United States democracy under the spotlight at the 2025 Lord Caradon Lecture

Jon Sopel, the BBC’s former North America Editor, will deliver the annual lecture at the University of Plymouth in November
The White House in Washington, DC.
Award-winning journalist Jon Sopel, the BBC’s former North America Editor, will deliver a lecture in Plymouth highlighting the state of democracy in the United States.
He will be the guest speaker for the 2025 Lord Caradon Lecture, a free public event being held in the Levinsky Hall at the University of Plymouth on Thursday 20 November.
His talk – Is America’s 250 Year Democracy Experiment coming to an End? – will focus on the presidency of Donald Trump and some of its wider national and international ramifications.
It is a subject of which Mr Sopel has direct experience, having worked in Washington DC for eight years that coincided with the first Trump presidency.
Jon Sopel, the BBC’s former North America Editor, will be the guest speaker for the 2025 Lord Caradon Lecture
He went on to write a trilogy of books – If Only They Didn’t Speak English, A Year at the Circus, and UnPresidented – about the President’s first term of office between 2017 and 2021.
Since leaving the BBC in 2022, Mr Sopel has co-hosted a multi-award-winning podcast, The News Agents, along with Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall.
He has also written another book, Strangeland, about returning to the UK after working in the US and also writes a regular column for The Independent on US politics.

I’m an American political scientist who has been studying the politics of the United States for 30 years.

In the past, parties would ebb and flow in governing majorities in Congress, the Presidency, and their hold on public opinion – but one constant, one eternal truism was always America’s resolute leadership of the international club of democracies. The destruction of the East Wing of the White House is a timely metaphor for the threat that democracy is under domestically, as well as the international rules-based liberal order that America once led. This lecture should offer people a fascinating insight into US politics and its global impacts.”

David BrockingtonDr David Brockington
Lecturer in Politics and leader of the MA International Relations programme

During his visit to Plymouth, Mr Sopel will also speak to undergraduate and postgraduate students from the University’s Politics and International Relations programmes.
Students from the University will also have the opportunity to take part in a competition, sponsored by the Lord Caradon Lectures Trust, to create a three-minute video exploring how they believe social media has changed international diplomacy.

This is a great opportunity for our students to listen to, and learn from, one of the foremost political journalists of our time. Jon Sopel has been at the heart of global politics, particularly in the United States, for well over four decades. His experience and expertise will offer our Politics and International Relations students a first-hand perspective on what it is like to engage with global leaders, and the decisions they are making, on a daily basis.

Patrick HoldenDr Patrick Holden
Associate Professor

 

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