Join Bright Blue for the second event in our new ‘Past the pandemic’ series, exploring reform of Whitehall after COVID-19.
The online panel will start on Thursday 19th November 2020 at 16:30, and will include a Q&A session. Please submit your questions through Slido, either by clicking here or by entering our event code (#300) at sli.do.
Lord Herbet is the Chair of the Commission for Smart Government. He was the founder and former Director of the think tank Reform and the Member of Parliament for Arundel and South Downs from 2005 to 2019.
Alex Thomas is a Programme Director leading the Institute for Government’s work on policy making and the civil service as well as a former civil servant.
Baroness Finn is a Non-Executive Director at the Cabinet Office and the co-founder of FMA, a consultancy company that advises on good government. She was a Special Adviser for the Coalition Government.
Nick Timothy is an author, columnist and political adviser. He served as Joint Downing Street Chief of Staff, alongside Fiona Hill, to Prime Minister Theresa May.
Sarah Sands is the Chair of Bright Blue. She is a former editor of the The Evening Standard and BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Join Bright Blue for the first event in our new ‘Past the pandemic’ series, exploring how COVID-19 is changing the world of work.
The online panel will start on Friday 13th November 2020 at 11:15, and will include a Q&A session. Please submit your questions through Slido, either by clicking here or by entering our event code (#300) at sli.do.
Nadhim Zahawi is the Minister for Business and Industry at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. He has been the Member of Parliament for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010.
Frances O’Grady is the General Secretary of the British Trades Union Congress, a position she has held since 2013.
Matthew Taylor CBE is the Chief Executive of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). He chaired the Review of Modern Employment, which published its report in July 2017.
Richard Ford is the Director of Enterprise Services & Solutions for HP in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland.
Ryan is the Founder and Chief Executive of Bright Blue.
RSVP: To attend, sign up here.
We are delighted to invite you to an online keynote speech hosted by Bright Blue by Bim Afolami MP entitled ‘Beyond Thatcher – a new conservative economic policy’.
The keynote speech will start on Monday 14th September 2020 at 12:00, and will be followed by a Q&A session. Please submit your questions through Slido, either by clicking here or by entering our event code (#60412) at sli.do.
Bim Afolami has served as the Member of Parliament for Hitchin and Harpenden constituency since the 2017. Afolami is Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Credit Unions and a Commissioner for the Financial Inclusion Commission.
Ryan is the Founder and Chief Executive of Bright Blue. He became the Chief Executive at the start of 2014. Under his leadership, Bright Blue has grown significantly in size, reputation and impact. The organisation has been shortlisted for the 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 UK social policy think tank of the year and UK environment and energy think tank of the year in the prestigious annual Prospect Magazine awards.
Earlier this year, Bright Blue Scotland published its Separate support? report, which was the first ever comprehensive and detailed analysis into Scottish public opinion on the devolution of social security, offering an original and critical insight into the attitudes of Scottish voters on the direction of social security reform in Scotland. Between the upcoming Holyrood elections in 2021 and the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic, the future holds a significant opportunity to implement further changes and reforms to social security.
The webinar panel will start on Monday 17th June at 12:00, and will be followed by a Q&A session. Please submit your questions through Slido, either by clicking here or by entering our event code (#56563) at sli.do.
Bright Blue’s Solutions for social care half-day conference provides an opportunity for politicians and thought leaders, as well as experts, academics and sector representatives, to discuss challenges and solutions for elderly social care.
The half-day conference will include a keynote speech from The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Chairman, Health and Social Care Select Committee.
Other speakers include:
A full list of speakers will be announced at a later date.
Venue: British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH
RSVP: This event is free and open to all, but pre-registration through Eventbrite is required. Please RSVP here.
In partnership with:
Bright Blue’s think forums are run by our members and are spaces for those on the centre-right to come together to chat about politics and discuss policy.
For this forum, we welcome guest speakers Nigel Huddleston MP (former member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee) and – (-).
Both speakers will be making the case for maximising access and participation in the arts in Britain and their vision of how we get there – considering the state of the arts in Britain as a whole and considering best practice for improvements.
The ability to access the arts improves the quality of life, educational attainment and cohesion of communities. The arts, however, are at times seen as elitist and only open to a small section of society. Ensuring that the arts are open and available to everyone is rightly an aspiration of the Government. In the first event held by the Bright Blue Creative Think Forum, we will discuss how successful the Government has been at making this aspiration become a reality, and what more can be done to achieve it.
Key questions:
Date: Date, 2018, 19.00 – 20.30
Venue: Boot & Flogger (downstairs), 10-20 Redcross Way, Southwark, SE1 1TA
RSVP: Here
Given the trend for ‘historic’ films covering more and more contemporary issues, it’s testimony to the Second World War’s place in public consciousness that there is room for yet another film on the subject. Dunkirk’s minimal narrative assumes its audience knows the subject, and the film relies more on atmospherics, managing to conjure claustrophobia, palpable fear and unbearable tension within minutes of opening.
Director Christopher Nolan illustrates the apparent hopelessness on the beaches contrasted with hope burning bright in the captains of the now legendary little boats that rallied to the call. Scenes of soldiers in orderly lines evoke abject terror as enemy aircraft strafe the coast, and in event after event, it is apparent no one is safe even on board the waiting ships. So much is obscured from view as boats are compromised and capsize, that the audience is left to fill in the gaps – and the result is terrifying. The confusion, muffled sounds and cries, make for an uncomfortable viewing.
As troops wait to be “picked off like fish in a barrel”, we flit back to three Spitfire pilots racing across the Channel to support the evacuation effort, and one of the little boats plotting its course towards Dunkirk. I
can’t resist a broad smile as the captain quips, as Spitfires pass overhead, “Rolls-Royce Merlin engines- the best sound in the world”. I think any aviation enthusiast would agree: the sound of a Spitfire is certainly
evocative – and to the troops waiting on the beach, it is the sound of hope.
Nolan’s past collaborator Hans Zimmer provides an evocative, atmospheric soundtrack, using synth style in the vein of Chariots of Fire, or Tron Legacy, and blending it with orchestral tradition familiar to lovers
of war cinema. The result is a score that starts with brevity and builds the viewer up to patriotic fare, that slips in so seamlessly and subtly.
By the closing scenes, the sight of a Spitfire gracefully force-landing on the beach as a Nimrod-esque piece plays is too much for me. I go from misty-eyed to weeping. It might be something about being ex-military and an aviator. It could be “an English thing”. I’d happily stake it is more to do with the makings of a hallmark war film – free from judgement, capturing the spirit of the hour. Dunkirk turns defeat into triumph.
Fiona Smith is Events and Administration Officer at Bright Blue
Having avidly watched the TV series Humans, exploring what life would be like with robots by our side and what could happen should they become sentient, I approached the Science Museum’s newest exhibition with some excitement. Visitors are greeted by rows of near-skeletal metallic heads, and a writhing robot baby.
But the birth of robotics begins not with androids, but with clocks. Clocks and clockwork previously seemed to propel the heavens above, prompting sage scholars and scientists to ask: were people built from a kind of clockwork too? Religion has often overlapped with science. Indeed, the Catholic Church commissioned early automatons or dioramas depicting Biblical scenes to educate and amaze.
The exhibition displays an intricate animated swan and a tiny robot spider. Descartes, the great thinker, proclaimed that only people have souls – animals are but mere automata.
Several film posters and toys are on display, from Cybermen to the Terminator. The twentieth century brought us the first voiceactivated robots and heralded the dawn of artificial intelligence.
All the individual elements of the classic humanoid robot are displayed. There are intricately detailed 3D printed hands. Bipedal walking was first conquered by Honda’s P2 robot and made cute by its successor, SoftBank’s Pepper.
Service robots are displayed, highlighting the promise of relief from labour and increase in leisure time. Now with increasing unease, as the future of automation arrives, we all ask about the safety of our own jobs. Artists are surely most secure – yet on display is a trumpet-playing robot, and even an acting robot. The actor cheerily calls out to me, “Hello there young man!” – there is still room for improvement, clearly.
The exhibition ends with an unnervingly realistic feminine robot from Japan (where else). Kneeling to take “her” picture, I am uncomfortable. I feel as voyeuristic as a tourist stopping to snap a Geisha. The other service robots deliberately don’t look like people.
As I leave I eyeball the shop assistants at the exit- are they real?
Fiona Smith is Events and Administration Officer at Bright Blue
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