St Mary’s to Co-host Lecture on The Crisis of UK Political Class

On Friday 28^th November St Mary’s University, Twickenham will co-host the third lecture of the Ethical Standards of Public Life  series in conjunction with the Von Hügel Institute (VHI), an interdisciplinary research institute founded to preserve the Roman Catholic heritage of St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. The lecture, ‘The Crisis of the UK Political Class’, will be delivered by Prof Andrew Gamble FBA, Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Cambridge. He will explore the notion that the UK political class is currently suffering from a loss of trust and a loss of legitimacy, following a series of scandals and policy failures. Fewer citizens vote for either of the two main political parties and an increasing number abstain altogether. What’s more, membership of political parties is in sharp decline, the political class is recruited from an increasingly narrow section of society, and new forms of populism and anti-system politics are on the rise which threaten the values of a liberal pluralist polity. The contrast is often made with the lost world of the 1950s when responsible and representative government seemed to go together. But there are many reasons why a return to politics as it was practiced in the 1950s would be both impractical and undesirable, which Prof Gamble will outline in the lecture. He will also question whether the current democracy is capable of dealing with the challenges ahead. At Cambridge University Prof Gamble was the first Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies, and Deputy Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. His research interests include exploring the complex interrelationships between state and economy, and the ideas, policies and institutions through which these are expressed. The free lecture, which is open to members of the public without pre-booking, will be held at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge University, from 5pm on Friday 28th November. For further details please visit the website.