Conway Hall Ethical Society
25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL
UK
This is a unique and very special event in which two distinguished speakers: Charles Clarke – outspoken politician, former Education – and Home – Secretary and author of the highly regarded The ‘Too Difficult’ Box: The Big Issues Politicians Can’t Crack, and Simon Anholt – visionary, international policy advisor and recipient of the Nobels Colloquia Prize for Economics, whose Berlin 2014 TED talk went viral, will address the fundamental challenge facing humanity today: Who’s looking after the world?
Charles Clarke will set the scene – describing the ominous prospects for humanity, brought about by self-centred behaviour.
In a world which is changing increasingly rapidly – technologically, economically, socially and politically – it is tempting to take refuge in the past and in an insular mindset. It’s a widespread feeling which political forces like UKIP trade on upon across the world. But the truth is that the problems people worry about, like migration, international conflict, economic crisis and climate change which are particularly hot topics, are all international in nature and require well-constructed international approaches, not just clinging to our security blankets.
But at the moment our international institutions – the UN, EU, NATO and so forth – aren’t stepping in to offer real solutions. They were designed half a century ago and need to be adapted to modern needs. That’s the challenge for the UK, which has the potential to make a bigger contribution than almost anyone else to finding the solutions we all need.
Against such a background, as Simon Anholt writes, the old habit of nation-states behaving as competing tribes looks like a fatal error. Competition is a powerful and productive habit, of course, but the time has surely come when collaboration and cooperation must take precedence. How can we achieve this huge cultural change, which is nothing less than a revolution in governance?
The Good Country is a global movement instigated by Simon Anholt, designed to empower ordinary citizens to get the message across to their governments that their mandate has changed: that they want to live in a Good Country, one that recognises its dual responsibility for its own citizens and every man, woman, child and animal on the planet; for its own national territory and for the entire planet.
The United Kingdom ranks high in Anholt’s new annual study, the Good Country Index, as do most European states. But it could – and should – do much better. This, more than any other factor, should be dictating the political agenda.
Charles Clarke was Member of Parliament for Norwich South from 1997 to 2010. After serving as Education and Home Office Minister, he joined the Cabinet in 2001 and served as Secretary of State for Education and Skills and then Home Secretary until 2006.
He now holds Visiting Professorships at the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University, and Kings College London and works with educational organisations internationally. Last year he published The ‘Too Difficult’ Box: The Big Issues Politicians Can’t Crack, an analysis of the problems which need to be overcome in promoting change, and in September 2015 two studies in political leadership, British Labour Leaders and British Conservative Leaders. In 2015 he wrote, with Professor Linda Woodhead, A New Settlement, Religion and Belief in Schools.
Mr Clarke read mathematics and economics at Kings College Cambridge and was then President of the National Union of Students.
Simon Anholt is founder and publisher of the Good Country Index. He also works as an independent policy advisor to Heads of State and Government, developing strategies for enhanced economic, political and cultural engagement with other countries.
He served as Vice-Chair of the UK Foreign Office’s Public Diplomacy Board and devised the concept of nation brand in 1996 and is the founder and publisher of the annual Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index and City Brands Index.
Anholt is founder of the quarterly academic journal, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy. His books include Another One Bites The Grass (2001), Brand New Justice (2003), Brand America (2004), Competitive Identity (2006) and Places: Image, Identity and Reputation (2010).
He read Modern Languages at Oxford. As well as winning the Nobels Colloquia Prize for Economics in 2009, he was awarded the Prix d’Excellence du Forum Multiculturel pour un Développement Durable in 2010. He was appointed Honorary Professor in Political Science by the University of East Anglia in 2013, and is Chairman of the Anholt Institute in Copenhagen.
The discussion will be chaired by Helen Lewis, Deputy Editor of the New Statesman.