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Oleksandra Matviichuk speaks in the Debating Chamber at 6:00pm on Friday 2nd February 2024. OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK Nobel Prize Winning Lawyer Named one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women in the World by the Financial Times, Oleksandra Matviichuk is a renowned Ukrainian human rights lawyer leading the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv. In 2022, Oleksandra and her team were awarded the Nobel Peace...

Thusday 22th February 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber.   The vision of a United Europe has long been a dream of visionary philosophers and thinkers, from Leibniz to Lafayette. Successive empires seemed close to uniting Europe- Napoleon chief among them- before they crumbled into oblivion.   It was only after the carnage of the World Wars that such a dream could move closer to reality with t...

Vuk Jeremic speaks in the Debating Chamber at 6pm on Wednesday 31st January 2024. VUK JEREMIK Serbian Former Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic is the President of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD), a global public policy think-tank, and Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly magazine Horizons - Journal of International Relations and Sustainable Development. Mr. Jeremi...

Thursday 15th February 2024 aat 8pm in the Debating Chamber. This week’s debate will be led by all student speakers, meaning greater opportunity to make your voice heard. It should be a really engaging and lively debate! Freedom of speech and expression, especially on campus, has not ceased to be a hot button topic this decade. The line between hate speech, incitement to violence and legitimate ex...

THE VICTIMS & AFTERMATH OF PARTITION & COLONIALISM INTERNATIONALLY Partition and the impacts of colonialism have deeply affected numerous countries, often marked with conflict and political division. This panel brings together international speakers from a range of backgrounds to speak on this issue and the victims of partition and colonialism and aims to highlight the commonalities of the...

This Debate took place on Monday 12th February 2024 at 8pm in the Debating Chamber. From Have I got News for You to Private Eye to Saturday Night Live, political satire has enjoyed something of a renaissance. Since the grotesque portrayals of the loth century pioneered by Gilray and images that floated on the streets of Paris, Satire has often be an instrument of political subversion and dissent....

This debate took place on Thursday 8th February 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber.   From the 17th Century to the 20th Century, global economic systems were often forged from imperialistic structures- in its first wave, the exploitation of the Americas and the expansion of slavery, and in the second wave, the vast scramble for African and Asian territory for resources and markets.   In the af...

This debate took place on Thursday 1st February 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber.   As modelling and technological capacity improves, an old problem on morality is rearing its head, especially as we all were confronted with the grim graphs of the COVID-19 pandemic. Is morality and human life calculable, a hedonic calculus of pleasure or pain, and can we theoretically get there?   New movemen...

Thursday 11th January 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber. Do we still treat the industry as somewhere you have a job rather than a career? Is hospitality promoted as a legitimate career or education path at school career fairs? Are those choosing to work in our industry respected? Proposition: RACHEL BELLIERE-WILSON Rachel is an inclusion educator, advocate and communicator, working with organ...

Sabrina Paterski speaks in the Keynes Library at 5:30pm on Wednesday 24th January 2024 ............................................................................................................................ Thumbnail Photographer: XXXXXXXXXXXX ............................................................................................................................ Sabrina is a high energy t...

The Rt Hon Ali Sabry speaks in the Debating Chamber at 5pm on Tuesday 23rd January 2024. ............................................................................................................................ Thumbnail Photographer: XXXXXXXXXXXX ............................................................................................................................ Mr. Ali Sabry was appoin...

Thursday 25th January 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber. Following an intense atomic race between Nazi Germany and America, the Second World War ended in an atomic cloud of ash and glass.   Through the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan capitulated to America, and an intense atomic race kicked off between the Soviet Union and the United States. Yet millions did not die in a war...

This debate took place on Thursday 18th January 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber.   The United Kingdom faces a bitter general election this year, 5 years after losses in working class areas doomed Labour to its worst result since 1935. Currently leading the polls is Labour, led by Keir Starmer, aggressively moderating the stance of the party and even suspending its former leader, Corbyn, has...

This panel event took place in the Keynes Library at 7:30pm on Friday 24th November 2023. Renowned author Hans Christian Anderson once wrote that when words fail, music speaks. This could not be more true today, with music being an avenue for important social and cultural commentary. This panel brings together some of the most critically acclaimed voices of Young Britain to examine the place of mu...

Tom Aikens speaks in the Keynes Library at 3:00pm on Friday 24th November 2023. ............................................................................................................................ Thumbnail Photographer: Flo Tawns ............................................................................................................................ Tom Aikens Born in 1970 in Norwich,...

Caroline Calloway speaks in the Debating Chamber on Wednesday 22nd November 2023 at 8pm. ............................................................................................................................ Thumbnail Photographer: Flo Tawns ............................................................................................................................ Caroline Calloway rose to f...

This Panel took place in the Debating Chamber at 7:00pm on Saturday 7th October. Many of Modi's supporters argue his focus on 'India first' has resulted in economic growth and prosperity since his election in 2014. Yet others accuse his government of stirring up ethnic and religious divisions, restraining press freedom, and increasing crackdowns on dissent. By bringing together the voi...

This Panel took place in the Keynes Library at 6:30pm on Wednesday 4th October. The 'Being Class Act in Cambridge' panel is an attempt to showcase the experiences of staff and students at the University and examine whether Cambridge's reputation as an institution for the select few rings true today. We invited our panellists to discuss their experiences being from a Class Act backgroun...

India WIlloughby speaks in the Keynes Library at 7:30pm on Monday 20th November, in aid of Trans Day of Remembrance. ............................................................................................................................ Thumbnail Photographer: Nordin Catic ............................................................................................................................

Sandi Toksvig speaks in the debating chamber on Sunday 5th November at 7:30pm. ................................................................................................................ Sandi Toksvig, a much-loved radio and television presenter, began her comedy career whilst at Girton College, Cambridge where she found time to write and perform in the first all-woman show at the Footlights...

Stella Assange speaks in the Debating Chamber at 5pm on 3rd November. ......................................................................................................................... Thumbnail Photographer: Reva Croft ......................................................................................................................... Stella Assange Human Rights Advocate & Lawyer S...

Olga Borisova speaks in the Debating Chamber on Friday 20th October 2023 at 6pm. ..................................................................................................................... Thumbnail Photographer: Jakob Schoser ..................................................................................................................... Olga Borisova, a founding member of the renow...

In this special episode to celebrate his life, we look back at Sir Michael Parkinson's interview at the Union on the 20th of May 2009. Sir Michael was one of the greats of British television and his charm in our living rooms will be missed. This episode is a rare chance to hear him being the one answering questions.

Sam Altman accepts the 2023 Hawking Fellowship Award on behalf of the team behind OpenAI on Wednesday 1st November 2023 at 7:15pm in The Debating Chamber. The Union and the Professor Hawking Fellowship Committee are delighted to announce that the team behind OpenAI, the creators of Chat-GPT and DALL-E, have been jointly awarded the 2023 Professor Hawking Fellowship. The Fellowship Lecture was deli...

Ben Shapiro speaks in the Debating Chamber at 8:00pm on 31st October 2023. Ben Shapiro is the co-founder and Editor Emeritus of The Daily Wire and host of The Ben Shapiro Show, the largest conservative podcast and radio show in the United States. Shapiro is the author of eight nonfiction books, including the #1 New York Times best-seller, The Right Side Of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Mad...