Evening events, Talks & lectures, Politics

Professor of politics Christina Boswell talks about her research into the motivations behind the formulation of public policies.

Tax evasion, avoidance and non-collection cost £120 billion while benefit fraud was below £5 billion (2010). Katy Clark MP, Mark Serwotka (PCS leader) and Owen Jones discuss who’s really scrounging. With over 24 times as much lost to tax cheats, why do we hear little about them but so much about benefit scroungers? We…

Presenter of the Today Programme for almost 20 years, James Naughtie talks about his career in political journalism and touches on his passion for music, giving an insight into his interesting life.

Big Ideas presents big questions, then lets an expert have a stab at answering it before turning it to the audience for discussion. Brief, informal and relaxed, the pub-based event is open to anyone and everyone.

Borders Writers’ Forum members look to a variety of literary sources, from poetry to prose to history, for discussion on the alluring nature of Scotland.

Ahead of June's G8 summit, this series of events brings together international figures from politics, business, academia and the arts to debate migration, resources and culture. Curated by Zamyn in partnership with Accenture, Africa Progress Panel, Barclays, Penguin Books, SOAS, University of London and Tate.

Coalition 'reforms' are making education a privilege for the few. Join staff and students fighting back as ordinary families cannot afford tuition fees, privatisation threatens universities including Sussex, schools like Worthing High are forced into academies, GCSE grades are undermined. Christine Blower (NUT leader)…

An evening with former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Rosie Kane, as she tells the story of her life with wit and wisdom.

An annual lecture that looks at the study of Natural Theology in broad terms, with the goal to advance modern theological thought.

Author and broadcaster Paul Mason outlines the ways in which technology has enabled global protest movements and asks how the old political models of ruling and resisting are being undermined. Chaired by Professor William Sweeney. Speech-to-Text Reported event.

Jack Halberstam mines mainstream culture for its queer potential in relation to female masculinity and drag kings, anarchy, failure and chaos, here finding an emergent cultural idiom of anarchistic revolt in Jay Z and Kanye West's No Church in the Wild.

A debate on the sex trade with Rhoda Grant (Labour MSP and proposer of bill to criminalise buying sex) and Richard Lucas (of SOLAS) sparring with Laura Lee (Sex Workers' campaigner) and Douglas Fox (of the International Union of Sex Workers). Followed by a Q&A.

Close, Professor of Physics at Oxford University, and Holloway, a former Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, talk science and religion, pitting the God Particle against God. Chaired by Sally Magnusson.

Contributors to Unstated: Writers On Scottish Independence talk about the impending referendum in 2014.

A series of seminars looking at how the 'voice of the people' has manifested in Scotland, from medieval times to today, presented by a variety of scholars in disciplines ranging from literature to politics. All welcome.

Learn how to tell your battalions from your bridges and your companies from your corps at this illustrated talk centring on WWI.