Current Affairs Discussion
The Current Affairs Group meets twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month, from 10.30 am to 12 noon. We meet in the Rochester Castle on Stoke Newington High Street, which is a Wetherspoons pub.
We decide at each meeting what the topic for discussion for the next meeting will be.
Range of topics discussed include:
- Patriotism – what does it mean?
- News that is not making the headlines
- Free speech – what does it mean? Limitations/contradictions
- Elections in May 2021 – implications for London and the UK
- A) results of Mayoral elections b) what is happening in Iran including situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
- A) Police and Crime Bill b) Immigration Bill
- Coming out of Lockdown – what does it mean for you?
- Assisted Dying Bill
- Situation in Cuba
- Changes in electoral law
- Situation in Afghanistan
- How have children/young people fared during lockdown(s)?
- Adult social care – what do we know so far, and what for the future?
- Who owns Britain?
- LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Hackney)
- Situation in Lebanon
- Veganism
- 2021 Reith Lectures (on AI)
- Toppling the past – statues and their place in thinking about the UK’s past
- Gender identity politics
- Government’s Levelling up agenda – what does it mean?
- The travel industry, and how it was being affected by the pandemic
- Black Lives Matter movement
- Rethinking the Future (in conjunction with the BBC initiative)
- Increasing influence/significance of China (COVID and otherwise)
- Citizens’ Assemblies
- Refugee crisis (Europe and Beyond)
- Results of US Presidential election
- Update on Brexit and development of COVID vaccine
- Future of International Development Fund
- Christmas traditions and some good news (last meeting in December 2020)
- 2020 Reith Lectures
- Our wishes for 2021
- Future of the US after Presidential election
- What is happening in Russia?
- Cyber attack on Hackney’s IT systems, which occurred last October
New members welcome. For more information, please contact the Group Leader, Liz Southcombe, by pressing the link on the top right.