Public Lectures at Canterbury Christ Church University

Meet the Candidates for the 2015 General Election

Parliamentary candidates for Canterbury and Whitstable hustings.

The Role of Universities in Social and Economic Development

Sir Richard Sykes relates his own experiences from working in both industry and academia and then takes a look at where we are today and how we might proceed for the future.

Freedom of Expression: a fundamental value and a qualified right

Baroness Onora O’Neill spoke together with Mark Hammond on the right to freedom of expression. Their lecture surveyed the history and philosophy of freedom of expression. It introduced a new publication by the EHRC on the legal framework that protects – and restricts – this freedom, with particular reference to hate speech and offence relating to characteristics protected under the Equality Act 2010.

1914-1918: Was Britain Right to Fight?

Nigel Biggar, author of the controversial book, In Defence of War (2013), uses the criteria of Christian 'just war' thinking to argue that Britain was right to fight in defence of Belgium and France against unprovoked German invasion in August 1914. He also contends that she was right to carry on fighting until November 1918 and that the costs, although appalling, were not manifestly disproportionate. Britain's Great War, he concludes, deserves both celebration and lamentation.

The Ethical Idea of the University

Building on the analysis in his The Question of Conscience: higher education and personal responsibility, David Watson will examine the case for and against universities as sites for moral leadership and what Amartya Sen calls ‘public reasoning’.

From Multiculturalism to Interculturalism - the Era of Globalisation and Super Diversity

Multiculturalism no longer enjoys political nor popular support. Far Right and other forms of extremism are growing and identity politics are threatening national solidarity. We need a new way of thinking about how we live together in an increasingly globalised world in which complex and multi-faceted identities are fast becoming the norm. Professor Ted Cantle will set out the theoretical and practical case for 'interculturalism' and explain how it provides a new and positive perspective for the future of social relationships.

Total Policing – including using technology to fight crime

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe argues that the significant investments in IT already made by the Police have not brought the benefits it deserves and that by having a more consistent and central strategy, the people of this country would get a far better service. He also believes that investing in appropriate technology will enhance the effect of those officers concentrating on repeat victims, repeat offenders and repeat locations. His ambition is to make the Met the best Police Force in the country, by having a total approach to policing – 50,000 people acting as a team will always do more than 50,000 individuals. He believes in concentrating that process on a total war on crime, helping victims and being professional.

NHS facing the future - Ann Widdecombe

"The NHS has become a three-tier health service because successive governments have refused to admit that it cannot meet, and never will be able to meet, every last demand that is made upon it. We therefore have to find a different way of delivering health if we are not to end up with rationing on a large scale". In 1998 Ann Widdecombe delivered a much acclaimed speech to the Conservative Party Conference, urging just such an approach, but now in 2012 we are still using the 1948 model. Ann will argue it is time for political courage and a re-assessment of our mechanisms, particularly our financial approach to health, and that those who can should be encouraged to take greater responsibility for their own health

Stopping at the temple door: Religion and belief in an equal society

The lecture was followed by a round table discussion with Richard Norman, Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Kent and lecturer on Canterbury Christ Church University’s Community Arts Education programme, and The Rt Rev James Langstaff, Bishop of Rochester.

East Prussia: on Europes edge

No country embodied the turbulence of twentieth century Europe more than East Prussia, once Germany's most eastern redoubt and now divided between Poland and Russia. A land of apparent contradictions, it produced astonishing intellectual achievement, raw militarism and anxiety, cruelty and suffering, tolerance and extremism, domineering red brick castles left by the Teutonic knights and neat villages and productive farming and a symbolic identity as a beleaguered bastion of western European civilisation. Max Egremont's most recent book is Forgotten Land - Journeys among the Ghosts of East Prussia. His lecture will tell of a frequently troubled and now mythical place.