Should Politics Move to the Left?

This topical issue will be debated with Tom Rubens – an advocate of a mainly socialist economy – battling for the motion, and Tim Bale – a high profile Professor of Politics – arguing against it.

There is a mood in some political quarters that we should start adopting polices that are decidedly left of centre e.g. more public ownership. Market forces and unfettered capitalism are creating excessive inequalities in our society. Nationalisation of key service industries will deliver a much broader spread of wealth. It is high time that the capitalist industries, and the excessive salaries paid to top executives, were cut down to size, through much more regulation. The closeness to government of the leaders of these industries, both in the electoral and policy development processes, is abhorrent. We elect politicians – not the giants of the corporate world – to govern us.

Today, we debate this thorny and topical issue, with Tom Rubens – an advocate of a mainly socialist economy – battling for the motion, and Tim Bale – a high profile Professor of Politics – arguing against it.

Tom Rubens is a semi-retired teacher of English and Philosophy and has worked as a university and college lecturer. He has produced eight books on philosophy and has also published poetry and recently, a novel. He has been a member of CHES since the 1980s, and has been active at Conway Hall, delivering Sunday morning lectures and doing archive (from 1870) work on the Society.

Tim Bale graduated from Cambridge and did a Masters Degree at Northwestern University, USA. He then worked for the NHS, he PhD in Politics at Sheffield University. He went on to teach politics at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, Sussex University and joined Queen Mary University of London in 2012. Tim’s media work includes writing for the Financial Times, the Guardian, Observer and Telegraph, and has appeared on various BBC radio and television programmes. In 2011 he received the Political Studies Association’s W.J.M. Mackenzie prize for his book The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron, a new edition of which is published this year. Other books include European Politics: a Comparative Introduction, The Conservatives since 1945: the Drivers of Party Change, and Five Year Mission. The Labour Party under Ed Miliband. He occasionally tweets @ProfTimBale. You can find his non-academic writing on his blog.

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