The Battle for the Economy

This summit is an opportunity to engage in a public discussion about the economic crisis with leading economists, political commentators, business people and policy makers.

This summit is an opportunity to engage in a public discussion about the economic crisis with leading economists, political commentators, business people and policy makers. With the emphasis on public debate rather than behind-closed-doors diplomacy, the event will start a conversation to move us beyond political soundbites and help us get to grips with the political and economic battles ahead. Gordon Brown and Barack Obama may not be there, but the opinion formers of tomorrow will be. Will you?

Now the dust has settled on the G20 London Summit, the economic reality remains: bankruptcies and unemployment are set to rise to the highest levels since the Great Depression. For all the talk about international co-operation, upbeat predictions about improving financial systems, and open markets versus protectionist measures, the recession still digs deep, and solutions are still contested, indeed contradictory.

Too often such disputes, whether about regulation, liquidity or state bail-outs, are reduced to technical discussions, confined to world leaders and financial gurus. While the G20 as an event attracted maximum media attention, its debates and conclusions too frequently felt like communiqués from above, with the world’s citizens reduced to spectators on the sidelines.

The recession has enormous political and social ramifications for all of us. It needs to become a focus of public discussion, but popular involvement seems confined instead to lacklustre demonstrations or lobbing insults, sometimes bricks, at bankers, financial institutions and even economic growth itself. In contrast, this is a public summit that means business – a public discussion with leading political and economic thinkers.

Sessions include:

• Demystifying the crisis; recession in the heart of the Eurozone
• Rein in the greedy bankers?
• Alternative activists’ working lunch
• Can the state save the economy?
• Protectionism, global tensions and a new world order?
• The rise and rise of behavioural economics
• Investing in the future – what could be the new engine of growth for the UK?

Confirmed speakers include:

Parminder Bahra, poverty and development correspondent, The Times; Claire Fox, director, Institute of Ideas; Frank Furedi, professor of sociology, University of Kent, Canterbury; author, Politics of Fear, John Hilary, Executive Director, War on Want; Rob Killick, CEO, cScape; author, UK after the recession; Nick Kochan, financial journalist and economic analyst; co-author What Happened?: And Other Questions Everyone Is Asking About the Credit Crunch; Deepak Lal, James S. Coleman Professor of International Development Studies, University of California, Los Angeles; author of Reviving the Invisible Hand and In Praise of Empires; Dan Lewis, Research Director, Economic Research Council; founder and Chief Executive, Future Energy Strategies; Warwick Lightfoot, economist; former Special Adviser to the Chancellors Nigel Lawson, John Major and Norman Lamont; Paul Mason, author, Financial Meltdown and the end of the Age of Greed; broadcaster, BBC Newsnight; Phil Mullan, economist, author The Imaginary Time Bomb; Nick O’Donovan, founder, DoSomethingAboutIt.org.uk; Emre Ozdenoren, Associate Professor of Economics, London Business School; Research Fellow, CEPR; Richard Portes, Professor of Economics, London Business School; founder and President, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); Jeremy Sice, Managing Director, SAS Design; Eric Reinert How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor; John Stevens, Adviser to Taube Hodson Stonex Partners; campaigner for Britain to join the Euro; Bruno Waterfield, Brussels correspondent, Daily Telegraph; Dr Tim Young, Visiting Fellow, economics department, University of York; formerly, head portfolio manager, Bank of England.

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