Law and the Decline of Politics - locations announced for the 2019 Reith Lectures

BBC Radio 4 has confirmed further details for the 2019 Reith Lectures, to be given by Jonathan Sumption. The five lectures entitled Law and the Decline of Politics will broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service from 9am on Tuesday 21 May.

Published: 20 February 2019

The five lectures will be recorded around the UK and in Washington, starting in Middle Temple in London on Tuesday 16 April. The second lecture will be held at the University of Birmingham (18 April), the third in Edinburgh’s Parliament House (29 April). The Reith Lectures travel to George Washington University in Washington DC for the fourth of this year’s lectures (8 May) and will end at Cardiff University’s new School of Journalism, Media and Culture on Tuesday 14 May.

The lectures will be delivered in front of audiences and will be hosted by Anita Anand, who will also chair a question and answer sessions as part of the recordings.

Topics addressed by Lord Sumption in the lectures include how the law’s empire has expanded in response to increasing public demand for greater security and reduced personal risk; the importance of the political process and the benefits of representative democracy as well as the decline in the public’s involvement in politics. He will discuss human rights and the law, including the European Convention on Human Rights, and ask whether decisions in this area should be made by judges or Parliament. In Washington, Lord Sumption will examine the US Constitution and assess the advantages and disadvantages of a written constitution. The fifth and final lecture will ask whether Britain should move away from an unwritten constitution and how public faith in the political process can be restored.

Broadcast details:

  • Law’s Expanding Empire
    Tuesday 21 May, 9-9.45am
  • In Praise of Politics
    Tuesday 28 May, 9-9.45am
  • Human rights and wrongs
    Tuesday 4 June, 9-9.45am
  • Rights and the Ideal Constitution
    Tuesday 11 June, 9-9.45am
  • Shifting the Foundations
    Tuesday 18 June, 9-9.45am

Jonathan Sumption became a Justice of The Supreme Court in January 2012, one of only five people ever to have been appointed directly from the bar to the highest court of the land. He retired from The Supreme Court in December 2018. He began his career as a professional historian. After four years as a history fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, he was called to the Bar in 1975. His practice covered all aspects of Commercial, EU, Public and Constitutional Law. An accomplished historian, Sumption is also the author of a number of books including four volumes of a history of the Hundred Years War. The third volume, Divided Houses, was awarded the Wolfson History Prize for 2009. A final volume is in progress.

The Reith Lectures were inaugurated 71 years ago in 1948 by the BBC to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the corporation's first director-general.

John Reith maintained that broadcasting should be a public service which enriches the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures on radio. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest.

The very first Reith lecturer was the philosopher, Bertrand Russell who spoke on 'Authority and the Individual'. Among his successors were Arnold Toynbee (The World and the West, 1952), Robert Oppenheimer (Science and the Common Understanding, 1953) and J.K. Galbraith (The New Industrial State, 1966). The Reith Lectures have also been delivered by the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks (The Persistence of Faith, 1990), Dr Steve Jones (The Language of the Genes, 1991), Michael Sandal (A New Citizenship, 2009), Martin Rees (Scientific Horizons, 2010) and Aung San Suu Kyi and Eliza Manningham-Buller (Securing Freedom, 2011). Most recently the Reith Lecturers have been Niall Ferguson (The Rule of Law and Its Enemies, 2012), Grayson Perry (Playing to the Gallery, 2013), Dr. Atul Gawande (The Future of Medicine, 2015), Stephen Hawking (Black Holes, 2016), Kwame Anthony Appiah (Mistaken Identities, 2016), Hilary Mantel (Resurrection: The Art And Craft, 2017) and Margaret MacMillan (The Mark of Cain, 2018).

The Reith Archive is available at bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith

Pictured: Jonathan Sumption. Image credit: BBC / Richard Ansett

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