The Lewes Winter Speakers Festival 2015

The White Hart Hotel, High Street, Lewes, and All Saints Centre, Friars Walk, Lewes, Friday, December 4, to Sunday, December 6

LEWES is hosting a weekend of discussions and debate in a winter edition of their annual speakers’ festival.

Below Duncan Hall explores the themes running across the three days.

UK politics

THE White Hart Hotel hosts a day of UK politics today (Fri 4) kicking off with former business secretary Vince Cable’s reflections on the financial system post-credit crunch in After The Storm, from 11am, as well as his insider view of the Coalition.

There’s more party politics from Peter Temple Morris at 4.45pm, as the former Conservative MP talks about what led him to cross the floor to join Labour in 1998.

And former home secretary Charles Clarke examines British Labour leaders from 6.30pm.

Tomorrow it’s the turn of Lewes’s own former MP Norman Baker to discuss his 18 years in Westminster at the All Saints Centre from 5pm.

History

FORMER South Bank Show presenter Melvyn Bragg examines the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt at The White Hart Hotel today from 1pm.

There is more UK history at All Saints Centre as Alison Weir talks about Margaret Douglas, Countess Of Lennox, the last Tudor princess tomorrow from 6.45pm.

And at the same time on Sunday assistant curator at the National Portrait Gallery Paul Cox uses the various images presented of Wellington, including a rare photograph from 1844, to tell the story of the great military leader.

John Julius Norwich goes further afield with a short history of Sicily, from the Roman bolthole to the growth of the Mob tomorrow at the White Hart from 10am. And John Pearson follows him at 11.45am with an examination of a more homegrown Mafia – the infamous Kray Twins.

On Sunday Damien Lewis explores the little known post-war history of the SAS, who were tasked to find the SS commanders who had escaped the Nuremberg trials. His talk The Nazi Hunters is at All Saints Centre from 11.45am.

Women and society

OVER the weekend the journey of women from running the home to running the country is explored over the course of three talks.

Tonight at the White Hart Hotel deputy chair of the Charleston Trust, Virginia Nicholson, turns the clock back to the era of the perfect housewife in the 1950s from 8.15pm.

On Sunday 80-year-old supermodel Daphne Selfe talks about the changes she has seen in society and fashion in The Way We Wore at All Saints Centre from 3.15pm.

And straight afterwards, at 5pm, political columnist Charles Moore discusses the UK’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, and the second volume of his authorised biography.

The modern world

WITH enough bullets manufactured to provide two for every person on earth, Iain Overton from Action On Armed Violence takes a journey into the world of the gun at the White Hart Hotel today from 3pm.

The effects of gun violence are explored in Gulwali Passarlay’s The Lightless Sky tomorrow at All Saints Centre from 8.30pm, an account of life as an Afghan refugee after his father was killed by the US army.

And at All Saints Centre on Sunday BBC correspondent Andrew Hosken traces the brutal rise of Islamic State from 8.30pm.

The same day the money world is explored with Financial Times writer John Plender examining capitalism from 10am, and Dutch investigative journalist Joris Luyendijk telling tales from several years entrenched in the City from 1.30pm.

From 10am Sat/Sun, 11am Fri, all festival pass £95, Sat pass £40, Sun pass £45, Sat/Sun pass £70, individual shows from £12.50. Call 0333 6663366.