Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship
We are delighted to announce that The Rt Hon John Glen MP and The Right Hon Liam Byrne MP will be the St Antony’s Visiting Parliamentary Fellows for the 2024-25 academic year. The Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship elects two Members of Parliament – one from the governing party and the other from one of the main opposition parties – each year. These Visiting Parliamentary Fellows will visit the College regularly and organise a series of seminars on important political and other matters.
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2025 seminar series theme: Good policy in the age of populism
The 2025 Visiting Parliamentary Fellowship seminar series is jointly hosted by the Department of Politics and International Relations.
In 2024, over half the world held elections with over two billion people eligible to vote. And while the liberal centre left and centre right held ground, populists rose to power everywhere culminating in the re-election of Donald Trump.
So, what are now the implications for the renewal of mainstream politics? How do we renew good policy, internationally and domestically, from security to economic growth to public services to the very way that policy is made in liberal democracies?
In this seminar series, two former Chief Secretaries to HM Treasury, John Glenn and Liam Byrne explore some of the key questions which now confront and challenge mainstream politics, through the lens of specific case studies that highlight the realities of getting policy right in new political weather.
Seminar 8, Monday 19 May 2025, 5.00pm – 6.45pm
Nissan Institute Lecture Theatre, St Antony’s College
Political risk in an age of populism
How does business view politics and how do boardrooms find reliable ways of understanding political movements/risk?
As businesses are increasingly keen to understand political and policy-making processes, how might they find ways of formally measuring some of the risks they have to respond to?
Speakers:
Malcolm is Senior Partner at ELGINAdvisory, an economic and political consultancy – HQ in London – pioneering a qualitative and quantitative approach to risk analysis. With a focus on driving a systematic approach to analysing political behaviours and policy outcomes.
He started his career advising UK Cabinet Ministers, MPs and Peers on political and policy matters. Working for the Conservatives in Government and Opposition.
He opted to pursue a career in the private sector, establishing a company to advise decision makers to leverage competitiveness through Thought Leadership. The award winning firm, grew an international client base and recognition before being merged with FTI Consulting.
Prior to launching ELGIN, Malcolm was Executive Director at The Economist Group/EIU, responsible for modernising their product suite for investors.
Sir John Sawers has spent his career dealing with foreign policy and international security.
After several years in the intelligence service, MI6, Sir John worked as a diplomat in the Middle East, Africa and the United States. He was foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair and went on to be Ambassador to Egypt, Political Director in the Foreign Office and UK Ambassador to the United Nations in New York.
In 2009, he was called back to London to become Chief of MI6, a position he held for five years.
As MI6 Chief, he took part in the UK National Security Council and the Joint Intelligence Committee, contributing to the strategies and policy decisions on how to promote and protect British interests around the World. He led MI6 through a period of international political upheaval and high terrorist threat, including against the 2012 London Olympics. He also modernised the way the Service works and created a more open approach to public accountability.
Since leaving public service, Sir John has advised private sector leaders on geopolitics and political risk. In 2019, he set up his own firm, Newbridge Advisory. He was also a Non-Executive Director of BP from 2015 to 2024.
Sir John studied at the universities of Nottingham, St Andrews and Harvard. In addition to his corporate work, he has pro bono roles with King’s College London, the University of Nottingham, the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal United Services Institute, the Bilderberg Association and the Ditchley Foundation.
László has extensive experience in energy economics, policy and strategy.
He studied economics at Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary, and the University of Cambridge, UK.
He has worked as a regulator in Hungary’s electricity and gas markets and as Strategy Director for MOL Group, an independent oil and gas company. In 2011 he joined the International Energy Agency (IEA) as Head of Gas and Electricity Markets and led the IEA’s work on liquefied natural gas, gas supply security and electricity market design and regulation. He was appointed Chief Economist of the IEA in 2016, where he built a new team for energy investment analysis and was responsible for methodological support for all IEA policy work.
László joined Shell in 2021 where he leads the company’s analyses of macroeconomics, energy scenarios, climate policy and geopolitics.