Join us today for the event they tried to cancel

Even daring to say 'Education not indoctrination' was enough for them to try and shut it down

I am no stranger to the way that intolerant culture warriors try and shut down debate. We at the Academy of Ideas have been on the receiving end of a number of official and unofficial cancellations. But it was still shocking to find out that staff at the original venue for today’s event Education not Indoctrination were going to refuse to work because they found the event so ‘offensive’ to LGBTQ+ people.

As my colleague Rob Lyons explains over on Spiked:

“Education Not Indoctrination comes at a crucial time for schools, particularly in Scotland, where the SNP-led government is so often at the vanguard of imposing woke values on society. As the blurb for Saturday’s event notes, schools are at the centre of the woke agenda. There’s the continued promotion of critical race theory in the classroom. There’s the Scottish government’s new sex-education curriculum, which will expose very young children to overtly sexualised material. There’s a new LGBTQ+ vocabulary (cisgender, transgender, bisexual, non-binary and genderfluidity) already being taught in primary schools. And there’s the Scottish government’s guidance on ‘Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools’, which advises teachers not to question a child’s desire to transition.”

For us, however, the good news is that, thanks to the determination of the organisers not to cave to those who want to see debate shut down, the event is going ahead today as planned. If you are in Glasgow, get yourself over to the Tron Church for a full day of debate. Tickets available on the door and you’re welcome any time. You can check out the program here, and get tickets here.

Supporting the right to protest

Those of you who caught last week’s Substack (which was on how Just Stop Oil and pals have a colonial-like mindset, stopping the developing world from developing) might think that I would support new laws to bring an end to their disruptive protests. But as I write over at Spectator, I think there is a real danger that our anger at the police, who seem to be almost encouraging these protests, leads us to adopt draconian new laws which would harm us all.

“But as much as I dislike Just Stop Oil, there’s a risk that we go too far in response. Understandable popular revulsion at this anti-democratic movement might lead to anti-democratic laws that affect us all. The public have looked on aghast as the police fail to stop the country’s busiest and most economically vital motorway being blocked for days in a row. But we shouldn’t fall for the government’s claim that we need myriad new offences to resolve such situations. All the complained-about tactics could be dealt with by criminal offences already on the statute book. So if the police will not use the laws they already have, why will arming them with new, more draconian laws improve things?”

This is a genuinely tricky moral and political dilemma for us all. But I am certain that the government’s Public Order Bill goes much too far in criminalising protest more broadly. So, I am using my position in the House of Lords to introduce an amendment to the Bill which would curtail the power of the state to clamp down on protest. I hope I can convince my fellow parliamentarians to adopt the amendment. The Bill will be debated in the upper chamber on Tuesday, and you can follow the discussion on Parliament TV.

Ukraine and the future of the West

My colleagues have been continuing the Battle of Ideas festival with a series of debates across Europe. This week we were in Stockholm for a series of debates throughout the afternoon/evening. And next week my colleagues are heading to Athens for a debate on whether cancel culture is killing the arts. A couple of weeks ago we were in Berlin, for a debate about what the Ukraine war means for the West (which was followed by a unique theatre performance of the Russian satirist Vladimir Sorokin’s novel Norma).

That particular debate took place on the eve of Ukraine’s liberation of Kherson. My colleague Jacob Reynolds gave one of the speeches that night, and it has been reprinted in Spiked.

“Ukraine’s resistance reminds the West of all that it has ceased to believe in. Ukraine has shown that the values of democracy and solidarity, so often invoked by Western politicians today, are grounded on the very things Western political and cultural elites routinely disparage – on ideas of nationhood and the virtue of self-sacrifice.”

There is much to debate and discuss in international politics, and many crises afflicting us at home, but I would urge you to read his article and reflect on what virtues and values we in the West need to reclaim if we are to find the courage to fight for a better future.

As ever, we welcome your thoughts and comments on any of the issues I’ve discussed today. Please share our newsletter far and wide, and we can continue holding debates, discussions and refusing to bow to the intolerant mood of cancel culture.