Last Saturday was the National Secular Society‘s Secularism 2011 conference at Conway Hall in London. We were there recording the entire day – so here are all of the talks in full. Here’s the first batch – we’re still waiting on permission to broadcast some of the others, but hope to be posting them soon.

Nick Cohen
Nick is an Observer columnist and author of Cruel Britannia, Pretty Straight Guys: The Strange Death Of Labour England, among others. Nick Cohen is an eloquent supporter of secularism and regularly takes a swipe at the growing number of church-run schools and the Left’s tendency to pander to religious fundamentalists. The Orwell Prize for political writing shortlisted What’s Left? in 2008. His latest book, in 2009, is Waiting for the Etonians: Reports from the Sickbed of Liberal England. Fourth Estate will publish You Can’t Read This Book, his history of modern censorship in January 2012.

Dr Anthony Lempert (Part 1 – on secularism in medicine)
Dr Lempert was at the conference representing the Secular Medical Forum, which campaigns to a secular approach to major health issues such as abortion.

Baroness Mary Warnock
Baroness Warnock was created a life peer in 1985. She is by professional training a philosopher. She has also been a prominent figure in education, a fellow and tutor in Philosophy at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, Head Mistress of Oxford High School and Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge. She is author of a number of books, most recently Dishonest to God: On Keeping Religion Out of Politics.

Baroness Warnock was a member of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) from 1973 to 1981. She was chair of the UK committee of inquiry into special education (1974–78), and from 1979 to 1985, she advised the UK committee on animal experiments. From 1982 to 1984 she chaired an inquiry into human fertilisation, the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology, whose final report is often called the Warnock report.

Anne Marie Waters
Anne Marie is spokesperson for the One Law for All Campaign which works to end sharia courts and tribunals in Britain on the grounds that they work against human rights and equality before the law. She is a lawyer with a strong interest in family law and human rights, and the interaction of the two.

Paul Blanchard
Paul has been an active secularist and humanist for over twenty years. Paul is Chair of the Labour Party Humanists and runs Right Angles, a PR and Social Media consultancy. He recently was involved in organising last years “Protest the Pope” rally and has been very active in the campaign to remove bishops from the House of Lords. He frequently appears in the media putting forward the atheist/secular position, and is a regular on BBC’s The Big Questions and The Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2.

We’ll be posting more soon!