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Lewes Speakers Festival 2026
16th, 17th and 18th January 2026 at All Saints Centre, Lewes
Friday 16th January 2026
Sam Freedman
Failed State: The Sunday Times Bestselling Investigation Into Why Britain is Struggling
Friday 16th January 15.30 – 16.40
Why does nothing work in Britain?
It’s harder than ever to get a GP appointment. Burglaries go unpunished. Rivers are overrun with sewage. Real wages have been stagnant for years, even as the cost of housing rises inexorably. Why is everything going wrong at the same time?
It's easy to blame dysfunctional politicians who are out for themselves. But, in reality, it’s more complicated. Politicians can make things better or worse, but all work within our state institutions. And ours are utterly broken.
In this gripping talk, Sam Freedman—former Senior Adviser to Education Secretary Michael Gove and now one of the UK’s most trusted political analysts—lays bare the systemic failures behind Britain’s broken state. Drawing on his top five Sunday Times bestselling book – ‘Failed State’, described as “Excellent . . . persuasive . . . convincing'” (The Times) and 'funny, whipsmart and devastating. Sanity on steroids' by Emily Maitlis, Freedman dissects the culture of short-termism, chaos and incompetence that has hollowed out our institutions.
With forensic clarity and insider experience from the heart of Whitehall, Freedman explores how decades of neglect, partisan tribalism and constant ministerial churn have left Britain in disarray. Yet this is not a counsel of despair—Freedman also outlines how a renewed focus on professionalism, accountability and long-term vision could begin to rebuild trust and capacity in public life.
Sam Freedman is a political commentator, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, and a regular columnist for the Financial Times. He has advised at the highest levels of government and is renowned for his sharp, accessible insight into how politics really works.
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A Q&A Session will follow.
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Professor Richard Overy
Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan
Friday 16th January 17.00 – 18.10
This talk offers a gripping and deeply humane account of the terrible climax of the Second World War in Asia, marking the 80th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.
Drawing on his acclaimed new book Rain of Ruin—praised as “a masterpiece of clarity and insight” and “the definitive history of the Pacific War’s end”—Richard Overy, one of the world’s foremost historians of modern warfare, re-examines one of history’s most momentous questions: what truly compelled Japan to surrender in August 1945?
Was it the atomic bomb, the firestorms over Tokyo, the Soviet invasion, or the slow collapse of a starving nation? Overy interweaves the decisions of Truman, Stalin, Hirohito and their generals with the voices of scientists, airmen and civilians beneath the bombs, tracing how terror, calculation and exhaustion converged to bring total war to its close.
In a “short but quietly devastating” work (Philip Snow, Literary Review), Overy challenges the familiar, American-centred story of the war’s end and exposes how the deliberate destruction of cities and civilians became normalised as moral restraints eroded. Yet he also reveals the cultural and political complexities within Japan, where the very idea of ‘surrender’ was alien.
With the precision of a historian and the dramatic sweep of a storyteller, Overy explores both the strategy and the morality of modern warfare—how far nations will go to win, and what that victory costs.
Richard Overy FBA is Honorary Research Professor of History at the University of Exeter and author of The Bombing War, Blood and Ruins, The Dictators and Why the Allies Won. Described by The Guardian as “peerless… the greatest historian of air power alive,” his books have reshaped how we understand air power, total war and the human cost of modern conflict.
​A Q&A Session will follow.
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Sir Ed Davey
Why I Care: And Why Care Matters
Friday 16th January 18.30 – 19.40
What does it really mean to care — and why does Britain so often fail those who do?
In this deeply personal and inspiring talk, Sir Ed Davey draws on his acclaimed book Why I Care to put carers and social care where they belong: at the centre of our national conversation. As The Guardian notes, “Ed Davey wants to rewrite British politics — not with the language of crisis, but that of care. He offers something rare: moral clarity rooted in lived experience.”
Care is the thread that runs through Ed’s life. He lost his father at four and, as a teenager, helped nurse his terminally ill mother. Now, as a parent to a disabled son, he knows first-hand the love, pressure and relentless struggles faced by millions of unpaid carers.
Why I Care is both a moving personal story and a manifesto for change — shedding light on the often-invisible world of carers and calling for a society that truly values those who give so much.
“Ed Davey is living proof that sometimes the personal and the political can mix in a way that benefits society as a whole.” — Alastair Campbell
“A profoundly moving and essential read… a heartfelt call to action.” — Carol Vorderman
Sir Ed Davey is Leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Kingston & Surbiton. A lifelong campaigner on carers’ rights, social justice and the environment, he previously served as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.
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​A Q&A Session will follow.
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Caroline Lucas
England: How to Reclaim Our National Story
Friday 16th January 20.00 – 21.10
What does it mean to be English in the twenty-first century — and who gets to decide?
In this inspiring and provocative talk, Caroline Lucas draws on her Sunday Times bestselling book England: How to Reclaim Our National Story —hailed as “visionary” (Philip Pullman), “essential and magnificent” (George Monbiot) and “deft and wonderfully poetic” (Grace Blakeley).
For too long, Englishness has been left to those who trade in nostalgia, exceptionalism and division. Lucas argues that it’s time to reclaim it — to tell a new story rooted in kindness, fairness, and care for people and planet. Reaching deep into England’s literary and cultural past, from Elizabeth Gaskell to John Clare and Charles Dickens, she uncovers alternative traditions of compassion, creativity and dissent that can inspire a greener, more inclusive future.
With the insight of a campaigner and the conviction of a storyteller, Lucas offers a unifying, hopeful vision of a country that can once again take pride in its values — not its divisions.
Caroline Lucas is the UK’s first and only Green Party MP, representing Brighton Pavilion since 2010. Twice leader of the Green Party, she has been named Politician of the Year by The Observer and The Independent and is recognised as one of Britain’s most powerful voices on the environment, democracy and social justice.
​A Q&A Session will follow.
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Saturday 17th January 2026
Maggie Oliver and ‘Jade’
Speaking Out on Grooming, Justice and Safeguarding
Saturday 17th January 9.50 – 11.00
Former Greater Manchester Police detective Maggie Oliver, well known for exposing institutional failings in the handling of child sexual exploitation cases, joins Jade, a child-grooming gang’s victim and survivor, in a powerful conversation about truth, resilience and change. Together, they will discuss Jade’s personal journey, the importance of listening to survivors, and the urgent need to ensure that children are properly protected in the future. This event will highlight how institutions can learn from past mistakes and how communities can stand with victims to prevent abuse.
By placing survivor voices at the heart of the discussion, Maggie Oliver and Jade shed light not on politics, but on the human impact of exploitation and the ongoing fight for justice, compassion and safeguarding reform.
Maggie Oliver is best known as the former detective who resigned from Greater Manchester Police in protest over the handling of the Rochdale grooming gang case. Since then, she has become a leading advocate for survivors, working through the Maggie Oliver Foundation to support victims of abuse and to campaign for systemic change in how institutions protect children. She is also a familiar voice on television and radio, speaking with authority and compassion on issues of justice and safeguarding.
Jade is a survivor of grooming and child sexual exploitation who has chosen to speak publicly to help ensure that other young people are protected from similar experiences. By sharing her story, Jade offers an invaluable first-hand perspective on both the trauma and the resilience that follow such abuse, and she highlights the vital importance of listening to and believing in victims in order to build safer communities.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Parmy Olson
Supremacy – AI, Chat GPT and the race that will change the world.
Saturday 17th January 11.20 – 12.30
From Silicon Valley to Beijing, a silent war is raging — over who will control the most powerful technology in human history. In this electrifying talk, award-winning journalist Parmy Olson reveals the inside story of the global race for artificial intelligence supremacy: a struggle that will shape not only economies and politics, but the very future of humanity.
Based on her Financial Times Business Book of the Year winner Supremacy, Olson charts the rivalry between two titans of Silicon Valley — Microsoft’s alliance with OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, and Google’s DeepMind, led by Demis Hassabis — and the high-stakes contest between visionaries like Sam Altman, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.
Behind the hype lies a battle for power, profit and control of a technology that could transform everything we do.
Drawing on years of front-line reporting for The Wall Street Journal, Olson cuts through the noise to ask: who will win this arms race — and what will be left for humans to do?
Described as “a master storyteller who brings the hidden world of technology to life” (Sunday Times) and “a compelling investigator of power in the digital era” (Guardian), Olson offers a gripping exploration of ambition, secrecy and survival in the age of AI.
Parmy Olson is a London-based technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal and author of the international bestseller We Are Anonymous.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Xinran Xue
The Book of Secrets: A Family’s Story of Love, Loyalty and Betrayal in Modern China
Saturday 17th January 12.50 - 14.00
In this unforgettable talk, acclaimed writer and broadcaster Xinran opens a private archive of letters and diaries entrusted to her — the hidden record of one family whose most closely guarded secrets mirror a century of upheaval in China.
At its heart is Jie, a young military intelligence officer who joins the Communist Party full of idealism, and his wife Moon, whose life is slowly consumed by the Party’s demands. Drawing on an extraordinary cache of personal diaries, Xinran pieces together their story — from the euphoria of revolution to the paranoia of political purges, from the Cultural Revolution to the aftermath of Tiananmen Square — revealing how loyalty, love and truth can collide under a repressive regime.
Described by the Sunday Telegraph as “an extraordinary firsthand account of Communist Party machinery at its most brutal and paranoid”, The Book of Secrets illuminates the hidden human cost of China’s political transformation — and the courage it takes to finally tell the truth.
Expect moving readings, behind-the-scenes insights into how these testimonies were uncovered and verified, and a candid discussion on the ethics of storytelling under censorship and fear.
Xinran (Xue Xinran) is a British-Chinese journalist, former Nanjing radio host and bestselling author of The Good Women of China, Sky Burial and The Promise. A long-time Londoner, she founded the charity Mothers’ Bridge of Love, connecting children and families across cultures. Her work “shines with compassion, courage and clarity” (Jung Chang).
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Iain Dale in conversation with Alex Puffette
Margaret Thatcher: The Prime Ministers Series
Saturday 17th January 14.20 - 15.30
What made Margaret Thatcher the most consequential — and divisive — British leader of the modern era? In this incisive and provocative session, Iain Dale draws on his bestselling Prime Ministers series to uncover the ideas, battles and choices that reshaped Britain: confronting inflation and industrial decline, winning the Falklands War, rolling back the state, and redefining Britain’s place in the world.
From monetarism to privatisation, the miners’ strike to the rise of the homeowner, Dale traces how Thatcher’s revolution redrew the political map and forged arguments that still dominate our national debate. What lay behind her extraordinary drive — and what was the human cost? What can today’s leaders learn from her strengths and her blind spots?
Iain Dale is one of Britain’s best-known political broadcasters and commentators. He presents LBC’s award-winning evening show, appears regularly on Question Time, Newsnight and Sky News, and has written or edited more than forty books, including The NHS: The Story So Far and biographies of Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
Clear-eyed, engaging and rich in historical insight, this event separates myth from record and invites a lively conversation about legacy, ideology and the price of radical change.
Joining him is Alex Puffette, political researcher and author of The Modern Prime Ministers and I Was the Future Once: A David Cameron Biography, whose work examines leadership and political change from a new generation’s perspective.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Sir Vince Cable
Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World
Saturday 17th January 15.50 – 17.00
Has the West already lost its edge? Can it adapt to the rise of Asia — and what does this mean for Britain’s place in the world?
In this urgent and illuminating talk, Sir Vince Cable explores the greatest geopolitical and economic transformation of our age: the end of three centuries of Western dominance and the emergence of two Asian superstates, China and India. Together they represent almost half the world’s population and an ever-growing share of its wealth, technology and influence. As the United States retreats from its traditional role as global enforcer, the balance of power is shifting decisively eastward.
Drawing on a lifetime of political and economic experience — from Chief Economist at Shell to Business Secretary in government — Cable offers a clear-eyed analysis of what this means for global trade, security, climate policy and democracy itself. He asks whether the West’s institutions, from NATO to the IMF, can adapt before it’s too late, and whether Britain can rediscover innovation, openness and moral confidence in an Asian century.
Combining rigorous insight with characteristic clarity and independence of mind, Cable delivers a compelling vision of how the West might survive — and even thrive — in a world it no longer dominates.
Sir Vince Cable is a British politician, economist and writer. A former Leader of the Liberal Democrats and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, he served as MP for Twickenham for two decades. His books include Money and Power, The Storm and The Chinese Conundrum.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Dr Andrew Monaghan
Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War (Russian Strategy and Power)
Saturday 17th January 17.20 – 18.30
Is Russia rewriting the rules of war?
What does “blitzkrieg” mean in an age of drones, cyberattacks and disinformation?
And can Western militaries anticipate Moscow’s next move?
In this fascinating and unsettling talk, Dr Andrew Monaghan draws on his acclaimed new book Blitzkrieg and the Russian Art of War to reveal how Russia understands and conducts warfare in the twenty-first century. Far from a relic of the past, Moscow’s strategy blends speed, deception and shock with deep traditions of mobilisation and endurance — a fusion that continues to surprise Western analysts and redefine modern conflict.
Tracing the evolution of Russian military thought from the Soviet Union to the war in Ukraine, Monaghan shows how the Kremlin’s campaigns combine old doctrines with new technologies, and why Western ideas of “hybrid war” risk missing the deeper logic behind Moscow’s approach.
A Global Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute in Washington and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI in London, Dr Andrew Monaghan is one of the world’s leading experts on Russian strategy. Formerly of Oxford University, Chatham House and the UK Defence Academy, he is also the author of Power in Modern Russia and Dealing with the Russians.
Clear, authoritative and eye-opening, this talk offers rare insight into the mindset shaping Russia’s wars — and what it means for NATO and the West.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Dame Penny Mordaunt
Pomp & Circumstance: Why Britain’s Traditions Matter
Saturday 17th January 18.50 – 20.00
In this stirring and original talk, Penny Mordaunt draws on her acclaimed new book Pomp & Circumstance to argue that Britain’s traditions are not relics of the past, but living forces that give us confidence, identity and resilience in uncertain times.
From coronations and parliamentary rituals to the ceremonies of the armed forces and local customs that bind communities together, Mordaunt explores how these enduring practices embody values of service, courage and continuity. Far from being an obstacle to progress, she shows how tradition offers stability amid change — a shared rhythm that strengthens democracy and unites a diverse nation.
Speaking from her unique vantage point as former Leader of the House of Commons and a serving Royal Naval Reservist — and as the first woman to present the Jewelled Sword of Offering to King Charles III at his coronation — Mordaunt reveals what she has learned from a lifetime spent at the heart of Britain’s national life.
Unifying, thoughtful and inspiring, this talk is a call to cherish the institutions, customs and rituals that hold the country together — and to see them not as old-fashioned, but as essential to navigating the future.
Penny Mordaunt was Member of Parliament for Portsmouth North and Leader of the House of Commons. She has held senior Cabinet posts including Secretary of State for Defence and International Development, and was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2025. Alongside her political career, she serves as a Royal Naval Reservist and chairs the Coalition for Global Prosperity.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Claudia Hammond in conversation with Professor Robin Banerjee - Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Sussex.
Overwhelmed: Ways to Take the Pressure Off
Saturday 17th January 20.20 – 21.30
Why does modern life feel so relentlessly demanding — and how can we find calm amid the noise? In this reassuring and insightful session, award-winning broadcaster and psychologist Claudia Hammond shares the science and strategies behind her acclaimed new book.
Described by Daniel H. Pink as “a book about modern overload that actually lowers your pulse as you read it” and praised by Nir Eyal as “a psychological toolkit for managing procrastination, regret, imposter syndrome, perfectionism and more,” Hammond blends cutting-edge research with empathy and humour to offer practical ways to regain focus, balance and joy. Fearne Cotton calls her books “a solace in troubled times,” while Adam Rutherford hails her earlier work The Art of Rest as “a soothing balm for a frazzled generation.” Expect the same blend of clarity and calm here, as Hammond explores how rest, self-compassion and small mindset shifts can help us navigate modern pressures without burning out.
Claudia Hammond is an award-winning author, broadcaster and psychology lecturer whose work has transformed how we understand the mind. She presents BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind, the BBC World Service series The Evidence, and The Anatomy of..., exploring human behaviour and emotion across cultures. Her previous books — The Keys to Kindness, The Art of Rest, Time Warped, and Mind Over Money — combine rigorous science with warmth and humanity, earning her a global readership. Hammond is also a visiting professor at both the University of Sussex and the London School of Economics, where she lectures on the psychology of wellbeing, emotion, and time perception. A gifted communicator and advocate for mental health, she has been described as one of the UK’s most trusted voices on the science of how to live well.
Professor Robin Banerjee is Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Global and Civic Engagement and Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Sussex. His research explores children’s social and emotional development, focusing on self-esteem, social anxiety and kindness. He founded the Sussex Centre for Research on Kindness, leading major projects with partners such as the BBC. Formerly Head of the School of Psychology, he champions connecting academic insight with real-world impact locally and globally.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Sunday 18th January 2026
Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial
Professor Clive Webb
Sunday 18th January 9.50 – 11.00
In 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, philosopher Bertrand Russell gathered an extraordinary alliance of thinkers — from Jean-Paul Sartre to Simone de Beauvoir — to stage a radical “People’s Tribunal” that accused the United States of war crimes. It was half moral inquiry, half political theatre, and all controversy.
In this gripping and provocative talk, historian Clive Webb takes us behind the scenes of that audacious global spectacle: how witnesses and evidence were gathered under fire, how governments tried to shut it down, and why the Russell Tribunal still haunts debates about protest, truth and accountability today.
With rare archival images and razor-sharp storytelling, Webb explores what happens when citizens decide to hold superpowers to account — and whether moral outrage can ever rewrite history.
The book on which this talk is based is highly acclaimed as:
“A brilliant, unflinching history of moral rebellion — gripping from the first page.” — Philippe Sands
“Vivid, urgent and humane — Webb shows how conscience became global.” — Mary Beard
“A dazzling work of scholarship that reads like a political thriller.” — Dominic Sandbrook
“An extraordinary tale, superbly told.” — History Today
Professor Clive Webb is a leading historian of modern America at the University of Sussex, a Leverhulme Fellow and award-winning author. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Times. His latest book, Vietdamned, has been hailed as “essential reading for understanding protest and power in the modern world” (The Telegraph).
​A Q&A Session will follow.
Strong Roots: A Ukrainian Family Story, Interrupted
Olia Hercules
Sunday 18th January 11.20 - 12.30
War, exile, food and family thread through Olia Hercules’s luminous book Strong Roots—with a century of Ukrainian history told via four generations and a kitchen table. From Stalin-era deportations and the pressures of Russification to the 2022 occupation of her parents’ hometown, Hercules braids eyewitness testimony with the sensual memory of cooking—the tang of sour cherries, the discipline of borsch—to ask what “home” means when the ground keeps shifting.
On stage, Hercules will reflect on how family stories carry a nation’s memory, how recipes become an archive that outlasts regimes, and where courage and hope are found amid grief. She will speak about Ukraine now—belonging, identity and solidarity—while sharing the textures and tastes that bind generations.
As Olivia Potts of The Spectator notes: ‘Strong Roots looks back over four generations of a family for whom war and displacement have been familiar experiences. From her research into Ukrainian food, Hercules has hours of recorded interviews with relatives. From their voices a family saga emerges. The trauma she describes, both present and past, makes for moving, often painful reading. But the writing itself is a joy’. Nigella Lawson also describes the book as ‘'an instant classic' and the world-leading Harvard historian of Ukraine - Serhii Plokhy notes: 'It is the roots that keep the trees from falling during a storm. Olia Hercules tells us that the same is true for people and nations.'
Strong Roots is memoir as resistance—intimate, honest and life-affirming—a story written to heal, to bear witness and to help us understand.
Olia Hercules is a Ukrainian-born, London-based cook, writer and campaigner whose books—Mamushka (Fortnum & Mason Debut winner), Kaukasis, Summer Kitchens, Home Food and the new Strong Roots—braid recipes with family history, place and resilience. Trained at Leiths after an early stint in journalism and kitchens including Ottolenghi, she co-created #CookForUkraine and has been featured in FT Weekend Magazine, Observer Food Monthly, BBC Good Food, Vogue, Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Traveller and The Spectator, with widespread newspaper coverage across The Guardian/Observer, Financial Times, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. She speaks compellingly about belonging, exile and the ties that hold families together.
A Q&A Session will follow.
Chris Mullin
The Starmer government -- an interim report
Sunday 18th January 12.50 - 14.00
British politics has never been more combustible.
Governments promise Scandinavian welfare with American taxes. The public demands lower immigration and better public services. Debt spirals, ministers stumble, and every day the flames are fanned by a gleeful tabloid press and a new breed of populists with easy slogans and no solutions.
So - is there a way out?
In this candid, funny and unsparing talk, Chris Mullin—former Labour minister, celebrated diarist and author of the classic A Very British Coup—offers his take on the crisis engulfing Westminster and the prospects for renewal. Drawing on his latest and final volume of diaries, Didn’t You Use to Be Chris Mullin?, he lifts the lid on a decade of political turmoil, from Brexit to Boris and beyond, with the sharp humour and human warmth that have made his journals modern classics.
His work is much acclaimed:
“The century’s greatest diarist.” — Lord Jay, former Head of the Diplomatic Service
“He will join Alan Clark in the pantheon of truly great diarists.” — Matthew d’Ancona, Evening Standard
“Truly perceptive… in turn reflective, frank, acerbic and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.” — Julia Langdon, The Guardian
Chris Mullin is an author, journalist and former MP who served as a minister in three departments and chaired the Home Affairs Select Committee. His acclaimed diaries — A View from the Foothills, Decline and Fall, A Walk-On Part and now Didn’t You Use to Be Chris Mullin? — have been hailed as one of the great political chronicles of our time. He is also the author of A Very British Coup, adapted into the award-winning television drama, and its sequel The Friends of Harry Perkins.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Bob Seeley
The New Total War: From Child Abduction to Cyber Attacks and Drones to Disinformation – Russia’s Conflict with Ukraine and the West
Sunday 18th January 14.20 – 15.30
Russia’s war in Ukraine is unlike any other. From the revolutionary use of drones to staged coups, child abductions and psychological warfare, Moscow has unleashed a new form of total war — one that fuses traditional military force with cyber-attacks, propaganda, and all the non-military tools of the modern state.
In this urgent and deeply compelling talk, Bob Seely reveals how Russia’s assault on Ukraine is part of a much longer campaign — one that began years before the 2022 invasion — to control its neighbour’s politics, fracture Western alliances, and challenge democracy itself. Drawing on over a decade of research, frontline encounters and powerful human stories, Seely exposes how the Kremlin’s hybrid tactics are reshaping conflict in the 21st century.
He will ask: has the West truly understood the scale of this threat? How prepared are we to defend ourselves when the battlefield includes our minds, media, and institutions?
Insightful, gripping and at times moving, Seely’s talk offers a masterclass in understanding modern warfare and authoritarian power — and why defending Ukraine means defending ourselves.
Bob Seely is the former Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight and one of Parliament’s leading voices on foreign affairs, defence and national security. A former soldier with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and a former war correspondent, he has written extensively on Russian military doctrine and hybrid warfare.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Professor David Betz
Could the UK be heading toward its own civil conflict?
Sunday 18th January 15.50 – 17.00
Could the next great conflict come not from abroad—but from within?
In this bold and unsettling talk, Professor David Betz confronts one of the most urgent questions of our time: is the West, and Britain in particular, showing the early symptoms of internal fracture?
Drawing on his acclaimed essays “Civil War Comes to the West” (2023) and “Civil War Comes to the West, Part II: Strategic Realities” (2025), Betz examines how deep cultural divides, economic stress, information warfare and a collapse of institutional trust are converging to threaten the social fabric itself.
Rejecting sensationalism, he offers a sober analysis of how democracies can slide into dysfunction — and what can be done to pull them back. From identity politics to social media echo chambers, from alienated citizens to eroding authority, Betz explores how the ingredients of modern civil strife are disturbingly familiar.
David Betz is a highly respected thinker:
“One of Britain’s most original and fearless thinkers on strategy and society.” — General Sir Rupert Smith
“Betz has the rare gift of seeing the battlefield before others even realise the war has begun.” — Military Strategy Magazine
Clear-eyed, provocative and essential, this talk challenges audiences to ask whether the divisions tearing at Western societies are merely political—or something far darker.
Professor David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World at King’s College London, specialising in strategy, insurgency and information warfare. He has advised governments and military institutions across NATO and beyond, and is the author of Carnage and Connectivity and Cyberspace and the State.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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Dr Theodore Dalrymple
An Englishman's Home Is His Car Park: Slovenliness as a Way of Life.
Sunday 18th January 17.20 - 18.30
In this talk, Theodore Dalrymple gives an account of his short visit to the cathedral city of Worcester. In a few days, he saw how a once charming small city had degenerated by neglect within the space of a few years, thanks to a series of foolish, incompetent, short-sighted and Philistine planning decisions by the city council, and a number of social and cultural changes.
He went to the city because his wife had been called to jury service, and he and his wife decided to stay for a few days because it was too far for her to commute daily. He attended court and witnessed there both the good and the bad of the English legal system. He analysed the appalling intellectual corruption of the myriad, supposedly charitable, but in reality, publicly funded, organisations claiming to assist criminals in leading a non-criminal life – a corruption all too emblematic, alas, of our national life.
Charmed by the local museum, he was less charmed by the debased commercialism and the scenes he witnessed on the streets and the complete absence of signs of attempts at improvement. Exploited deliverers of food, drunks on the street, an abandoned sleeping bag and cardboard habitation at the entrance to the railway station that no one bothered to clear away, giving the impression of complete municipal apathy – all the pathologies that we have come to expect in our big cities have now percolated downwards to cathedral cities.
At the end of his stay, falling suddenly ill, he had an absurd and hilarious encounter with our beloved National Health Service, when it took four identical algorithms employed by four different branches of the service to send one ambulance. Eventually he was rushed through the streets of the city to the hospital, lights flashing and sirens blaring, only to wait for three and a half hours in a traffic jam of ambulances outside the hospital. Himself a doctor, he was both appalled and amused by the absurdity of the episode.
If there is one word that, in Dr Dalrymple’s opinion, can sum up modern English life, it is ‘slovenliness’.
Dr Theodore Dalrymple is a retired doctor and psychiatrist who spent much of his career working in inner-city hospitals and prisons. Drawing on these experiences, he has become one of Britain’s most incisive conservative social commentators, renowned for his sharp critiques of crime, poverty, and cultural decline. A prolific essayist and columnist for The Spectator, City Journal, and other publications, his books include Life at the Bottom, Our Culture, What’s Left of It, and Spoilt Rotten.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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General Sir Barney White-Spunner
Nations in Arms: Five Armies That Made Europe
Sunday 18th January 18.50 – 20.00
Wars are shaped by whole societies, not just the people in uniform. In this lively and thought-provoking talk, Lieutenant General Sir Barney White-Spunner asks a deceptively simple question: what makes an army truly work — and what happens when it doesn’t?
Drawing on his acclaimed new book, he examines five remarkable case studies — the Roman legions of Constantine, the Ottoman Janissaries of Mehmet II, Cromwell’s New Model Army, 19th-century Prussia, and the U.S. Army of the Second World War — to reveal how each force was forged by its society and, in turn, transformed it. From discipline and leadership to logistics, innovation and morale, these armies show how loyalty, organisation and purpose determine victory far more than technology alone.
White-Spunner also turns these lessons toward today: how can modern democracies rebuild resilience, strengthen reserves, and adapt to new threats from drones to cyber warfare? What role should the public play in national defence?
Expect a fast, good-humoured and deeply informed session that turns big history into clear takeaways about the choices Britain faces now.
Lieutenant General Sir Barney White-Spunner commanded soldiers from troop to division on operations in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan. He later helped reshape the Army for Afghanistan and finished his service as Commander of the Field Army. He is now a bestselling historian and author known for vivid, accessible writing.
A Q&A Session will follow.
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