Voices of freedom: who's who

I am delighted to announce the following list of speakers for the Voices of Freedom programme of events in London on June 3, 10, 15, 24, and 29 (followed by a boat party on Wednesday July 14):

• Josie Appleton, director, Manifesto Club
• Phil Booth, national coordinator, NO2ID
• Heather Brooke, freedom of information campaigner
• Dr Eamonn Butler, director and co-founder, Adam Smith Institute
• Ross Clark, author, The Road To Southend: One Man’s Struggle Against the Surveillance Society
• Simon Clark, director, smokers' lobby group Forest
• Timothy Cox, Liberal Vision
• Philip Davies MP
• Simon Davies, Privacy International (tbc)
• Alex Deane, director, Big Brother Watch, and former chief of staff to David Cameron
• James Delingpole, writer, journalist, broadcaster and blogger
• Dr Tim Evans, president, Libertarian Alliance
• Shane Frith, director, classical liberal think tank Progressive Vision
• Julian Harris, director, Liberal Vision
• Guy Herbert, general secretary, NO2ID
• Philip Johnston, author, Bad Laws: An Explosive Analysis of Britain’s Petty Rules, Health and Safety Lunacies and Madcap Laws
• Martin Kettle, associate editor, the Guardian
• Rob Lyons, deputy editor, Spiked
• Chris Mounsey, leader, Libertarian party
• Brendan O’Neill, editor, Spiked
• Mark Pack, co-editor, Liberal Democrat Voice
• Chris Snowdon, author, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist and The Spirit Level Delusion
• Paul Staines, aka blogger Guido Fawkes
• Michael White, assistant editor, the Guardian

Not a bad list, I think you'll agree. The individual debates will be chaired by:

• Iain Dale, political blogger and publisher, Total Politics
• Claire Fox, director, Institute of Ideas
• Mark Littlewood, director general, Institute of Economic Affairs
• James Panton, co-founder, The Manifesto Club;

All we need now is an audience!

RSVP events@thefreesociety.org or telephone 01223 370156.

Prior to each debate there will be a drinks reception courtesy Boisdale of Belgravia. For more information click HERE.

I look forward to seeing you.

Comments

[Mark Butcher]

Excellent line up. My congratualtions Simon (and your team) for the work.

[Chris F J Cyrnik]

Why do all these meetings have to be London based?

[Dave Atherton]

The line up here looks absolutely first class and can't wait to enjoy the debates.

I

[Pat Nurse]

Mark Pack told me he was very much against any amendment to the smoking ban when he used to be my FB friend. Has he changed his opinion?

[Martin V]

Yes - thanks and congratulations to all concerned.

Very impressive.

Very impressive, indeed.

With Monckton and Booker and North, it'd be well night perfect !

Maybe next year.........................................................

(And I never knew about Philip Johnston's book: off we go to Amazon again............)

[Frederique Dupont]

I will be in this audience to enjoy the debates

[HARRY]

I wish forest would instead of just supporting peoples right to smoke would also lokk at the great possibily that smoking is not harmful, what I have seen over the last 20 years is new research being revealed almost daily about the harms of smoking, well we wre shown a documentry on tv many years ago where they were looking into why when France Spain Greece had a much higher percentage of smokers heart problems and lung cancer almost did not exist,an answer was not found.after watching this I suddenly started to wonder if there was any truth in these reports on smoking and health,now quite often from anti smoking researchers we are told we must do something as lung cancer and many other cancers have risen by eighty per cent in the last 15 years,yet in the mid fifties %78 of the adult population smoked now in 2010 it is %49 how can any sense be made of this but then again it is the pharmaceuticals that do this research and make a fortune in the bargain,the latest thing is not cleaning teeth causes cancer who did this research ?someone who will make a lot of money from dentistry products you can be sure.another thing to consider is what else has increased with the rise of cancer levels well pollution of course,but we cant go there because we would crucify the economy of the western world (see how everything is starting to make sense) I would challenge anyone to have to make a choice from three with no get out option one I hold a gun to your head and pull the trigger option 2 you have to smoke 20 cigs a day for the rest of your life option 3 you just put your mouth around the exhaust pipe of a car and breathe it in for 5 minutes I think I know that %100 would take option 2 if a 30 year old has lung cancer and is shown to have his lungs clogged up with nicotine as they tell us how can some one live to 100 who has smoke all their life their lungs must be made of different material. we are also told that the reason that most sufferers are city people because that is where most of the lower classes live as the lower classes have a higher % of smokers.NO it is because country life does not get the pollution that city dwellers do.almost all I have said so far is not my own research but that of the anti smoking brigade I just put it together and then you can see why it must be made up for another reason. one last thing I said some 25 years ago that the truth would start to come out and they would have to invent something else,well they did and called it global warming this will give them a reason to cut back on pollution levels without revealing the truth.