Lewes Speakers Festival 10th-12th June 2022

04/04/2022

Friday 10th June 17.30 Colin Thubron, Aged 80, this master of travel writing describes taking a dramatic 3,000-mile long journey along the Amur river which rises in the Mongolian mountains and flows through Siberia to the Pacific.

Friday 10th June 19.10 Alan Johnson, the former cabinet minister, explains his latest thriller novel: The Late Train to Gipsy Hill - which describes an epic adventure involving the Russian mafia, the FSB and the Metropolitan Police.

Saturday 11th June 9.50 Tim Marshall, international best-selling author and former Sky News Foreign Affairs Editor, explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry.

Saturday 11th June 11.20 Iain Dale, presenter of the Evening Show on LBC Radio, gives a part-memoir, part-polemic about the state of public discourse in Britain and the world today.

Saturday 11th June 12.50 Fatima Manji, anchor of the UK's Channel 4 News, recontextualises the relationship between Britain and the people and societies of the Orient.

Saturday 11th June 14.20 Esther Freud author of Hideous Kinky - made into a film starring Kate Winslet. Also, the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and daughter of Lucian Freud, explains her novel which describes the lives of three generations of women and is about love, motherhood, secrets and betrayal - and how only the truth can set us free.

Saturday 11th June 15.50 Sandy Gall, former ITN Newscaster, and Carlota Gall, Pulitzer Prize winner, give a biography of the Afghan resistance leader - Ahmad Shah Massoud who undermined the Russian occupation of Afghanistan.

Saturday 11th June 17.20 Gavin Hesler, the main presenter of BBC Newsnight for 12 years, explains how British identity political and social challenges will end with the break-up of the UK and the rebirth of English nationalism.

Saturday 11th June 18.50 James O’Brien, whose daily current affairs programme on LBC has over 1.2 million weekly listeners, turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why.

Sunday 12th June 9.50 Denis MacShane, former Minister of State for Europe, asks why Labour is so good at losing elections and so unhappy and edgy when it does win.

Sunday 12th June 11.20 Ian Williams, Foreign Correspondent, based in Russia and then Asia for Channel 4 News and NBC, explains how China is building the world’s first digital totalitarian state - a system of hitherto unimaginable social and political control.

Sunday 12th June 12.50 Wing Commander Mike Sutton, gives the thrilling and true account of the Typhoon fighter squadron in the war against ISIS, as the commander who led them into combat.

Sunday 12th June 14.20 Andrew Monaghan: - founding Director of the Russia Research Network. As a leader for research on Russia for NATO and Oxford University, he explains the Russian Grand Strategy in its quest for political and military power.

Sunday 12th June 15.50 Yasmin Alibhai Brown, the prominent political and social commentator gives an account of the courageous women who change and changed history and remolded our culture.

Sunday 12th June 17.20 Andrew Lownie, Literary Agency founder and best-selling biographer, explains the life of Edward VIII - the traitor King who had Nazi intrigues in WW2.

Sunday 12th June 18.50 Professor A.C. Grayling, the Founder and Principal of New College, asks if humans can agree on a set of values that will allow us to confront the environmental, technological and political threats facing the planet.

www.lewesspeakersfestival.com