Culture: A City Enriched by Difference

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A public debate on Birmingham's bid to be European Capital of Culture 2008, promoted by the Angle Gallery and the Institute of Ideas, takes place tonight.

Birmingham is competing against around 20 other cities, including Liverpool, Newcastle, Bristol, Cardiff, Belfast, Bradford and Canterbury, for the title, which has been reserved for a UK city in 2008. Full details of Birmingham's bid, led by Stephen Hetherington, former chief executive of The Lowry arts centre at Salford, are due to be revealed in January.

Here, three participants in tonight's debate set out their points of view.

BRIAN WOODS-SCAWEN, Chair of Birmingham Capital of Culture Bid Group, outlines the principles behind Birmingham's bid

We face much more than a new century. We face a new world.

In the old world which we have just left, there were certainties. In the new world which we are moving into, there are risks, uncertainties and ambiguities.

In the old world, we knew where we stood. The structure and role of government, family and personal relationships, authority, business, technology, faiths in all these …