The Gladstone Club is a forum which welcomes all those who wish to engage in political discussion and question the ideas and policies of the day. We are radical in the sense that we wish to penetrate the ‘roots’ of issues without the ties of party loyalty and political correctness. Members are drawn from across the political spectrum and are of all ages.
Forthcoming events...
Date:
17th June 2013
Subject:
Gladstone Club celebrates 40 years 1973-2013
Venue:
National Liberal Club
Time:
7pm - 9pm
Details:
A celebration of the Club's history and a look forward to the next 40 years.
With music, sparkling wine and buffet.
On the Terrace overlooking the Thames
Members £25 Non-members £30
Recent events...
Date:
15th April 2013
Subject:
Who Controls the Future?
Speaker:
Raymond Makewell
Details:
Today the NUT pass their motion of no confidence in the interfering Mr Gove and perhaps his classical approach to delivering history*. Whichever delivery method is best, content and significance must surely concern us as much. Anyone with dim school-room memories of the Enclosure Acts will recall a story of economic progress and the wool trade not a shameful land grab sanctioned by corrupt democracy. Or Magna Carta: the triumph of the common man’s freed from false imprisonment but not the triumph of barons unloading tax obligations onto him. Or 1909: the Parliament Act but not the reason it was passed.
Raymond Makewell Australian economist and author of ‘The Science of Economics’ will present a concise economic history of Britain tracing the fortunes of economic freedom with reflections on the rise of capitalism and on the classical liberal interest in conditions of access to land.
“The most effective way to destroy people is to obliterate their understanding of their history.”
— George Orwell
Date:
17th December 2012
Subject:
How to think seriously about the planet
Speaker:
Professor Roger Scruton
Venue:
National Liberal Club
Time:
6.45pm for mulled wine & mince pies
Details:
Catastrophic climate change, rising sea level, epidemics, war over oil or water or rare earth metals ...
Environmental prophets warn we are unsealing the forces of destruction and that what we now do will determine the day of judgement – how imminent, how calamitous or if it can be averted.
The challenges cross national boundaries but can we act together internationally?
Our one great success the Montreal Protocol of 1987 is on track to repair the Ozone layer by 2050. But there are predictable reasons why we have serially failed to agree on Carbon - from Rio in 1992 to Kyoto 1997 to Copenhagen 2009. The explanation is to be found, says Professor Scruton, in the motives needed to agree (and later adhere to) such a treaty. He finds them lacking for Carbon and hence even with Mr Obama in the White House talks will fail again in Doha this month.
In his latest book ‘Green Philosophy’ Scruton presents a profound enquiry into the motives that drive the politics, and if they have insufficient force in internationalism then where they can be found and how they can be built upon to get results by other means.
Date:
24th September 2012
Subject:
American Elections
Speaker:
Mr Michael Prosser Cultural Attaché U.S Embassy
Venue:
National Liberal Club
Time:
7pm - 9pm
Details:
Polls show the presidential race neck and neck. Hard to comprehend in Britain where Obama’s approval rate is 80% and Mitt Romney’s visit in July did not exactly endear him. It’s ‘the economy stupid’ but from a European perspective since 2008 the US economy has outperformed us 1.7% to our flat 0.7%. Unemployment is 8% there as here but in the States no president gets re-elected with unemployment over 7%.
Not a bad principle!
It all shows how different political expectations can be and should cause us to reflect on the norms to which we have become habituated.
Mr Michael Prosser, cultural attaché to the US embassy in London will survey the US political scene coming out of the party conventions and running up to Election day on Nov 6th.
Date:
9th July 2012
Subject:
Spies, Lies and how Russia dupes the West
Speaker:
Edward Lucas
Venue:
National Liberal Club
Time:
7pm - 9pm
Details:
The dream of World Communism is completely extinguished but we should not therefore feel too cuddly about the Russian bear.
A different sort of threat has emerged from an unholy alliance of organised crime and apparently unrestrained secret police.
Helicopters to Assad. Raids on opposition activists. Embedded spy rings in the West. Organised cybercrime. Persecution of dissident journalists at home. Assassinations abroad. A ruling criminal syndicate, the Siloviki ‘men of power’, says Edward Lucas, operate outside the law and their power and reach is growing.
To protect our values apparently we must have our own shady counter-espionage activities. But the recent argument over secret trials highlights the problems for a liberal society of a cadre of officers operating outside the pale of the rule of law. Meanwhile it is claimed that we arm the rebels in Syria. Are we, as Russians would say, guilty of double standards?
Edward Lucas is a senior editor at the Economist, specialist in Eastern Europe and author of ‘The New Cold War’ and ‘Deception: Spies, Lies and how Russia dupes the West’.
