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.

John Glen ©House of Commons/Laurie Noble
Liam Byrne ©House of Commons

Photographs released under an Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence

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 7, Monday 12 May 2025, 5.00pm – 6.45pm

Nissan Institute Lecture Theatre, St Antony’s College

Financial growth and regulation in the age of populism

The Financial Conduct Authority’s challenge in getting regulation right

Confirmed speakers:

Nikhil Rathi (CEO of the FCA)

Miles Celic (CEO City UK)

Many explanations for the rise of populism date its modern incarnation back to the Great Financial Crisis, when arguably a period of deregulation triggered risk taking that brought the global financial system crashing down. But equally it will be hard to foster faster growth unless the UK’s financial services grow faster and more effectively serve their purpose. So how does the regulator in the middle, the Financial Conduct Authority, get the balance right between consumer rights and enabling innovation?

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?

Confirmed speakers:

Charles Roxburgh (former Second Permanent Secretary of HM Treasury, non-executive director of Shell PLC)

Malcolm Gooderham (Founder of Elgin Advisory, former Conservative Party Adviser)

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?