A hunger for new thought
Britain is seeing a resurgence of interest in political ideas
STUCK in the middle of the fens outside Cambridge, the Babraham Research Campus is a nightmare to get to. Yet on September 8th 1,500 people braved challenging logistics and intermittent rain to spend a day in eight makeshift tents there to discuss political ideas. Is this the end of the liberal era? Can we forge a new national consensus in the aftermath of Brexit? How can we use the great thinkers of the past to solve today’s problems? The festival is the brainchild of George Freeman, a Tory politician. Although the speakers and the audience tilted right, the participants included a smattering of left-leaning grandees and activists. “It’s nice to come to a political meeting where people aren’t spitting at you,” said a Labour moderate.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Looking for light”
Britain September 15th 2018
- The unlikely survival of May’s Chequers plan for Brexit
- Boris Johnson’s bid for the Tory leadership
- Labour launches a worker-ownership plan
- Britain’s electoral system favours not Labour but the Conservatives
- Rebuilding British higher education’s most unusual institution
- Councils in England and Wales hatch their own solutions to prostitution
- British hospitals are having a dementia-friendly makeover
- A hunger for new thought
From the September 15th 2018 edition
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