Big-name line-up for Lewes Speakers Festival

Spokesman Marc Rattray said: “The festival continues on its 13-year rise thanks to your interest and support. The website is now viewed in over 50 countries. We also continue our partnership with Kellie Miller Arts (www.kelliemillerarts.com). We will be showing works from the gallery at the festival on the backscreen and we are delighted to say that Kellie Miller herself will be in conversation with one of our speakers, Orlando Whitfield.”

More details at www.lewesspeakersfestival.com where you can buy tickets.

Friday 17 Jan. 15.30. Iain Dale, broadcaster and former presenter of the Evening Show on LBC Radio, discusses the lives of dictators and the lessons we can draw from them.

Friday 17 Jan. 17.00. Baroness Lola Young, foster-care survivor, social-justice activist and one of the first black women members of the House of Lords discusses her memoir.

Friday 17 Jan. 18.30. Wendy Joseph, former judge at the Old Bailey, specialising in murder cases, asks whether our justice system works and if it has improved over the centuries.

Friday 17 Jan. 20.00. Lucia Osborne-Crowley, journalist and legal reporter at Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial, gives an account of the trial and a voice to the victims.

Saturday 18 Jan. 9.50 Giles Milton, best-selling author of histories, routinely serialised on both the BBC and in UK newspapers, describes the Allies secret mission to wartime Moscow to seek an alliance with Russia to make victory possible.

Saturday 18 Jan. 11.20. Orlando Whitfield, former friend and business partner of the jailed art dealer Inigo Philbrick, gives an account of the rise and fall of his friend’s art empire.

Saturday 18 Jan. 12.50. Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning, Cambridge University, discusses what AI means for our identity and whether it becomes a tool for human beings or we become a tool of AI.

Saturday 18 Jan. 14.20. Paul Roberts, keeper of the department of antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum, gives us a tour of ancient Rome via its monuments.

Saturday 18 Jan. 15.50. Prof Kerry Brown, of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London discusses Britain and China’s 400-year contest for power.

Saturday 18 Jan. 17.20. Penny Mordaunt, former secretary of state for defence, explains how our current political division can be overcome by political reform.

Saturday 18 Jan. 18.50. Andrew Pierce, ITV presenter for Good Morning Britain, leading columnist and consultant editor for the Daily Mail and GB News presenter, gives an account of trying to find his birth parents via the orphanage he was left in.

Saturday 18 Jan. 20.20. Prof Paul Moorcraft, security expert, former war correspondent and broadcaster discusses the war in the Middle East.

Sunday 19 Jan. 9.50. Shalina Patel, TV presenter and award-winning history teacher pioneering the decolonisation of the history curriculum, discusses the histories left out of the school curriculum.

Sunday 19 Jan. 11.20. Prof Christopher Phillips, of International Relations at Queen Mary University of London and regular TV interviewee, discusses the crises of the Middle East.

Sunday 19 Jan. 12.50. Sue Prideaux, award-winning biographer of the artists Paul Gaugin and Munch and TV presenter, discusses the life of Gaugin – rebel, stockbroker and artist in Tahiti.

Sunday 19 Jan. 14.20. Sir Robin Niblett, fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs and expert on the relations between Europe, the US and Asia, describes the new cold war between the US and China.

Sunday 19 Jan. 15.50. Ian Williams, reporter from China over the last 25 years, Emmy and BAFTA awards winner, gives an account of China’s “corrupt, authoritarian vampire economy.”

Sunday 19 Jan. 17.20. Danny Dorling, of the geography department at Oxford University, describes the inequality, injustice and hope for the modern UK via the lives of seven children.

Sunday 19 Jan. 18.50. Stanley Johnson, former MEP, journalist and father of former PM, talks about his journey retracing the steps of 13th-century explorer Marco Polo.