Next Tuesday, 5th May, the Brockington Building will be hosting the latest in the Politics, History & International Relations Department’s series of free lectures, The Critical Politics for Global Challenges Lecture Series, when the guest speaker will be Tariq Ali.

Author of more than twenty books, as a historian, novelist and social commentator, Tariq Ali is one of Britain’s most committed polemicists. In his latest book, The Extreme Centre, the Guardian and London Review of Books contributor and editor at the New Left Review argues that Westminster is in the grip of an extreme centre, a trilateral monolith in which politics has become a contest to see who can best serve the needs of the market, whilst unstable populist parties occupy the margins.

Meanwhile, he suggests, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has turned into a chasm. The rich have found new ways of protecting their wealth, whilst everyone else suffers the penalties of austerity. With inequality continuing to grow and our political elite failing to redress the balance, Ali offers up this warning against the status quo and, in scouring the immediate and not-so-recent political past, posits potential alternative futures to get us back on track.

This series of public lectures by speakers from outside academia – campaigners, journalists, researchers, politicians and others – will bring to bear their particular expertise on different aspects of these issues. Talks will be followed by time for questions, contributions and discussion.

The lecture begins at 6pm. Admission is free, but booking is necessary. To do that, follow this link:

https://lborouniweb.wufoo.eu/forms/public-lecture-booking-tariq-ali/