Dawkins and Williams prepare for round 2

ROWAN WILLIAMS and Richard Dawkins are to go head to head again in debate. Last year the two debated religion and science in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre, now they are to debate the place of religion in the modern world at the Cambridge Union.

About 1,000 students are expected to attend a debate in which Tariq Ramadan, Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association, and Douglas Murray, founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion, will also take part.

The debate will be filmed and be available on the Union website soon after it has taken place.

Other speakers who are to speak at the Union in the Lent term include Fabio Capello, glamour model Katie Price, American illusion artist David Blaine, nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow, and Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville.

Andrew Mitchell and Andy Burnham are due to debate whether New Labour ruined Britain.

Ben Kentish, the Union President, denied the Union was dumbing down and said the debate between Williams and Dawkins should be a highlight of the Union’s 200-year history. “The prospect of seeing Professor Dawkins and the former Archbishop of Canterbury debate is particularly exciting for our members,” he said. “It has all the makings of an excellent debate.”

Rowan Williams is now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.