John P. Mackintosh Memorial Lecture - Allan Little

The 2024 John P. Mackintosh Memorial Lecture will be given by BBC correspondent and writer Allan Little at the Playfair Library, the University of Edinburgh, on Monday 14 October. The title of the lecture will be “Democracy Under Siege: The Challenges of Disenchantment”. Doors open at 5:30pm, with the lecture beginning at 6pm.

Allan Little was born and raised in Galloway, South West Scotland, and studied politics and modern history at the University of Edinburgh. In 1983, he joined BBC Scotland as a researcher and spent the majority of his career there as a foreign affairs correspondent. Throughout his career, Little covered the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 and spent the ’90s covering the Gulf War in Iraq, the break-up of former Yugoslavia, and the presidency of Nelson Mandela. He was the BBC’s Special Correspondent based in London from 2003 – 2013 and spent 2013–14 covering the independence referendum in Scotland. Little rejoined the BBC in 2016 as a part-time special correspondent. He is also the chair of the Edinburgh International Book Festival board of directors.

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. This year, the lecture will be delivered by BBC correspondent and writer Allan Little at the Playfair Library at the University of Edinburgh, on Monday 14 October. His title will be “Democracy Under Siege: The Challenges of Disenchantment”.

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