated from Oxford University in 1992.

Chair: James Naughtie Presents Today on BBC Radio 4. His most recent book is ‘The Accidental American’, an account of the relationship between Tony Blair and George W Bush.

Final vote: 328 For, 269 Against

Arguing for the motion are Dr John Casey, Dr Michael Stürmer, and Kevin Myers.

Arguing against the motion are Dominique Moisi, Mark Leonard and Norman Stone.

Professor Jacqueline Rose: Writer and presenter of “Dangerous Liaison - Israel and America”, Channel 4 (2002) and author of “The Question of Zion” (Spring 2005).

Professor Avi Shlaim: Professor of International Relations and Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, and author of “The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World”.

Amira Hass: Correspondent of Haaretz Daily in the occupied territories. She lived in Gaza for 3 years and has lived in Ramallah for the past 7 years. She is the author of “Reporting from Ramallah”.

Speakers against the motion:

Melanie Phillips: Daily Mail columnist, panellist on Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and author. Her 1996 book “All Must Have Prizes”, a study of Britain’s educational decline, provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of parents. Her latest book “The Ascent of Woman” is a study of the suffragette movement and the ideas behind it.

Shlomo Ben-Ami: Former Israel Foreign Minister during the last phase of the peace negotiations. He has written extensively on Israeli affairs, and has just completed a book on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Professor Raphael Israeli: Professor of Islamic, Middle Eastern and Chinese history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Professor Israeli is the author of 15 books and some 80 scholarly articles in those domains. A member of the Steering Committee of the Ariel Centre for Policy Research (ACPR), his work in Hebrew, French and English frequently appears in leading international publications including NATIV, a bi-monthly publication of the ACPR.

Chair: Richard Lindley Former journalist with ITN and BBC Panorama, who now writes about television journalism.

Final vote: 355 For, 320 Against

Arguing for the motion are Rod Liddle, Jack Klaff, and Anthony Grayling.

Arguing against the motion are Rowan Pelling, Taki Theodoracopulos and Howard Jacobson.

Arguing for the motion are Charles Moore, Lord Bell and Sir John Nott.

Arguing against the motion are Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, Billy Bragg, and Diane Abbott MP.

Arguing in favour of the motion are Professor Kenneth Minogue, Harriet Sergeant, and Dr Maurice Slevin.

Arguing against the motion are Lord Hunt, Dr Mike Fitzpatrick, and Professor Raymond Tallis.

Arguing for the motion are Senator Gary Hart and Sir Simon Jenkins.

Arguing against the motion are Christopher Hitchens and David Aaronovitch.

Tom Bower: A distinguished investigative historian, and an award-winning television producer and journalist. His books on “The Nazis - Blind Eye to Murder”, “The Paperclip Conspiracy” and “Blood Money” - are regarded as groundbreaking, as are his two books on British intelligence, “The Red Web” and his biography of Sir Dick White.

Andrew Gilligan: Journalist best known for his report, while Defence and Diplomatic corresondent for BBC Radio 4’s The Today Programme, about the British Government’s dossier on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Anthony Glees: Reader in Politics and Director of European Studies at Brunel University. He is the author of “Reinventing Germany”, “The Secrets of the Service” and most recently “The Stasi Files - East Germany’s secret operations against Britain”.

Speakers against the motion:

Sir Lawrence Freedman: Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London since 1982. He has written extensively on nuclear strategy, the cold war and military intervention, as well as commentating regularly on contemporary security issues.His most recent book is “A Choice of Enemies: America confronts the Middle East”.

Oleg Gordievsky: One of the highest-ranking KGB officers ever to work for Britain. For 11 years he acted as a secret agent, reporting to the British Secret Intelligence Service while continuing to work as a KGB officer. He is the author of “KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990)” co-written with British academic Christopher Andrew.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Former Conservative Foreign Secretary and currently Member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea.

Chair: Nik Gowing The main presenter on BBC World’s news programmes and a regular presenter for Dateline London. He also chairs BBC World Debates, including Nobel Minds, Stockholm and the World Economic Forum, Davos.

Final vote: 198 For, 366 Against

The debate took place at: Royal Geographical Society, Ondaatje Theatre.

Speaker bios correct on date of event.

Professor Niall Ferguson: Writer and presenter of ‘Empire’ for Channel 4, a 6-part series on the history of the British Empire and Professor of Political and Financial History at Oxford University.

Andrew Roberts: Historian who has spent 20 years researching, writing and broadcasting extensively about both Churchill and the Second World War.

Speakers against the motion:

Dr Richard Drayton: University Lecturer in Imperial and extra-European History since 1500, Cambridge University.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Senior Researcher at the Foreign Policy Centre and a leading commentator on race, multiculturalism and human rights.

David Washbrook: Reader in Modern South Asian History at Oxford University; his special interesting lying in the history of southern India between the 18th and 20th centuries.

Chair: Richard Lindley: Former journalist with ITN and BBC Panorama, who now writes about television journalism.

Final vote: 321 For, 233 Against

Richard Dowden: Director of the Royal African Society. He was born in Surrey and educated at St Georges College, Weybridge, Surrey and London University (BA in History). From 1970-72 he was a volunteer teacher in Uganda and between 1972 and 1975 he was Secretary of the Roman Catholic Justice and Peace Commission for England and Wales. He was a reporter then Editor of the Catholic Herald newspaper 1975 - 1980 and Reporter on The Times, specialising in foreign affairs 1980 - 1986. From 1986 - 1994 he was Africa Editor of The Independent and then in 1994 became Diplomatic Editor of The Independent. From 1995 - 2001 he was the Africa Editor of The Economist and he has been the Executive Director of the Royal African Society since 2002. He continues to work as a freelance journalist and has written for all the main national dailies and weeklies except The Daily Telegraph. I have also made three full-length documentary TV films about Africa for the BBC and Channel 4 and several smaller ones.

Matthew Parris: Times newspaper columnist, television and radio broadcaster.

Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem: General Secretary of the global Pan African Movement since 1994 and is resident in Uganda and London. Tajudeen is Nigerian by origin. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford where he gained his DPhil in political science. He was a founder member of the Africa Resource and Information Bureau, London, and has been at the centre of numerous initiatives to promote peace and democracy in Africa. Tajudeen writes and lectures on Africa for several journals and universities. He is Chairperson of the Centre for Democratic Development and the Pan African Development Education and Advocacy Programme. Tajudeen’s “Thursday Postcard is widely read throughout Africa.

Speakers against the motion:

The Rt Hon Clare Short MP: Member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood since 1983. Secretary of State for International Development from 1997-2003. Author of “An honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq and the Misuse of Power” (2004), an attempt to explain why Tony Blair did what he did on Iraq so that the lessons can be learned and things put right. Resigned the Labour whip in Parliament in October 2006, but remains a member of the Labour Party.

Anthony Sampson: Keenly interested in South African affairs since 1951 when, after leaving Oxford, he first went to South Africa to become editor of the black magazine Drum in Johannesburg. He met Nelson Mandela that year in Soweto as Mandela was preparing for the Defiance Campaign against apartheid, which Drum covered extensively. In 1956 Anthony Sampson published his first book - a hugely entertaining account of his four years as editor (Drum: An African Adventure) - and frequently revisited South Africa thereafter. Subsequently he wrote a book about the treason trials in 1958 and reported Mandela’s own trial before he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964. In London Sampson worked for the Observer for six years before publishing (in 1962) his groundbreaking, bestselling Anatomy Of Britain (later updated four times and read by Mandela in prison). He followed it with a succession of major books about international business, including Seven Sisters, The Arms Bazaar, Black And Gold (an account of the relations between business and apartheid) and Company Man. He has been chairman of the Society of Authors and a member of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian and Observer. His most recent books include Mandela: The Authorised Biography and his new Anatomy of Britain, “Who Runs this Place?” which will be published by John Murray in April.

Sir Marrack Goulding: Educated at St. Paul’s School, London, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he received First Class Honours in Literae Humaniores (Greek and Latin Language and Literature, Ancient History, Greek and Modern Philosophy). He worked the British Diplomatic Service between 1959 and 1985. He served in the Foreign Office from 1964 - 1968 and 1972-75. From 1975 to 1977, he served with the Central Policy Review Staff at the Cabinet Office, London, working mainly on British overseas representation, international energy questions and housing policy. He has held overseas posts in the Middle East, North Africa, Portugal, New York (UK Mission to UN) and Angola (Ambassador). He was UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping from 1986-93 and Political Affairs (1993-97). He was elected Warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford in 1996 and took up his position in October 1997. He was knighted (KCMG) in June 1997.

Chair: Nik Gowing The main presenter on BBC World’s news programmes and a regular presenter for Dateline London. He also chairs BBC World Debates, including Nobel Minds, Stockholm and the World Economic Forum, Davos.

Final vote: 268 For, 359 Against

Arguing for the motion are Vivian Moses, Kerry Preete and Conrad Lichtenstein.

Arguing against the motion are Sue Mayer, Michael Meacher and Devinder Sharma.

Arguing against the motion are Matthew Evans, Peter Hitchens, and David Aaronovitch.

Arguing in favour of the motion are William Shawcross, Anne McElvoy and Bernard-Henri Levy.

Arguing against the motion are Charles Glass, Clyde Prestowitz, and Sir Samuel Brittan.

Arguing for the motion are Professor Chris Woodhead, Melanie Phillips, and Claire Fox.

Professor Chris Woodhead argues that the state has failed to discharge its duty: the education system has failed and radical change is necessary. He suggests that international models of competitive education would drive up standards quickly and reduce costs, but the political will required appears not to be shared by all parties.

Melanie Phillips states that educational standards have comprehensively collapsed, and that the state has played a leading role in this process. She argues that, through grade inflation, the level of attainment has dropped, and the examination benchmark is now worthless. Philips suggests that with the professionalisation of education, theories that were inimical to education became overly important.

Claire Fox recalls favourably the pioneers of state education, whom she says had a clear project in mind that has since been corrupted. She believes that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake should not have been derided as elitist, and feels that teaching today is no longer focused on knowledge but on social policy. Inclusion in education, she suggests, leads to a contempt for knowledge.

Arguing against the motion are Sir Tim Brighouse, Professor Anthony Giddens, and Fiona Millar.

Sir Tim Brighouse looks first at higher education, noting the increase in the number of women who attend university, as well as the important success of the Open University in establishing itself as a leading institution. He believes that state education has innovated and plays down – and even disputes – the statistics used by Chris Woodhead.

Professor Anthony Giddens believes that education is more crucial to our society than it has ever been before. This is because education is a civilising device and the knowledge economy is an increasing reality, with 80% of the UK population now in knowledge or service-based occupations. He therefore thinks it absolutely imperative that we expand education. Contrary to Melanie Philips, Gidden’s feels that students today are better prepared and more competitive than previous generations, and that the whole level of achievement has shifted upwards.

Fiona Millar hopes to represent the many parents whose children attend state schools and see nothing but success, declaring that to do well in school today children have to work extremely hard. While she admits there is room for improvement, the way to produce this is to make our state schools even more comprehensive. She has seen no evidence that returning to selection will help students attending failing schools.

First Vote: 188 For, 102 Against, 66 Don’t know

Final Vote: 227 For, 122 Against, 19 Don’t know

The motion is passed by 105 votes.

The debate took place at: Royal Geographical Society, Ondaatje Theatre.

Speakers for the motion:

Karma Nabulsi: Fellow of Nuffield College and teaches at Oxford University. She is the author of ‘Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law’, and writes on the history of democratic underground movements in 19th century Europe. She was a PLO representative at the UN, Beirut, Tunis, and London.

Dr Ilan Pappe: Senior lecturer of Political Science at Haifa University and Chairman of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies. Author of ‘The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948-1951′, ‘The Israel/Palestine Question’ and, soon to be published, ‘The Modern History of Palestine’.

Amos Elon: Journalist and writer. His most recent book is ‘The Pity of it All’. Among his 14 previous books are ‘A Blood-dimmed Tide’, ‘Between Enemies’ (with Sana Hassan) and ‘Herzl: A Biography’. He was chief editorial writer and columnist for the Israel paper Haaretz, and is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.

Speakers against the motion:

Sir Malcolm Rifkind: Former Conservative Foreign Secretary and currently Member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea.

Lord Weidenfeld: Worked for the BBC Monitoring Service and as a News Commentator. He was political adviser and Chief of Cabinet to Chaim Weizmann, (President of Israel 1948-52). He is also Governor of Tel-Aviv University and Vice Chairman of the EU-Israel Forum.

Dr Sa’eb Erakat: Elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996 and is currently Head of the Palestinian Side of the Steering and Monitoring Committee (pending acceptance of his resignation). He is the former Minister of the local Government, Palestinian National Authority and the author of numerous books and researches on foreign policy, oil and conflict resolution.

Chair: John Simpson The BBC’s World Affairs Editor and senior member of a team of London-based foreign and specialist correspondents. In a BBC career spanning more than 30 years - he joined as a trainee journalist in 1966 - John has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most experienced and authoritative journalists.

Speakers against the motion, Martin Wolf, Steve Hilton and Alec Chrystal: Professor of Money and Banking, CASS

Chair: John Kampfner Editor of the New Statesman.