"WHAT does it mean to be British?" and "What is the cost and benefit of immigration to the UK?"
Right now, every politcal party is earnestly jostling to tell you as the election race begins.
It is perhaps time, then, to give other more dispassionate thinkers a turn.
The two questions at the start are among those that will be concentrating the minds of leading academics gathering at the Museum of Liverpool this Thursday (October 16) in a debate organised by The British Academy.
Chaired by The Observer's political editor, Toby Helm, it is the second of a series of three events (Birmingham and London are the other two).
They focus on what has become the hottest of political and social potatoes which could swing who holds the keys to no 10 for the next five years and beyond.
The debates are free and the doors are open to the general public. No passport required.
Here's the agenda: Does Britain’s cosmopolitan make-up, with a range of communities with different cultural values, affect political legal and other statutory frameworks and policies?
To what extent should these different values and beliefs within Britain’s diverse population – the product of centuries of immigration – be taken into account in terms of governance?
What are the fundamental principles of "Britishness" and should they always be upheld?
Discussing them: Professor Shamit Saggar, University of Sussex, Dr Rob Ford, member of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester, Frances Webber, Vice-chair of the Institute of Race Relations Council of Management and Don Flynn, Director of the Migrants Rights Network.
The British Academy Debates were launched earlier this year to encourage the public, it says, "to discuss some of the most important challenges of our time, and show the role academic research plays in helping us understand and address them".
*Immigration and the Politics of Britishness, Museum of Liverpool, Mann Island, L1, Thursday 16 October, 2014, 6pm. Free.
