A video of the March of the Beekeepers demonstration in London.

How will Google Glass change the way we live and the social norms we accept? Joining Tom Spender in the studio to discuss this are: Jack Schofield, Guardian columnist and ZDNet blogger; Matt Owen, Head of Social Media at Econsultancy, a resource for digital marketers; and Dr Anders Sandberg, James Martin research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

Joining Tom Spender in the studio to discuss the legacy of Hugo Chavez are: Giampaolo Rossi-Fedele, a Venezuelan living and working in London; Ian Dunt, editor of Politics.co.uk; and Tim Stanley, a historian and writer for the Daily Telegraph.

Joining VoR’s Tom Spender in the studio to discuss the Kenyan elections are: Gemma Jones, an anthropologist from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine who is blogging the elections for the LSE; and Matthew Searle, a Kenya analyst at Business Monitor International. On the phone from the Kenyan capital Nairobi are: Anne O’Mahony, Kenya country director for Concern Worldwide; and James Reinl, a freelance foreign correspondent.

VoR’s Tom Spender discusses the situation in Tunisia with: Amira Mhadhbi, a Tunisian feminist activist and writer for Open Democracy; Mohamed Ali, director of the Islam Channel; Dr Mohamed-Salah Omri, a lecturer in Arabic literature at Oxford University; and Dr Wassim Daghrir, professor of American Cultural Studies at the University of Sousse.

A trend known as ‘slut-shaming’ has emerged on the internet in recent years. Posting on social networking sites such as Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter, teenage girls – and sometimes boys – humiliate girls for the way they dress or look, which they say is ‘sluttish’. VoR’s Tom Spender hosts a heated debate.

Sometimes these posts are accompanied by photos of the girl being targeted and attract scores of harsh comments, causing serious distress to the girl in question and leading to accusations of cyber-bullying. There are cases in which slut-shaming is said to have led to suicide.

So is slut-shaming an understandable reaction against the excessive sexualisation of young girls in Western culture, or is it a disturbing occurrence of girls propping up an age-old sexist order that seeks to control female sexuality?

VoR’s Tom Spender discusses with Julie Bindel, a freelance journalist and co-founder of the group Justice For Women; Rhiannon Cosslett, co-founder and editor of Vagenda magazine; the anti-feminist blogger Judgy Bitch; and Soraya Chemaly, a feminist writer and media critic.

This is by far the best discussion programme I’ve hosted so far and is well worth a listen.

In which: Judgy Bitch applauds slutshaming and says teenage peers are stepping in to do the job their parents are failing to do, which is to tell young girls that dressing provocatively is asking for trouble; Soraya Chemaly argues that teenage ‘slutshamers’ are perpetuating sexist attitudes in a bid to do what they think sexist adult society expects of them; Julie Bindel agrees with Chemaly and says the word slut is never appropriate; and Rhiannon Cosslett also weighs in against Judgy Bitch.

Hezbollah is Lebanon’s strongest armed group and is also a political party. It receives support from Iran and is said to be fighting with Syrian government forces against the rebellion there.The US, UK and the Netherlands already consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist group — should the EU follow suit?

Joining VoR’s Tom Spender to debate the question are: Nadim Shehadi, Associate Fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House; Karl Sharro, a Middle East commentator and blogger; Shashank Joshi, a Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, joining the debate over the telephone; and Dmitry Babich, VoR’s in-house commentator, also joining over the telephone from Moscow.

In which: everyone agrees it would be counterproductive to brand Hezbollah a terror group; Nadim Shehadi says that as the international community’s credibility goes down, that of Hezbollah goes up; Karl Sharro says labelling Hezbllah a terror group would just bolster it in Lebanon, Shashank Joshi says that Hezbollah is in effect too big to fail; and Dmitry Babich warns that pressurising Hezbollah could further polarise the Middle East along sectarian lines.

VoR’s Tom Spender asks a mixed panel if David Cameron’s announcement that he would hold an ‘In/Out’ referendum on the EU if re-elected is a significant milestone in British history or just an attempt to kick a tricky political issue down the road until after the next election.

Joining us in the London studio for the debate: George Eaton, editor of The Staggers blog, New Statesman; Dr Henning Meyer, Editor of Social Europe Journal and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Government Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science; David Coburn, UKIP London Region Chairman; and by phone, Nikki Sinclaire, Independent MEP, the founder of the Campaign for a Referendum.

In which: Dr Henning Meyer says Cameron risks being knocked back by the rest of the EU over his demands for significant renegotiation and has thus made his domestic position more precarious; George Eaton suggests Miliband’s stance against a referendum will pay dividends in the long run; Dave Coburn claims UKIP have forced Cameron’s hand; and Nikki Sinclaire demands a referendum.

In 2005 the very traditional British pursuit of fox-hunting was banned. However, animal rights campaigners claim there is little enforcement and the law is routinely flouted. VoR discusses the future of hunting in Britain.

Tom Spender is joined by in VoR’s London studios by Sian Lovatt, dressage rider and journalist; Jim Barrington, welfare consultant to the Countryside Alliance and former Executive Director of the League Against Cruel Sports; Vanessa Hudson, leader of the political party Animals Count; and on the phone, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour MP and opponent of foxhunting.

In which: Jim Barrington says banning foxhunting doesn’t diminish cruelty to foxes because other methods of killing them such as traps or shooting may cause them to die a slow and painful death while hunting provides a relatively fast death; Sir Gerald Kaufman comes down hard on Sian Lovatt; and Vanessa Hudson says there’s no chance the ban on hunting with hounds will be overturned (despite Cameron’s stated intention) because most people and MPs support the ban.

In January, the US military lifted a ban on women serving in combat roles. The move has re-opened the debate over women serving in combat roles in the British military. So should the UK follow America’s lead and allow women into combat roles?

VoR’s Tom Spender discusses this with Major Judith Webb, a former senior army officer who in 1982 became the first woman to command an all-male field squadron; Richard Norton-Taylor, Defence and security editor at the Guardian; and Alison Baskerville, a former RAF sergeant and now a photojournalist who has documented life for British Female Engagement Officers in Afghanistan.

In which: Judith Webb says women should be excluded from serving in the infantry because she believes women are not physically suited to it; Alison Baskerville says the physical power you need to fight is the strength to pull the trigger; and Richard Norton-Taylor says warfare is changing in ways that make brute strength less relevant. All agreed that it’s only a matter of time before the British military does end the ban on women serving in frontline units.

Published on Dec 27, 2012

The UK is the online dating capital of Europe, according to a new survey. More than nine million Brits are logging on in the hope of finding partners. It’s an industry that last year generated £170 million for the UK economy.

Such is the demand here that Britain has produced 1,500 of Europe’s 5,000 dating websites and about 30% of new relationships are thought to begin online.

So what’s going on here? Are British people much worse at flirting than other Europeans – or is online dating simple a more efficient way to find your dream partner?

Joining VoR’s Tom Spender to discuss this are: Liz Hoggard, features writer at the Evening Standard and co-author of ‘Dangerous Women: the Guide to Modern Life’; Liz Hodgkinson, author and journalist; Henning Wiechers, chief executive of Metaflake, which compiled the research; and Graham Jones, a web psychologist.

*** In which: Henning Wiechers says people in all countries use dating websites in the same way, but the UK is further along the development path because it typically embraces new things from the US more quickly than other European countries thanks to the shared language and other cultural similarities. He says we are all moving towards a New York-style dating culture, in which people are very explicit about what they want because the city is a big melting pot of people with different backgrounds and so shared cultural assumptions cannot be assumed. Multicultural European cities are heading in this direction. Further, online dating really responds to the needs of people in their 30s and 40s – the so-called ‘second marriage market’ – who are too old to go out and meet a partner in bars or nightclubs. Graham Jones and Wiechers both call for better webcam chat functions to enable people to get more of an idea of dates before agreeing to meet up, but Wiechers warns against seeing online dating as a miracle cure for people who find it hard to be sociable offline. Liz Hoggard met her husband on a dating site and says it is a good idea, but Liz Hodgkinson says she can;t find anyone who meets her requirements.

Published on Dec 21, 2012

Is fracking – which sees a mixture of water, sand and some chemicals pumped into a well under high pressure to force the gas from the rock – the future of British energy?

VoR’s Tom Spender discusses this with Nick Grealy, a self-proclaimed ‘shale gas missionary’ who runs the No Hot Air website; Vanessa Vine, campaigner for the protest group Britain & Ireland Frack Free and a resident of Balcombe village in Sussex, where Cuadrilla has a licence to frack; Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent for the Guardian newspaper; Tony Bosworth, an energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

*** In which Nick Grealy says fracking should replace coal and everyone else says the UK should abandon fossil fuels entirely and concentrate on renewable energy as a way to meet emissions targets designed to prevent catastrophic global warming. In particular, Fiona Harvey argues that Europe does need a cheap energy resource but as it has less shale gas than both the US and China, renewables also represent a better economic bet.

My photo has been used for the cover of Accounting for hunger: the right to food in the era of globalisation, by Olivier De Schutter and Kaitlin Y Cordes.

The pic is of an elderly man wandering through a rice field in China’s Guangxi Province near Yangshuo, which can be seen on Flickr here.

Published on Dec 4, 2012

How much of a risk do robots represent for humanity? Enough, apparently, to persuade Cambridge University to open a so-called ‘Terminator Centre’ to examine the threat. The Centre for Existential Risk will open next year and look at whether advanced technology could pose a threat to humans by directing resources towards their own goals.

VoR’s Tom Spender discusses the threat posed by artificial intelligence with his guests: Dr Mark Bishop, Professor of Cognitive Computing at Goldsmiths College in London; Wendy Grossman, technology writer and founder of The Skeptic magazine; Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the University of Sheffield; and Nick Bostrom, Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

*** A very interesting discussion in which: Nick Bostrom says we can’t dismiss this potential threat but everyone else says it’s the stuff of science fiction and we should be looking at already existing threats such as robot war machines that could kill civilians or stock market systems crashing.