Cheering for Trump?

Donald Trump’s conduct, temperament and outrageous utterances during the presidential campaign should have ensured his rejection by the electorate. He was patently prepared to say anything to achieve office. But our speaker today, Chris Bratcher, considers he was telling it as it is on two huge policy issues:

Chris believes Trump is right about NATO; that it is obsolete; a relic of the Cold War, serving only to drag Europe into American adventures in countries we know well were, and are, no threat to either.

Chris believes he is also right about the need to limit Free Trade. He feels it fosters the export of employment, and that imports free of tariffs smother any attempt to regenerate manufacture of those goods at home, because the risk to capital to re-enter these fields is too great. The arguments are not new: Joseph Chamberlain proposed tariffs to enhance both infrastructure and social conditions in the UK before the First World War. Perhaps globalisation is on the wane?

Chris will explain why he considers Trump could just be a force for good.

Chris Bratcher is a former Chair and Treasurer of Conway Hall Ethical Society. An incorrigible polymath, he has spoken over a wide range of topics within and beyond his academic discipline of Ethics and the Philosophy of Mind; today. His jaundiced view of Globalisation and unrestricted Free Trade is in part informed by his time as a former senior member of HMRC, where he examined the practices of many of the world’s multinationals, and by observing their effects in the gutted towns of the North East, where he now lives.

Doors 10.30. Entry £3, £2 concs./free to Conway Hall Ethical Society members.

Tea, coffee & biscuits will be available.