On 18 April the New Statesman hosted the second in a series of debates organised to celebrate the magazine’s 100th birthday. The first, “The future of feminism”, was held at Conway Hall and featured feminist bloggers Bim Adewunmi, Juliet Jacques, V J D Smith (Glosswitch), Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, Holly Baxter and Laurie Penny. The second, a debate upon the motion “The left won the 20th century”, took place at King’s College London and pitted commentators from either side of the political spectrum against one another, arguing with their natural allies. Both events sold out.
Arguing for the motion was Huffington Post political director and NS columnist Mehdi Hasan, NS deputy editor Helen Lewis and – perhaps a little less expectedly – Simon Heffer, Daily Mail columnist, biographer and grammarian. Heffer said that anti-imperialism, equality, the welfare state, social mobility, widening educational franchise were all “liberal-left inventions”. “The world in which we live,” he concluded, “was created almost entirely by the left.”
On the far side of the hall, Tim Montgomerie, former editor of ConservativeHome, said this of the political left:
“It is a great philosophy, you wear your heart on your sleeves, everybody knows the left wants to increase the life chances of the poor, but the left lost the 20th century because you became detached from your core purposes because you became imprisoned by a whole range of vested interests, most notably the teachers’ unions.”
He was supported in opposition by Ruth Porter, Communications Director at the free market Institute of Economic Affairs and Owen Jones, Independent columnist and author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. This was the first time Hasan and Jones had wound up opposing one another in a debate.
The event was chaired by NS editor Jason Cowley, who concluded the evening by asking for a show of hands. To find out which way the audience voted, the podcast can be streamed or downloaded as a special edition of the New Statesman Podcast, either from the site or on iTunes.
The next centenary debate will be announced within the next few weeks.
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