The Market Will Save Us, Manchester
With the intake of global breath that accompanied the recent wobbles on the Chinese stock exchange reminding everyone how invested we all are in the interconnected wellbeing of financial markets, this provocatively titled talk is timely. Are the imperatives of market forces the driving agents of prosperity or a barrier to equality and community? Was the 2008 calamity an inevitable market correction, from which we’ve now recovered? Or have we failed to learn its lessons and once again suicidally tied our futures to forces that are too unruly to be regulated? Phillip Inman, the Guardian and Observer economics correspondent, and other leading thinkers in the field will be doing their best to demystify this vexed subject. If you can keep up with the bewildering terminology, it should be fascinating.
PH
Caroline Cirado-Perez, Wigtown
Best known for getting women back on banknotes (her 2013 campaign means 2017’s tenners will feature Jane Austen), Caroline Criado-Perez made further headlines when she challenged rape-threatening online trolls and Twitter’s head honchos, eventually swaying the site to launch a one-click “report abuse” option. These stories alone could fill a book, yet Criado-Perez is not one to linger on personal success. Or suffering: her manifesto, Do It Like A Woman And Change The World, focuses on the accounts of awe-inspiring women across the globe, from Afghan fighter pilots who dodged the Taliban to the British Greenpeace campaigner who scaled the Shard. For the more risk-averse, there are plenty of smaller, quieter ways to champion equality. Find out how at this enlivening talk, which is aimed at both sexes. To quote Criado-Perez’s blog: “The current social order is doing men no favours.”
County Buildings, Sat
CB
Tatler Schools Live! London
Whether you think it’s a devastating hindrance to the fair progression of society or one of the wisest ways wealthy parents can spend their cash, what’s for certain is that private education is among the strongest forces stratifying society today. Suitably, the public school system itself is a stringently hierarchical one. Tatler’s reputation-sealing schools guide is one such contributing factor, inclusion being a (relatively unscientific) mark not just of quality but also some degree of trendiness. The magazine hosts this pricey day of talks, in which prospective parents turn pupils, as stalwarts of the system instruct them on subjects such as the pros and cons of single-sex education; ways to ensure your kids actually get into your chosen institution; and whether you should pack your cherished offspring off to boarding school for half their childhood in order to help them become properly posh. Present will be ambassadors from schools including Dulwich College, Benenden, Francis Holland and Eton.
Jumeirah Carlton Tower, SW1, Fri
RA
