Summer 2011 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger | Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy. Earlier he spent ten years on the faculty of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Professor Mayer-Schönberger has published seven books, as well as over a hundred articles (including in Science) and book chapters. His most recent book, the awards-winning 'Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age' (Princeton University Press 2009) has received favourable reviews by academic (Nature, Science, New Scientist) and mainstream media (New York Times, Guardian, Le Monde, NPR, BBC, Wired) and has been published in four languages. Ideas proposed in the book have now become official policy, e.g. of the European Union.

Contributor(s): Michael Wolff | Rupert Murdoch is currently engulfed in one of the most extraordinary news stories of recent times, his own. Michael Wolff has long argued that a trend of decline for media moguls is inevitable. In this conversation, Wolff will reveal some of the unparalleled insights he has gleaned from his unprecedented access to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation. He will also discuss how this most recent crisis will ultimately impact the most infamous of media moguls going forward. Michael Wolff is an award winning journalist, author and expert on Rupert Murdoch's global media empire. His latest and most timely book, a biography of Rupert Murdoch 'The Man Who Owns the News', is based on nine months of interviews with Murdoch, his family and associates. Wolff began his career at The New York Times and is currently the editorial director of Adweek and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. His books include the best-seller 'Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet' (Simon & Schuster, 1998) and 'Autumn of the Moguls' (HarperBusiness, 2003).'

Contributor(s): Professor David Miles | The banking sector across many developed economies proved fragile – insufficiently robust to prevent worries about the value of bank assets generating a banking crisis. This caused a downturn which in the UK has been severe and prolonged. But this has happened while inflation has stayed relatively high. This creates huge challenges in setting monetary policy. David Miles will analyse those difficulties and consider how banks can be best made more robust. Professor David Miles joined the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England in June 2009. He is also a Visiting Professor at Imperial College. Miles was formerly a professor of financial economics and head of the Finance Department at Imperial. As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy. He was Chief UK Economist at Morgan Stanley from October 2004 to May 2009. He has been a specialist economic advisor to the Treasury Select Committee. In Budget 2003, the Chancellor commissioned Professor Miles to lead a review of the UK mortgage market. The result, published at Budget 2004, was the report: "The UK mortgage market: taking a longer-term view". He is a council member of the Royal Economic Society, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and at the CESIFO research institute in Munich. He is a former editor of Fiscal Studies.

Contributor(s): Michael Atherton | A conversation and Q&A with cricketer Michael Atherton, author of Glorious Summers and Discontents: Looking Back on the Ups and Downs from a Dramatic Decade. Renowned as a shrewd and resolute captain of England, Atherton moved effortlessly into the commentary box and Fleet Street, proving himself every bit as capable with the pen as with the bat. Born in 1968 and educated at Cambridge University, Mike Atherton played his entire career for Lancashire and England, winning 115 Test caps and captaining his country 54 times. After a spell writing for the Sunday Telegraph, he became Cricket Correspondent of The Times in 2008 and also commentates for Sky Sports. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and two children.

Contributor(s): Professor George Selgin, Professor Lord Skidelsky, Duncan Weldon, Dr Jamie Whyte | How do we get out of the financial mess we're in? Two of the great economic thinkers of the 20th century had sharply contrasting views: John Maynard Keynes believed that governments could create sustainable employment and growth. His contemporary and rival Friedrich Hayek believed that investments have to be based on real savings rather than fiscal stimulus or artificially low interest rates. BBC Radio 4 will be recording a debate between modern day followers of Keynes and Hayek. George Selgin is Professor of Economics at The Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. Selgin is one of the founders of the Modern Free Banking School, which draws its inspiration from the writings of Hayek on the denationalization of money and choice in currency. He has written extensively on free banking, the private supply of money and deflation. George Selgin is the author of The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply under Competitive Note Issue (1988), Less Than Zero: The Case for a Falling Price Level in a Growing Economy (1997), and Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage (2008). Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, including the Lionel Gelber Prize for International Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations Prize for International Relations. He is the author of The World After Communism (1995) (American edition called The Road from Serfdom). He was made a life peer in 1991, and was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1994. His latest book is Keynes: The Return of the Master. Duncan Weldon is a former Bank of England economist and currently works as an economics adviser to an international trade union federation. He has a long standing interest in and admiration for Keynes but also a respect for Hayek. He blogs at Duncan's Economic Blog. Jamie Whyte was born in New Zealand and educated at the University of Auckland and then the University of Cambridge in England, where he gained a Ph.D. in philosophy. Jamie remained at Cambridge for a further three years, as a fellow of Corpus Christi College and a lecturer in the Philosophy Faculty. During this time he published a number of academic articles on the nature of truth, belief and desire, and won the Analysis Essay Competition for the best article by a philosopher under the age of 30. Jamie then joined Oliver Wyman & Company, a London-based strategy consulting firm specialising in the financial services industry, for which he still works, as the Head of Research and Publications. Jamie has published two books: Crimes Against Logic (McGraw Hill, Chicago, 2004) and A Load of Blair (Corvo, London, 2005). Jamie is a regular contributor of opinion articles to The Times (of London), the Financial Times and Standpoint magazine. In 2006 he won the Bastiat Prize for journalism.He is on the advisory board of The Cobden Centre. The debate will be chaired by Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC 2's Newsnight and author of Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed.

Contributor(s): Douglas Edwards | Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to a wheelbarrow. No academic analysis or bystander's account can capture it. Now Douglas Edwards, Employee Number 59, takes us inside the Googleplex for the closest look you can get without an ID card, giving us a chance to fully experience the potent mix of camaraderie and competition that makes up the company that changed the world. Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. From the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's young, idiosyncratic partners to the evolution of the company's famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently), through the physical endurance feats of the company's engineers (both on Comparing Google to an ordinary business is like comparing a rocket to a wheelbarrow. No academic analysis or bystander's account can capture it. Now Douglas Edwards, Employee Number 59, takes us inside the Googleplex for the closest look you can get without an ID card, giving us a chance to fully experience the potent mix of camaraderie and competition that makes up the company that changed the world. Edwards, Google's first director of marketing and brand management, describes it as it happened. From the first, pioneering steps of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company's young, idiosyncratic partners to the evolution of the company's famously nonhierarchical structure (where every employee finds a problem to tackle or a feature to create and works independently), through the physical endurance feats of the company's engineers (both on and off the roller-hockey field) to its ethos to always hire someone smarter than yourself. Doug Edwards captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, culture of the world's most transformative corporation. This event marks the launch of I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. Douglas Edwards was the first director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google from 1999 to 2005 and was responsible for setting the tone and direction of the company's communications with its users. and off the roller-hockey field) to its ethos to always hire someone smarter than yourself. Doug Edwards captures for the first time the unique, self-invented, culture of the world's most transformative corporation. This event marks the launch of I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. Douglas Edwards was the first director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google from 1999 to 2005 and was responsible for setting the tone and direction of the company's communications with its users.

Contributor(s): Professor Tim Bale, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Mark Harper MP, Rt Revd Lord Harries | The draft House of Lords Reform Bill, published in May 2011, sets out a number of proposals aiming to reform the UK's Upper House. These proposals - among them the reduction in number of members by more than half, making the House either 80 or 100 per cent elected, and limiting the length of term to 15 years - aim to increase the democratic authority of the House of Lords whilst retaining its essential scrutiny and expert functions. The timetable for reform could see first elections take place by 2015. This debate aims to bring together MPs, peers and academics to discuss the proposals set out in the Draft Bill and the prospects for reform of the House. The event launches The end of the peer show? a new book published by the Constitution Society and CentreForum drawing together a series of responses to the recent proposals for reform. Tim Bale is Professor of Politics and European Studies at Sussex University and the convenor of the Political Studies Association’s specialist group on Conservatives and Conservatism. His latest book is The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron (Polity, 2010). Patrick Dunleavy is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and General Editor of the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog. Mark Harper is Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform and the Conservative MP for the Forest of Dean. He was first elected in the 2005 general election. He joined the Cabinet Office in May 2010 as Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, having previously served as Shadow Minister for Defence. The Rt Revd Lord Harries is a retired bishop of the Church of England. He was the 41st Bishop of Oxford from 1987 to 2006. Since 2008 he has been the Gresham Professor of Divinity.

Contributor(s): David Aaronovitch, Charlotte Harris, Martin Moore, Paul Staines | The furore around the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World has raised wider issues around the regulation and standards of British newspaper journalism. Is it time for the authorities to get tough on the press or would that threaten freedom of expression and the media's ability to hold power to account? David Aaronovitch is a writer, broadcaster and commentator on culture, international affairs, politics and the media. A former television researcher, producer and programme editor, he has previously written for The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer, winning numerous accolades, including Columnist of the Year 2003 and the 2001 Orwell prize for journalism. He currently writes for The Times. He has appeared on the satirical TV current affairs programme Have I Got News For You, presented a number of radio and television series and programmes on current affairs and historical topics. His first book, and account of a journey by kayak on the rivers and canals of England, Paddling to Jerusalem, was published in 2000 and won the Madoc Prize for travel writing. In 2009 he published Voodoo Histories, a book on the history and attraction of conspiracy theories, which he spoke about in a POLIS public lecture at LSE, a podcast of the lecture is available. Charlotte Harris is a partner in Mishcon Private. Charlotte has been fundamental in the exposure of the phone hacking scandal and continues to act for many clients in relation to this issue. Recent notable cases include Max Clifford v NGN and Glenn Mulcaire, Donald v N'tuli (C of A) and Perroncel v NGN. Martin Moore is director of the Media Standards Trust, a new independent charity that looks for ways to foster high standards in news. Paul Staines is the author of Guido Fawkes' blog.

Contributor(s): Sir Harry Kroto, Philippe Sands QC, Mike Phillips, Gita Sahgal, Barbara Roche | Migrants are often presented as a burden, but no one can deny the impact they have had on Britain's intellectual life. One quarter of Britain's Nobel Prize winners in science were born abroad. Our religious, philosophical and ideological heritage has often been inspired by migrants, from royal patrons (Prince Rupert, Prince Albert) to refugees (Ralf Dahrendorf, Isaiah Berlin). It is rarely noticed on the migration balance sheet, but our science, philosophy, critical and spiritual life has been repeatedly shaped and reshaped by newcomers. Sir Harry Kroto is a Professor of Chemistry at Florida State University who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1996. Philippe Sands QC is a barrister at Matrix Chambers and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre of International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. Mike Phillips is a journalist and writer who has worked for the BBC. Rabinder Singh QC is a barrister at Matrix Chambers, deputy High Court judge, and Crown Court Recorder. Gita Sahgal is a writer and journalist. Barbara Roche chairs the Migration Museum Project and is a former Immigration Minister.

Contributor(s): Professor Lisa Anderson | This lecture is an examination of the recent uprisings in the Arab world, highlighting where they happened, where they succeeded and what they may mean for both the practice and the study of politics in the region. Lisa Anderson was appointed president of the American University in Cairo in January 2011. A specialist on politics in the Middle East and North Africa, Anderson served as the university's provost from 2008 to 2010. Prior to joining AUC in 2008, Anderson served as James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations at Columbia University and is the former dean of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia. She also served as the chair of the political science department at the university and as the director of Columbia's Middle East Institute. Before joining Columbia, she was assistant professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Anderson is the author of Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Columbia University Press, 2003), The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980 (Princeton University Press, 1986), and coeditor of The Origins of Arab Nationalism (Columbia 1991).

Contributor(s): Mehdi Hasan, James Macintyre | Ed Miliband is perhaps the least understood political leader of modern times. Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre's book, ED: The Milibands and the making of a Labour leader, reveals where he has come from and where he is going. It charts his unique upbringing, against the backdrop of tragedy and with a prominent Marxist thinker for a father. ED follows his coming of age at Oxford, his election to Parliament and asks whether the pressures of being Labour party leader are swaying him from deep personal and ideological convictions. But Ed’s story cannot be fully understood outside the context of his struggle to emerge from the shadow of his elder brother, David. Ed followed David to the same college at Oxford, into Parliament and into the Cabinet before, at the eleventh hour, snatching away David’s dream of the leadership. Ed Miliband’s political hero is Robert Kennedy but, unlike the Kennedys, the Milibands fought to the bitter end, rather than supporting one another. ED gets to the heart of the dramatic decision-making that led him to join that epic leadership battle and reveals the hidden truth behind the making of a Labour leader. Mehdi Hasan is Senior Editor (Politics) at the New Statesman and is a former newsstand- current-affairs editor at Channel 4. He is a regular guest on the BBC’s Question Time and The Big Questions, and also appears on BBC News, Sky News, Al Jazeera and LBC, where he is a guest presenter. James Macintyre is Politics Editor at Prospect. Previously he was a reporter at the Independent and New Statesman and producer of BBC’s Question Time and LWT’s Jonathan Dimbleby programme. He frequently appears on news and radio programmes.

Contributor(s): Professor Fawaz A Gerges | Fawaz Gerges is a Professor of Middle Eastern Politics and International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also holds the Emirates Chair of the Contemporary Middle East and is the Director of the Middle East Centre at LSE.

Contributor(s): Platon | Portrait photographer Platon shares his experience photographing an eclectic mix of presidents, politicians, celebrities and artists through to his award winning portfolios for the New Yorker. He will also discuss highlights from Power his book of over 100 Heads of State including Barack Obama, George W Bush, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe and Silvio Berlusconi. This event celebrates the publication of his latest book Power. Born in England to a Greek father and English mother, Platon grew up in both the Greek Isles and London. He attended St. Martins School of Art, and after receiving his BA with honours in Graphic Design, he was later awarded an MA in photography and fine art at the Royal College of Art. Now based in New York, Platon has contributed to a vast range of international publications including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Esquire magazines. In 2008, Platon's photograph of Russian Premier Vladimir Putin for Time magazine's Person of the Year cover was awarded first prize in the World Press photo contest. He is now a staff photographer at the New Yorker magazine. Platon's first book Platon's Republic was published in 2004 by Phaidon Press. He lives in New York with his wife, daughter and son. Charlie Beckett is Director of POLIS at LSE.

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Hilary Beckles | This event is part of the celebrations that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Caucus of High Commissioners are organising to celebrate CARICOM day on 1 July 2011. Several activities are being planned to mark the day from July 3-8, which aim to showcase CARICOM countries. Professor Sir Hilary Beckles was born in Barbados in 1955. He attended secondary school in Barbados and Birmingham in the UK. He received his higher education in the United Kingdom. He graduated with a BA (Hons) degree in Economic History from Hull University in 1976 and a PhD from the same university in 1980. In 2003, he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters for outstanding work as a scholar from his alma mater. He joined the History Department at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus in 1979 as a lecturer; in 1984 he transferred to the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados and was promoted to a personal professorship in 1993 at age thirty-seven, the youngest in the history of UWI. Professor Sir Hilary has served the University as Head of the History Department and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities.

Contributor(s): Dr Zack Cooper, Professor Julien Forder, Professor Mireia Jofre-Bonet, Dr Irini Papanicolas | In this lecture, organised by LSE Health and Social Care, and supported by LSE HEIF 4 Bid Fund, LSE academics will discuss quality and competition in the field of health and social care. Welcome from Chair - Professor Alistair McGuire (LSE Health and Social Care). Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence from the English National Health Service - Dr Zack Cooper (LSE Health). Payment by Results and Quality in the English NHS - Dr Irini Papanicolas (LSE Health). Measuring Quality and Outcomes in Social Care - Professor Julien Forder (PSSRU Kent and LSE). Discussant: Professor Mireia Jofre-Bonet (City University).

Contributor(s): Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Dr Katharine Rake, Professor Anne Power, Jane Waldfogel | Family futures is about family life in areas of concentrated poverty and social problems where surrounding conditions make bringing up children more difficult and family life more fraught and limited. Home and neighbourhood carry special meaning for families, because where they live, how they fit in with their neighbours, and how their children grow up all intertwine, to build a sense of community. This timely book, by acclaimed author Anne Power and her team, is based on a unique longitudinal study of over 200 families interviewed annually over the last decade. It answers three important questions in the words of families themselves: What challenges face families in poor areas? How are the challenges being met? Have government efforts helped or hindered progress over the past decade? This event will have wide appeal to people who work with, live in and care about families and low-income areas. Margaret Hodge is Member of Parliament for Barking. Dr Katharine Rake OBE is Chief Executive Officer at the Family and Parenting Institute. Anne Power is Professor of Social Policy and Head of LSE Housing at LSE. Jane Waldfogel is a professor of social work and public affairs at Columbia University School of Social Work and a visiting professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics.

Contributor(s): Rahul Hiremath | The textile sector in India plays an important role in the country's economy, providing employment to a significant population in rural and semi-rural areas. It generates sizeable foreign exchange for the country, and is a repository of the cultural heritage of the nation. The sector, however, remains largely unorganized and heavily dependent on market fluctuations. The mass production of textile goods without any effects on the environment seems utopian in these days as the available manufacturing technologies consume many different chemicals as well as high quantities of water and energy. To explain the textile sector and its impact, the seminar will consider the findings of a study of Solapur City in the state of Maharashtra. Solapur, with a population of 907,400 (2003) is the 37th most populous city in the country and eighth in the State of Maharashtra, India. There are about 25,000 power looms employing about 100,000 workers. The seminar will present key concepts and findings regarding the need for sustainability in the textile industry in Solapur City. The research provides an overview of the textile and clothing industry in a city where it is one of the biggest sectors for employment and export. The current problems exist in the city because effluent disposal facilities of these industries are very poor in turn creating environmental, health and social problems. To counteract this effect, the study reviewed the textile industry's approach adopted in the city and sought to evaluate models and methods for measuring the impact of the textile industry on the environment, human health, biodiversity and climate. The research emphasises the need for the development of an integrated sustainable model of networking for climate change mitigation using adaptation approaches related to environment, health, safety and cleaner production which can assist in building a local knowledge base to sustain the process.

Contributor(s): Liz Fekete, Dr Naika Foroutan, Dr Myria Georgiou, Nazia Hussain, Lamya Kaddor, Profressor Julian Petley | How can we formulate a vision of the future after the widely proclaimed "failure of multiculturalism"? The London Integration Forum aims at providing a fresh perspective on British and German integration debates bringing together renowned scholars and professionals and framing immigration and integration as fields of learning and exchange. Liz Fekete is the executive director and head of European research at the Institute of Race Relations in London. A leading authority on issues of racism, Islamophobia and national security legislation. Dr Naika Foroutan is director of the research project "Hybrid European-Muslim Identities" (HeyMat) at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Dr Myria Georgiou is lecturer at the LSE Department of Media and Communications, focusing on the areas of diaspora, migration, media and identity. Nazia Hussain is director of the Open Society Institute project "At Home in Europe", directing research on policies and practices relating to integration in different EU cities. Lamya Kaddor is an author on Muslim-German Identity, awarded the "European Muslim Women of Influence" prize by CEDAR in 2010. Julian Petley is Professor of Screen Media and Journalism, Brunel University, Uxbridge & co-editor of Pointing the Finger: Islam and Muslims in the British Media.

Contributor(s): Professor Danny Quah | Your clothes, trainers, Xboxes, TVs and much, much more are all made in the East. And by selling us all this stuff, countries such as China and India are becoming wealthier and more powerful than ever before. But if the East is becoming stronger – is the West becoming weaker? Should we be scared by this? What does it mean for you anyway? In a highly interactive online lecture for schools, Professor Danny Quah explores how the world is changing, with countries such as China and India becoming wealthier and more powerful than ever before. Using simple ideas from economics, he explains why this is happening and what it means for our future. The lecture is most suitable for students in Year 9, and more motivated students in Years 7 and 8 and has been designed with elements of the KS3 citizenship curriculum in mind. It will give students an understanding of: - How the East's economic power is growing and what this means for Western countries such as the UK, and potentially for the students themselves. - The importance of viewing the changes in local, national and global contexts, whilst also taking into account moral, historical and social dimensions of the changes. - What an economy is and how trade works. - The benefits of economic development for a country. - How economics provides a useful way to interpret the world. The Big Questions lecture builds on the approach and success of LSE100 -The LSE Course, the pioneering, compulsory course in which first year LSE students apply rigorous social science thinking to important issues of our time. Danny Quah is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. . Professor Quah has consulted for among others the World Bank, the Bank of England, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He is a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Economic Imbalances. Professor Quah holds degrees from Princeton and Harvard, and was Assistant Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining LSE. In 2010 he was Visiting Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University; in 2011, at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. Quah is also Tan Chin Tuan Visiting Professor in the Economics Department at the National University of Singapore. He was born in Malaysia and holds a blackbelt in taekwondo and used to compete regularly in regional and national championships. Both his two teenage sons are much better at Halo Reach on the Xbox than he is, as he is usually splattered by Covenant forces while reloading. The Big Questions Lecture is supported by the LSE HEIF 4 Bid Fund.

Contributor(s): Andrea Colantonio, Tim Dixon, Brian Field, Jan Olbrycht | Urban regeneration is a key focus for public policy throughout Europe. This launch marks an examination of social sustainability through the analysis of its meaning and significance. The authors will offer a comprehensive European perspective to identify best practice in sustainable urban regeneration in five major cities in Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, and the UK. Respondents will discuss current policy thinking and the future of the EU Urban Agenda. Andrea Colantonio is Research Coordinator at LSE Cities. Tim Dixon is Director of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, Oxford Brookes University. Brian Field is Urban Specialist with the European Investment Bank. Jan Olbrycht is MEP and Chair of the Urban Intergroup, European Parliament. Anne Power is Professor with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, LSE.