The Leeds Salon is a public discussion forum founded in February 2009. The Salon organises discussions around political, cultural and scientific issues, with the aim of challenging any orthodoxies along the way, defending and developing the legacy of the Enlightenment and, above all, providing a space where free speech can take place. Find out more.
next salon
Saturday 26 April 2025
Contemporary Dystopia: The Return of Apocalyptic Thinking
In the second of three Saturday afternoon talks at Mill Hill Chapel asking ‘What Happened to the Future?’, we welcome back write Tim Black to discuss why the apocalyptic exerts such a powerful pull on the modern imagination. End-thinking seems to abound today. Politicians and activists alike warn daily of the ever-impending climate catastrophe. Others talk excitedly of the next pandemic or of the world-ending […]
forthcoming salons
Wednesday 14 May 2025
Are We Overdiagnosing Mental Health Problems?
For ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’ we’re asking, amongst other things, if awareness raising may have unintended consequences. In response to the number of working-age adults unable to work due to poor mental health, health secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that mental-health conditions are being ‘overdiagnosed’ – a claim backed up by more than four in five GPs who believe that […]
Saturday 14 June 2025
Dune: Science fiction and the end of the future
As part of Leeds LitFest 2025, and in the third of three Saturday afternoon talks at Mill Hill Chapel asking ‘What Happened to the Future?’, we welcome writer and critic JJ Charlesworth to discuss ‘sci-fi and the end of the future’. Frank Herbert’s 1964 sci-fi masterpiece Dune remains a pivotal work in the history of science fiction. Epic and bizarre in its imagining of a […]
salon & school debating news
The Womble Bond Dickinson / Leeds Salon Years 10&11 Debating Competition 2025
The final of the ‘The Womble Bond Dickinson / Leeds Salon Years 10&11 Debating Competition 2025’ took place on Wednesday 2nd April at the WBD Leeds offices – the third year leading transatlantic law firm Womble Bond Dickinson (Leeds) has been Headline Partner in the twelfth year of our annual competition for 14-to-16 year-olds.
The three qualifying rounds winners – Abbey Grange CofE Academy, Carr Manor Community School and Guiseley School – completed over three debates on: ‘Humanity should fear advances in artificial intelligence‘, ‘Western museums should repatriate culture artefacts‘ and ‘Assisted dying should be legalised‘.
Carr Manor Community School were declared 2025 Champions for the first time in only their third final.
There were also three individual prizes awarded to: ‘Best Individual’ Molly Megginson of Carr Manor; ‘Highly Commended Individual’ Eliza Salmon of Guiseley, and ‘Commended Individual’ Felix Whittaker of Carr Manor.
Prize Sponsors for the final were Royal Armouries Museum (Leeds), the University of Leeds’ Inter-Disciplinary Ethics Applied Centre and UKREiiF – the Leeds-based UK’s Real Estate Investment and Infrastructure Forum – who all contributed to the packages of prizes.
Thank you to our teams of panel and individual judges: John Connor, David Cole and Razvan Popa of Womble Bond Dickinson; Director General of the Royal Armouries Nat Edwards, the University of Leeds’ Dr Mark Westgarth and Ruby Hornsby, artist and director of The Firmament Annabel Carington, co-founder of Freedom in the Arts Denise Fahmy, BBC Leeds journalist Julia Bryson, assistant director at HMRC Russell Thomas, NHS Englands’ Paul Butterworth, law student Sasha Watson and Leeds Salon co-founder Michele Ledda.
Prize Sponsors
