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In this talk we use mathematics to look at these flaws and answer associated questions (eg. voting trends and gerrymandering). For a bit of light relief we will see how the same principles work in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Jonathan Bate will track Keats to Hampstead and tell of the extraordinary circle of writers – opium-eater Thomas De Quincey, essayist Charles Lamb, master-critic William Hazlitt – who wrote for The London Magazine, until its gifted editor was killed in a duel with a rival critic.
Today's cry in democratic states, and not just from representatives of populist parties, is government with the people rather than government for the people.
Jonathan Bate will explain what Hazlitt meant and why Lyrical Ballads, the product of Wordsworth's intimate friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is one of the greatest and most influential volumes of poetry ever written.
Between 1951 and 1959, over 95% of voters supported the two major parties. Since 1983, fewer than 80% have voted Conservative or Labour. How is the decline of the two party system to be explained?
In 2015, UKIP showed itself the most successful minor party in British history, winning one-eighth of the vote. Since then, it has been in decline. What is the explanation of the failure of the minor parties?