Natasha is a Senior Associate lawyer in Healthcare Litigation, specialising in professional discipline and regulatory law with over a decade of experience gained in private practice and in-house at the General Medical Council (GMC). She has represented clients such as medical defence organisations, doctors, nurses, and teachers in disciplinary proceedings and inquests, and acted for professional regulatory bodies in the healthcare and education sectors (including as part of a secondment). Natasha has assisted corporate investment clients and start-up or expanding businesses with regulatory compliance and due diligence when expanding operations, refinancing or acquiring organisations in the education, health, and social care sectors (e.g. care homes, children’s care services, private clinics and hospitals, and independent nurseries, schools and colleges) to ensure regulatory standards are met (including in respect of Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission and their respective UK counterparts).
Natasha is a former Blackburn College A-Level student, having grown up in Blackburn and Darwen. She went onto study law at Keele University before completing her post-graduate legal qualification at the University of Law in Manchester.
Paul grew up in the North East steel town of Consett. He studied Chemistry, at first at Durham University, then for a PhD in Nottingham.
He joined Imperial Chemical Industries in the late 1980’s in new product development (R&D).
He has worked for ICI, AstraZeneca, Fujifilm and other companies as a researcher, manager and director. He is inventor on approximately 100 patents and other publications and his interests are in materials for specialty electronics and consumer electronics, and for the past 10 years, new antibacterial and antiviral materials.
He now runs his own business doing contract R&D developing new products and helping clients bring them market as well as bringing on the next generation of scientists and product developers.
public and social policy specialist; author, Bricking it (forthcoming) on the UK’s housing crisis
Charlie works in public and social policy development with a specialism in housing and the built environment. Prior to that he worked as a political advisor for the directly elected Salford Mayor. His forthcoming book on the UK’s housing crisis, Bricking It, will be published by Policy Press next year.
Charlie is an alumna of Blackburn College and Debating Matters. He took part in the competition in 2008 and, when Blackburn College didn’t make the final, he turned up on his own and contributed from the audience, taking away the Best Individual prize of the tournament!
doctoral researcher, University of Cambridge | Public and Social Policy Specialist
Tallulah Eyres is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge, funded by an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Widening Participation Studentship. As one of the first recipients of this award, she embodies the low horizons and high aspirations of individuals from underrepresented and socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Born and raised on a council estate in Salford, Greater Manchester, one of the most deprived areas in England, Tallulah attended a secondary school identified as needing improvement by Ofsted. Her journey mirrors Pierre Bourdieu’s “miraculous” ascent into academia, reconciling the worlds of a working-class Salfordian and a first-generation academic navigating elite institutions. This dual perspective fuels her commitment to amplifying voices often marginalised in academic, political, and policy discourse.
Ian grew up in Liverpool, and has spent most of his life in the North-West, apart from a few years in his youth working in London as a graphic designer and running a printing factory. He attended Manchester University as a mature student and worked as a teacher for over 20 years in both state and private schools, including nine years as Director of Studies at Withington Girls’ School, one of the top-performing schools in the country, and winners of Debating Matters in 2013.
He is now working at a law firm in Manchester and self-teaching with the aim of qualifying as a solicitor this year.
Jamie Borwick is the 5th Baron Borwick, a hereditary peer, a member of the House of Lords, and a businessman.
From 1987 to 2001, Lord Borwick was Chief Executive of Manganese Bronze Holdings plc, best known for making London Taxis and then became their chairman up to 2003. After that, he was Chairman of Route2Mobility Ltd, funding wheelchairs and scooters for disabled people as part of the UK’s Motability scheme and was also a deputy chairman of the board of British Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership.
In addition, Lord Borwick is Chairman of Countryside Properties (Bicester), Chairman of Federated Trust Corporation Ltd and was a non-executive Director of Hansa Trust plc from 1984 until 2012.
Lord Borwick is a Trustee of the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals Charity, having retired from the British Lung Foundation after 2 terms of 6 years as Trustee.
freelance journalist; creator, Fairyland! Substack; project assistant, Academy of Ideas
Ella Dorn is a freelance journalist and a project assistant at the Academy of Ideas. She has written about culture, film and politics for publications including the New Statesman, i-D, the Spectator, and the Guardian. She runs the Fairyland! Substack and sometimes contributes to Grambank, a database of syntactic structures. She graduated from SOAS in 2024 with a degree in Chinese and linguistics, and competed as part of the SOAS team in the 2024/2025 series of University Challenge.
senior lecturer in Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moores University; presiding justice, Merseyside Criminal Bench
Dr Elizabeth Peatfield is a senior lecturer in Criminal Justice at Liverpool John Moores University and a serving justice on the adult criminal bench in Merseyside.
Leaving home at 15 during the 1980s in Liverpool, she had no access to education and struggled with poverty and social exclusion. Working as a bouncer for over 20 years, she returned to education as a mature student and her working-class background has influenced her work, which focuses on the phenomenon of identity and shifting master status.
Her current status as a criminal court justice has also influenced her research in which she examines the effect of the lack of access to legal aid in the lower courts and the effects on duty solicitors regarding their perceptions of equity in justice.
She is a multiple award winner, with awards such as The Merseyside Women of the Year, The Kirsty Raynor award for Academic Excellence and Rising Star Award for teaching amongst others.
Labour member of the House of Lords; Fellow Magdalen College, Oxford; Visiting Fellow Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford
Lord Wood of Anfield is a Labour member of the House of Lords, a Fellow of Magdalen College, where he taught politics from 1995–2011, and a Visiting Fellow at the 2025 Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University (2019-2025)
From 2001–2007 he was a member of the Treasury’s Council of Economic Advisers, working on a range of public policy issues for the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From 2007-2010 he worked at 10 Downing Street as a Senior Special Adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, leading on foreign policy (Europe, USA & Middle East); culture, media & sports policy; and Northern Irish affairs. He was a member of the Labour Shadow Cabinet & an adviser to Ed Miliband from 2010-2015.
He writes regularly on issues of contemporary public policy. His research and teaching focused on political economy in western Europe and issues of public policy – ranging from training and skills policy to constitutional reform.
Head of Learning and Skills, G4S Care and Rehabilitation Services
Alex Waldron is the Head of Learning and Skills at HMP Five Wells, a large training and rehabilitation prison.
Alex spent 10 years as the Head of English at several schools in London. She then moved to the USA to be Head of English and a teacher coach at private and public schools in the USA, returning to the UK in 2020 to serve as Assistant Headteacher at a secondary school in Cambridgeshire. She then moved into higher education as a senior manager of academic strategy at the Open University before transitioning to educational leadership in the prison sector.
Alex holds a master’s degree in English from Harvard University, a PGCE (secondary English) from the University of London, a bachelor’s degree in classics from the University of Bristol, and she is currently completing a master’s degree in International Relations with the Open University.
