At a moment of profound national crisis – and just a week before the UK is scheduled formally to leave the European Union – the MGS Politics Department will be hosting a debate on the future of Britain’s governing party. Chaired by our Head of Politics Rick Kelly, Brexit and Beyond: the Future of the Conservative Party will involve a panel comprising Tory politicians and influential commentators from journalism and academe:
Graham Brady, MP for Altrincham and Sale West since 1997 and chairman of the party’s pivotal 1922 Committee
Mary Robinson, MP for Cheadle since 2015
Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, and author of prize-winning book The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron (2016)
Robert Ford, Professor of Political Science at The University of Manchester and co-author of prize-winning book Revolt on the Right (2015)
Patrick Christys (MGS 2003-2010), former political correspondent for the Daily Express, current broadcaster for Talk Radio and Sky News.
The debate will allow each of our panellists to assess how the Conservatives have managed the Brexit process and how this could affect the Party’s future. But the panel will also discuss how, at the next general election, the Tories might position themselves on other issues (such as taxation and public services) that will shape our country in the post-Brexit era. There will, of course, be ample opportunity for audience participation during the Q and A session that follows.
Date: Thursday 21 March 2019
Time: 7:00 – 8:00pm (Refreshments from 6:30pm)
Venue: Drama Studio 1
Admission Free - The debate is open to all members of the MGS community and, indeed, anyone with an interest in the future of British politics
Guitar ensembles and solos perform from all sections of the School.
Tuesday 26 March - 6.30pm
MGS Theatre
Free Admission
Marcus Bennison was born in Derby and holds degrees from the UK and USA. He has lectured in colleges and universities here and abroad, been a Front of House Manager, a PRO, filled supermarket shelves and was once the worst card-sharp in the world. He has travelled widely, directed over 100 plays; sung in award-winning choirs; been hijacked in Burma and had a record banned by the BBC. He thinks his dyslexia is an advantage. A cook, gardener, walker, church and pub crawler, he currently lives in Nottinghamshire because the local hospitals are regarded as the best places in the UK to treat his form of cancer.
His talk is entitled: 'God's Anointed or the Devil's Brood? - The Toleration of Idiocy, Eccentricity and Incompetence in World Leaders in the Seventeenth Century'
Date: Wednesday 27 March 2019
Time: 4:00 pm (refreshments will be served from 3:45 pm)
Venue: Memorial Hall
Admission Free
JSOC lunch for all Jewish and affiliated MGS boys from any era along with their families. Come and celebrate the longstanding relationship between MGS, the UJIA and the Jewish Community.
Kosher three course meal and drinks along with speaker Adam Wagner (OM 1992 – 99) Human Rights Barrister
Date: Sunday 31 March 2019
Drinks from 12:45pm
Lunch at 1:15pm in the Memorial Hall
Ticket price: £25 per person
Dress Code: Smart casual
Ewan Fernie is Professor at the Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, where he co-convenes the pioneering MA in Shakespeare and Creativity. His latest book is Shakespeare for Freedom: Why the Plays Matter. Redcrosse, his collaborative civic liturgy for St George's Day, was premiered in Manchester Cathedral and Windsor Castle. Macbeth, Macbeth, the novel he co-wrote with Simon Palfrey, was described by Slavoj Žižek as "a miracle, an instant classic". In collaboration with Birmingham City Council, he is leading the "Everything to Everybody" project, which aims to revive, reinvent and throw open to people the Birmingham Shakespeare Memorial Library.
His talk is entitled: ‘Shakespeare and the Invention of the Modern City’
Date: Thursday 4 April 2019
Time: 4:00pm (refreshments will be served from 3:45pm)
Venue: Memorial Hall
Admission Free
Gardeners’ Question Time is a Radio 4 institution, attracting over 2 million listeners a week. Recorded in a different location each week, this long-standing radio programme has answered well over 40,000 questions since its inception in 1947.
The panel members have been guests of a diverse range of gardening clubs and locations; including the top of Snowdon, Buckingham Palace, and 10 Downing Street.
The panel NEVER see the questions before the recording. Their encyclopaedic, seemingly effortless answers are completely spontaneous and reveal their huge experience and depth of gardening knowledge. Being on the GQT panel is not for the faint hearted!
Date: Monday 8 April 2019
Doors Open: 5.30pm (come with questions prepared)
Recording: 6.15pm - 8.15pm
Admission: £4.50 (no concessions)
Professor A C Grayling CBE MA DPhil (Oxon) FRSA FRSL is the Master of the New College of the Humanities, London, and its Professor of Philosophy. He is also a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He is the author of over thirty books of philosophy, biography, history of ideas. He is a columnist on the Guardian, the Times, and Prospect magazine. He has contributed to many leading newspapers in the UK, US and Australia, and to BBC Radios 4, 3 and the World Service, for which he did the annual 'Exchanges at the Frontier' series; and he has often appeared on television. He has been a judge on the Booker Prize. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Vice President of the British Humanist Association, Patron of the UK Armed Forces Humanist Association, Honorary Associate of the Secular Society, and a Patron of Dignity in Dying.
His talk is entitled: ‘Philosophy's two great questions’
Date: Thursday 2 May 2019
Time: 4:00 pm (refreshments will be served from 3:45 pm)
Venue: Memorial Hall
Admission Free
Professor Vincent Lloyd is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, in Philadelphia, and the Alan Richardson Fellow at Durham University. He is the author or editor of ten books including Black Natural Law, Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics, and The Problem with Grace: Reconfiguring Political Theology.”
His talk is entitled: 'The Political Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.'
Date: Thursday 16 May 2019
Time: 4:00 pm (refreshments will be served from 3:45 pm)
Venue: MGS Theatre
Admission Free
