About

Lewes Speakers Festival May 2024

Friday 10th May 15.30 Sarah Sands, Editor of the BBC Today Programme, tells a beautiful story about the end of life, in which hedgehogs become a metaphor for hope.

Friday 10th May 17.00 Suzanne Heywood, best-selling author, COO at Exor & former international child-sailing nomad, tells the story of her 10-year voyage on a yacht from when she was aged 7.

Friday 10th May 18.30 Will Hutton, former Editor of the Observer and columnist, explains his ideas on how to solve the problems of a turbulent economy, rising living costs, an increasingly divided society, and the looming break-up of the United Kingdom.

Friday 10th May 20.00 Tom Baldwin, Labour’s former communications director &

Denis MacShane, former Europe Minister, discuss what to expect from Keir Starmer and Labour if and when they take power.

Saturday 11th May 9.50 Dr Linda Yueh, BBC TV presenter, tells the stories behind the 10 greatest economic meltdowns of the 20th Century and how to prevent them reoccurring.

Saturday 11th May 11.20 John Kampfner, expert on Germany, broadcaster & foreign-affairs commentator, gives the story of Berlin based on his Waterstones Best History book of 2023.

Saturday 11th May 12.50 Baroness Catherine Ashton, former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, gives the inside story on her life in diplomacy.

Saturday 11th May 13.45 – 15.30 Jack Cornish, Head of paths at the Ramblers walking association, presents a walking tour around Lewes starting at the All Saints Centre.

Saturday 11th May 14.20 Gavin Esler, Radio and TV broadcaster, & presenter of BBC2’s Newsnight, gives an urgent and timely exploration of a British political system in peril and makes suggestions about what can be done about it.

Saturday 11th May 15.50 Prof. Danny Dorling, of the Geography Dept. Oxford, gives an account of the economic and cultural malaise at the heart of the UK and what we must do in order to save Britain from becoming a ‘failed state’.

Saturday 11th May 17.20 Luke Harding, foreign correspondent for The Guardian, gives an account of and first hand stories from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Saturday 11th May 18.50 Sir Chris Bryant, Chair of the House of Commons Committee on Standards & Shadow Minister for Creative & Digital Industries, asks for a better brand of politics. and suggests how it might - at last - get its house in order.

Sunday 12th May 9.50 Robert Hardman, Broadcaster and expert on Royalty, gives the inside story of Charles III and of his court and philosophy.

Sunday 12th May 11.20 Helen Russell, formerly editor of marieclaire.co.uk, turned Scandinavia expert, explains the secrets she has learned from bringing up children in Denmark and of parenting the world’s happiest children.

Sunday 12th May 12.50 Theodore Dalrymple, a retired prison physician, and Spectator writer, tells the stories of the writers buried in the cemetery of Père Lachaise in Paris, France.

Sunday 12th May 14.20 Peter Foster, Public policy editor at the FT & writer of its Britain After Brexit newsletter, explains what went wrong with Brexit: and what we can do about it.

Sunday 12th May 15.50 Katja Hoyer, a German-British historian specialising in modern German history, based on the book which was an instant Sunday Times bestseller, Telegraph and Spectator book of the year, gives us an inside account of East Germany, 1949-1990.

Sunday 12th May 17.20 Prof. Matthew Goodwin, conservative academic & broadcaster, asks what has caused the recent seismic changes in British politics, including Brexit and a series of populist revolts against the elite?

Sunday 12th May 18.50 Prof. Nigel Biggar, of the Moral and Pastoral Theology Dept. at Oxford, attempts a new and much more positive assessment of the West’s colonial record.