*Please note new date and venue*

Wakefield Salon is an independent discussion group aiming to get to grips with key issues of the day and make some positive impact.

Our first meeting is on Free Speech. Thurs 22nd October, 7.30pm at The Black Rock pub, Cross square, Central Wakefield.

This week the BNP are scheduled to appear on BBC's Question time yet local MP and schools secretary Ed Balls calls for teachers in the organisation to be banned. Sp!ked website is barred from local library and education internet service ostensibly for it's stance on environmentalism - can the public handle progressive or dodgy ideas? Should the state intervene on our behalf? Is Free Speech the bedrock of a civilised society?

James Panton debated Green Imprerialism in a round table discussion at the Arnolfini Theatre http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/ in Bristol ob Saturday 10 October.

Here is a great video of the Brighton beach protest against Booze bans, complete with music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ0pDcSWUnY&feature=channel

Manifesto Club members in Leeds will be running a debate 'From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and Its Legacy', on tuesday 4 June, at Borders' bookshop. All details here.

I will be talking at the Sussex University debating society on 12 November, on the subject of booze bans. This is a big issue in Brighton, since the council there has been particularly authoritarian in its implementation of alcohol control zones.

James Panton will be a panellist at the National Library of Scotland's 'Freedom or Safety?' debate on Wednesday 3 December: http://www.nls.uk/events/

Freedom or safety?

Panel event. The 42-day terror detention rule, CCTV and ASBOs – safeguards for good citizens or unacceptable intrusions and curtailments of civil liberty? Speakers debate the rights and wrongs of these topical questions. In recognition of the British Library's major new exhibition, 'Taking Liberties'.

Wednesday 3 December
19:00

Manifesto Club members James Panton, Maria Grasso, Claire Fox, James Woudhuysen will be speaking at the conference After McDonaldisation: visions of higher education on Friday 13 June. The conference is at Oxford Broookes university, organised by club member Dennis Hayes.

SexyMachinery Issue A: Super Replica

Permanent Gallery, Brighton
Saturday 3rd May - Sunday 11th May
Preview Saturday 3rd 6pm - 9pm

Film Screening
Steal this Film II - Sunday 4th May 2pm

SexyMachinery was an Architectural Production in activity from 2000-07 from London, Copenhagen and Baden-baden. Previous issues have been performed, written, printed and exhibited. In genuine bootleg fashion SexyMachinery appears again courtesy of St. Pierre & Miquelon.

James Panton will be in debate with Bill Rammell, Minister of State for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, at the The Big Fees Debate, Leeds University Union, on Monday 21 April, 4.30pm.

Dolan Cummings and Maria Grasso will be speaking at the Institute of Ideas debate: You Can't Say That! Is free speech being curtailed through fear of controversy?, as part of the Think-in-Kingston festival, Kingston upon Thames, 7pm Tuesday 1 April.