Martin Rowson believes the satirist's pen can bring down governments - and in a fascinating couple of hours proved how.

Hung, Drawn And Quartered was a combination of history of satire lecture and a personal polemic against the institutions that would try to rule our lives.

As a speaker Rowson was fascinating and engaging, refusing to dumb down or monitor his language, nor pull his punches as he poured venom on politicians across party lines from Blair to Cameron.

The main thrust of his talk was how satire had developed from the caricatures on cave walls to the explosion of cartooning in the 18th century from heroes such as Hogarth and Gilray.

His enthusiasm for his predecessors was infectious as he analysed classic images on a projected screen, and showed how much they had influenced his own work.

Had City Books included a selection of historical satire on its stall they certainly would have shifted as much as Rowson's own books.

The closing section of the talk focused on how being offended has been used as a weapon against the satirist.

Thankfully we still have characters like Rowson unafraid to roll our leaders in the dirt and deal with the email abuse.