54th Wade Lecture | Baroness Hale of Richmond

Events , Wade Conference Centre

6 October 2022 – 6:15pm

Baroness Hale of Richmond

Lady Hale served as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Values in medical decision-making

Lady Hale retired as President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the most senior Judge in the United Kingdom, in January 2020. Before becoming a Judge, she had a varied career, as an academic lawyer at the University of Manchester (also qualifying and practising for a while as a barrister in Manchester), as the first woman member of the Law Commission, where she led successful projects in Family Law and Mental Capacity Law.

She was appointed a High Court Judge in 1994, was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1999, and in 2004 became the first and only woman ‘Law Lord’ in the House of Lords, then the apex court in the United Kingdom. In 2009, the Law Lords were translated into the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. She became its Deputy President in 2013 and its first woman President in 2017. In retirement she has spent her time in good works, events and writing – her memoir, Spiderwoman, A Life, was published in 2021. She holds a number of honorary academic appointments and is Visitor of her alma mater, Girton College, Cambridge.

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52nd Wade Lecture | Clifford Stott

Wade Conference Centre

6 October 2022 – 6:15pm

Professor Clifford Stott MBE

Professor of Social Psychology at Keele University

Policing Public assemblies in Pandemics:

Crowds, Protests & the Future of Democracy

Clifford Stott is a social psychology professor who has gained an MBE for his world-leading work on crowd psychology. Murray Brunt invited Clifford to deliver the Institute Wade lecture after hearing his fascinating work discussed on ‘The Life Scientific” on the BBC; only then realising that Clifford was round the corner at Keele University.

Clifford studied the London Poll Tax riots and Italian World cup in 1990, riots in the UK in 2011 and in Hong Kong in 2019, using social media and mapping to follow their trajectory.

His work indicated that, rather than riots being driven by hooligans who are predisposed to violence (the ‘mindless mob’ perspective developed at the end of the nineteenth century), they are structured and led by beliefs. The majority of the crowd consider that they are peaceful protestors with a right to express their views. If disorder or confrontation starts, and the police act against it, the crowd experiences what they consider is illegitimate police use of force. This changes their behaviour so that they resist the police. His research has led to changes in policing by some authorities with the aim of reducing violent confrontations.

Clifford has influenced policy on the policing of crowds for big events such as the UEFA European Championships and with police forces as far afield as the USA, Australia and Sweden. More recently has focused on the social and behavioural impact of lockdowns. The Covid 19 pandemic has exposed multiple and complex ‘Grand Challenges’ to human society. As the outbreak developed societies began to recognise that the disease had profound implications, for which the UK was ill prepared. Clifford will tell us about this and more.

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