Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham, and Research and Editorial Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Len Shackleton was educated at King’s College, University of Cambridge, and the School of Oriental and African Studies. He has run two business schools and worked as an economist in the UK Civil Service. Len has published widely in academic and policy journals on labour market issues and is a regular contributor to written and broadcast media. He has authored or edited twelve books and edits Economic Affairs, the academic journal published by the IEA and the University of Buckingham.
David S. Oderberg, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, completed his doctorate at Wolfson College, the University of Oxford. He has written four books and edited or co-edited five others, as well as being the author of over sixty academic papers. His main research areas are metaphysics and ethics. In 2013 David delivered the Hourani Lectures in Ethics at the State University at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green University, Ohio. In 2016 he was named as one of the fifty most influential living philosophers.
Philip Booth is Professor of Finance, Public Policy and Ethics at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham, and Director of the Vinson Centre and Professor of Economics at the University of Buckingham. He is Senior Academic Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. He is also a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Federal Studies at the University of Kent and Adjunct Professor in the School of Law, University of Notre Dame, Australia. Philip is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and an honorary member of the Society of Actuaries of Poland.
A political scientist with interests in political theory, law and public policy, Nick Cowen studied for his BA in Philosophy at University College London and also has an MPhil in political theory from Oxford University. He wrote his doctoral dissertation at King’s College London on the political economy of distributive justice. Nick became a Fellow at the NYU School of Law in 2018.
Steve Davies is Head of Education at the Institute of Economic Affairs. From 1979 to 2009 he was Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and Economic History at Manchester Metropolitan University. He has also been a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and a Program Officer for the Institute for Humane Studies in Arlington, Virginia. His many publications include Empiricism and History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003) and The Wealth Explosion: The Nature and Origins of Modernity (Edward Everett Root, 2009).
Claire Fox is Director of the Academy of Ideas, which she established to create a public space where ideas can be contested without constraint. She convenes the yearly Battle of Ideas festival and initiated the Debating Matters Competition for sixth-formers. In May 2019, she was elected to the European Parliament as an MEP for the North West England constituency. In 2020, she was made an honorary professor at the University of Buckingham. In September 2020, Claire became a member of the House of Lords as Baroness Fox of Buckley.
Dennis Hayes is an emeritus professor of education at the University of Derby and the Director of the campaign group Academics for Academic Freedom. He sits on the advisory board of The Free Speech Union. In 2006–7 he was the first (joint) president of the University and College Union (UCU). Among his many publications is the controversial and best-selling book, co-authored with Kathryn Ecclestone: The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education. First published in 2009, the book was reissued, with a new preface, in 2019 as a Routledge Education Classic.
Head of Regulatory Affairs at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Victoria Hewson is a practising solicitor. She has specialised in commercial, technology and data protection matters across a range of sectors. Victoria has published a number of papers for the IEA, and writes regularly for the Telegraph and CityAM, and appears on television and radio to discuss trade and regulatory policy.
Leo Kearse is a Scottish comedian and writer, based in London. He is part of a new wave of raw, bold, American-inspired comedians taking the big UK clubs by storm, and was Scottish Comedian of the Year in 2017–18. A self-styled ‘right wing comedian’, his ‘Extinction Rebellion’ video went viral, selling out shows throughout the UK. He is also popular abroad, with 2019 seeing him perform in twenty countries. Among various credits, Kearse has written for BBC shows including Breaking The News, Mock The Week and The Mash Report. He played Mick Fleetwood in the ITV drama Breaking The Band: Fleetwood Mac.
Jacob Mchangama is the founder and executive director of Justitia and a visiting fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in Washington. In 2018 he was a visiting scholar at Columbia’s Global Freedom of Expression Center. He has commented extensively on free speech and human rights in outlets including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy. Jacob has published in academic and peer-reviewed journals, including Human Rights Quarterly, the American Journal of Political Science and Amnesty International’s Strategic Studies. Jacob is the host and narrator of the podcast Clear and Present Danger: A History of Free Speech and the author of a forthcoming book on the history of free speech from Socrates to Zuckerberg (Basic Books and Basic Books UK, 2022).
