The Salter Lecture: Conscience in the political life

George Osgerby reviews the Salter Lecture

by George Osgerby 11th August 2017

There are positive things we can look forward to, Molly Scott Cato, Quaker and Green MEP, assured her audience at the 2017 Salter Lecture, ‘Brexit, Chilcot and the Role of Conscience in the Political Life’, which was delivered on Wednesday evening at Yearly Meeting, but ‘something is rotten in the public realm’. She argued that the UK now faces ‘a more serious crisis than any my generation can remember’. At a time when leaders of stature were needed it can seem that ‘small souls with little wisdom’ are governing us. ‘Politicians are still human beings,’ she said, ‘so, how can we balance reason and intuition; the need to represent people with conscience?’