The Current Affairs Group meets twice a month on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month, from 10.30 am to 12 noon. We meet in the Rochester Castle on Stoke Newington High Street, which is a Wetherspoons pub.

We decide at each meeting what the topic for discussion for the next meeting will be.

Range of topics discussed include:

• Patriotism – what does it mean?
• News that is not making the headlines
• Free speech – what does it mean? Limitations/contradictions
• Elections in May 2021 – implications for London and the UK
• A) results of Mayoral elections b) what is happening in Iran including situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
• A) Police and Crime Bill b) Immigration Bill
• Coming out of Lockdown – what does it mean for you?
• Assisted Dying Bill
• Situation in Cuba
• Changes in electoral law
• Situation in Afghanistan
• How have children/young people fared during lockdown(s)?
• Adult social care – what do we know so far, and what for the future?
• Who owns Britain?
• LTNs (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in Hackney)
• Situation in Lebanon
• Veganism
• 2021 Reith Lectures (on AI)
• Toppling the past – statues and their place in thinking about the UK’s past
• Gender identity politics
• Government’s Levelling up agenda – what does it mean?
• The travel industry, and how it was being affected by the pandemic
• Black Lives Matter movement
• Rethinking the Future (in conjunction with the BBC initiative)
• Increasing influence/significance of China (COVID and otherwise)
• Citizens’ Assemblies
• Refugee crisis (Europe and Beyond)
• Results of US Presidential election
• Update on Brexit and development of COVID vaccine
• Future of International Development Fund
• Christmas traditions and some good news (last meeting in December 2020)
• 2020 Reith Lectures
• Our wishes for 2021
• Future of the US after Presidential election
• What is happening in Russia?
• Cyber attack on Hackney’s IT systems, which occurred last October

New members welcome. For more information, please contact the Group Leader.