John P Mackintosh Memorial Lecture 2025: Sir Malcolm Rifkind

The 2025 John P Mackintosh Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG KC, former Foreign Secretary and Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, and current Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College, London.

The lecture, titled "The Decline of the West?" will be delivered by Sir Malcolm on Thursday 30th October, in St Cecilia's Hall. Doors will open at 5:45pm, with the lecture beginning at 6:15pm.

Abstract

There has been much suggestion that with the growth of China, India, Brazil and other states, combined with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, that the United States and the West are in strategic decline. It is further argued that Western values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights are being eroded within the United States and Europe and may become unable to win the battle for hearts and minds elsewhere in the world.

This lecture challenges those assumptions with both evidence and analysis that points to the contrary. While authoritarian dictatorship dominates in a significant minority of countries these states have little else in common with each other and their political systems cannot compete with democracy and the rule of law as the best model for mankind.

About Sir Malcolm Rifkind

Malcolm Rifkind was born in Edinburgh in 1946. He was educated at George Watson's College and Edinburgh University where he studied law before taking a postgraduate degree in political science. He was Conservative MP for Edinburgh Pentlands from 1974 to 1997 and for Kensington and Chelsea, and then Kensington, from 2005 to 2015.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher appointed him a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, at first in the Scottish Office and then to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, being promoted to Minister of State in 1983. He became a member of the Cabinet in 1986 as Secretary of State for Scotland. In 1990 he became Secretary of State for Transport and in 1992 Secretary of State for Defence. From 1995-97 he was Foreign Secretary. He served as a Minister in the Government for an uninterrupted period of 18 years which is a record going back to Lord Palmerston in the 19th century.

He served as the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which provides oversight of the UK’s intelligence agencies, MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, from 2010 until 2015. He is a Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

About the John P Mackintosh Lecture

John P Mackintosh (1929-1978) was a politician, professor, writer and proponent of Scottish devolution. Born in Simla, India, and raised in Edinburgh, he was educated at Melville College, University of Edinburgh; Balliol College, University of Oxford; and Princeton University.

Mackintosh was a Labour party politician and a leading figure in the devolution of Scotland. He famously said in the House of Commons in 1976, “People in Scotland want a degree of government for themselves. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise the institutions to meet these demands”. This quote is engraved on the threshold of the Donald Dewar Room in the Scottish Parliament.

Mackintosh wrote for academic press and newspapers and authored books, including The Devolution of Power. Perhaps his most famous book was The British Cabinet, a detailed study of the governmental institution published in 1968. Other works include The Government and Politics of Britain (1970), Nigerian Government and Politics (1968), and British Prime Ministers in the Twentieth Century (1977).

He was a Senior Lecturer in Government at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria from 1961–63, and later became Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde. In the last year of his life, while continuing to serve at Labour MP for Berwick and East Lothian, where he was first elected in 1966, he was Chair and Professor of Politics at the University of Edinburgh, a role he greatly enjoyed. He was a strong supporter of formal lectures and would deliver his remarks written out in detail. He lectured the entire first-year undergraduate Politics course, and at the end of this series the students gave him a standing ovation.

The John P Mackintosh Memorial Lecture encapsulates and celebrates this work and devotion.

Further Information

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