Dear Members,
Last week’s dinner was held the evening before the local elections, and those for Scottish & Welsh parliaments. We enjoyed a topical panel discussion, hosted by the excellent Matt d’Ancona. He was joined for a refreshingly frank discussion of the current state of politics by Baroness Deborah Mattinson, mastermind of Keir Starmer’s electoral victory (and a McCann alumni), Paul Harrison OBE, Downing St press secretary during Theresa May’s most embattled period, and Dr Tom Lubbock, founder of pollsters J L Partners. It proved to be both informing and entertaining.
Our next dinner is on Wednesday 3rd June, where we will be joined by Professor Irene Tracey CBE, FRS, FMedSci, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford.
Oxford ranked #1 in The Times Education rankings 2026, making Prof Irene in effect the “CEO” of the world’s greatest bastion of education. As such, her views on the state of education in the UK will be of great interest.
Irene is also a leading authority on pain, and is currently Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. Her research team has contributed to a better understanding of pain perception, and has developed that into commercialisable approaches to improve pain relief.
Irene is well-known to be a very entertaining speaker, able to translate complex science into publicly understandable concepts, as she did for example during Oxford University’s collaboration with AstraZeneca during Covid to develop the vaccine.
I’d love to see as many as you as possible for this penultimate dinner of my season.
Thanks,
Zaid