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Free Thinking: 2014 Festival

David Willetts

Roger Scruton

Anne McElvoy

Fiona McLean

Free Thinking: 2014 Festival: Right Thinking People

Right Thinking People

05/11/2014

2014 Festival

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, 2014 Festival, Right Thinking People

David Willetts MP and Roger Scruton discuss how much specialist knowledge politicians need

In a debate held in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead, Anne McElvoy asks how much specialist knowledge politicians need today. With author Roger Scruton and David Willetts MP.

David Willetts MP and the writer and philosopher Roger Scruton discuss the best way to foster knowledge in schools and universities and whether politicians have become too professionalised. In an age when many politicians have never had other jobs, are we better off with representatives who have specialist knowledge from careers forged outside Westminster? 

Roger Scruton is the author of books including The Soul Of The World, The Palgrave MacMillan Dictionary of Political Thought and How to Be a Conservative. 

The Rt Hon David Willetts MP was Minister for Universities and Science, attending Cabinet from 2010 to 2014. He has held various posts in the Shadow Cabinet and has worked at HM Treasury, and the Number 10 Policy Unit. He is a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and has written widely on economic and social policy including The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Took Their Children's Future, and Why They Should Give it Back.

The conversation is chaired by Anne McElvoy and was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead. 
All the discussions and essays from the festival are available as Radio 3 Arts and Ideas downloads.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Events from the 2014 Free Thinking festival. The theme is 'the limits of knowledge'

Series of events from the 2014 Free Thinking festival. The theme is 'the limits of knowledge'

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