Democracy on Trial: The verdict and the road ahead Liam Byrne, Gavin Esler, Alexander Hurst, Kate Pickett and Joan Concannon (chair)

The Rt Hon Liam Byrne is the Labour MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, a member of His Majesty's Privy Council, elected Chair of the Global Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF and Chair of the House of Commons' Business and Trade Select Committee. As Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster during the Great Financial Crisis, Liam coordinated No 10 Downing Street for Gordon Brown before serving as Chief Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury. He is a former member of the Council of Europe and is one of Westminster's leading authorities on China. An economic historian, Liam has published over 20 books, pamphlets and chapters on economic history, foreign policy and public service reform. Liam's history of British capitalism, Dragons was published in 2016. Liam has written for Newsweek, the Financial Times, the Daily Mirror, the Guardian and New Statesman, and lectured at Harvard University, Oxford University and the LSE.

Gavin Esler is an award-winning journalist, television presenter, political commentator and author. He was a main presenter of the BBC current affairs show Newsnight for 12 years until 2014. He presents the podcast This Is Not a Drill and is the author of books including Britain Is Better Than This (2023) and How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations (2021).

Alexander Hurst is a Paris-based writer, editor and columnist at The Guardian, and an adjunct Lecturer at Sciences Po, the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He holds an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics and an MA in International Public Policy from Sciences Po. He spent most of his childhood in a quirky, pre-gentrification, inner-city neighbourhood in Cleveland, Ohio, US before crossing the Atlantic. After a year working in Moundou, Chad (where he learned to properly peel a mango), he ended up in Paris, writing longform stories and essays for various magazines. His memoir, Generation Desperation (available Jan 2026), is a modern fable about money and greed; at its centre, the story of how he made - and lost - $1.2 million trading ‘meme stocks’ during the chaotic Covid lockdowns of 2020. Alexander became a French citizen in summer, 2022.

Kate Pickett OBE is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of York where she leads the Public Health & Society research group and is the Director of the Born in Bradford Centre for Social Change. She is an academic co-director of Health Equity North and co-founder and patron of The Equality Trust. She is the co-author, with Richard Wilkinson, of the award-winning and best-selling The Spirit Level (2009) and The Inner Level (2018). The Spirit Level was awarded Publication of the Year by the Political Studies Association, chosen as one of the Top Ten Books of the Decade by the New Statesman, and one of the top 100 books of the century by the Guardian. In 2023, Kate received an OBE for services to societal equality.

Daniel Trilling is the author of If We Tolerate This: How the British Establishment Made the Far Right Respectable. He writes about nationalism, migration and human rights for publications including the London Review of Books, the Guardian and the New York Times. His work has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Political Book Awards and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing.

Joan Concannon is the Chief Reputation and Stakeholder Relations Officer at the University of York. Her portfolio includes reputation and brand management, stakeholder engagement identifying opportunities to develop scalable quadruple helix partnerships to drive public, private, academic, and philanthropic income diversification with a specific focus on aligning with regional economic growth and investment priorities. She is responsible for a portfolio of functions including Communications (institutional brand strategy, digital engagement, media and research communications, staff and student communications and events and public engagement), the Office for Philanthropic Partnerships and Alumni (OPPA) and Economic Development.