Politics

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will be remembered for being the first woman in the role in that country’s history, but even more so for her misogyny speech to parliament, in which she called out politician Tony Abbott for his hypocrisy and sexism.

In this compelling discussion, Gillard, author of Not Now, Not Ever, reflects on the lasting impact of her 2012 speech, drawing connections between global politics and the rise of populism, exemplified by figures like Trump. She examines how this shift has eroded trust in political institutions worldwide, creating fertile ground for division and extremism.

Gillard is joined by Eluned Morgan, the First Minister of Wales and the first woman to be appointed to the role, and Mary Trump, niece of President Trump, psychologist and author of Too Much and Never Enough. They discuss the intersection of misogyny, sexism and global power dynamics, reimagining leadership and suggesting how to confront these challenges, rebuild faith in democratic systems and fight for equality.

Journalist and novelist Omar El Akkad engages in a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrayed its fundamental values of freedom and justice for all.

El Akkad has reported on stories including the various Wars on Terror and the Black Lives Matter protests. Watching the slaughter in Gaza, he has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie, and that some groups of people will always be treated as less than fully human.

He talks to historian and broadcaster David Olusoga about his new book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – named for a phrase he used in a viral social media post – in which he chronicles his painful realisation and his grappling with what it means to carve out some sense of possibility during these devastating times.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee! Among today’s guests is Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire.

Mary Trump grew up in the shadow of her father Freddy’s humiliation at the hands of his father Fred. Fred believed that among his children there could only be one winner, and rather than it being his namesake Freddy, that winner was now-president Donald Trump.

But Freddy never stopped trying to gain his father’s approval. Aged 42, he finally succumbed to Fred’s lethal contempt and died alone in an emergency room.

Mary Trump, niece of President Trump, reveals the inside story of the Trump family and its patriarch, and the effect it had on her own life, to broadcaster Samira Ahmed. This event offers a unique and personal insight into the Trump family and the cold, selfish cruelty that has come to define it. Trump is a psychologist and writer, author of Too Much and Never Enough.

Earlier this year, American journalist McKay Coppins shared a rare and wide-ranging interview with James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s second-oldest son, who is often portrayed as a bitter rival to his older brother, Lachlan. Coppins speaks to Guto Harri, former Communications Director for Rupert Murdoch’s News International, about what he learned.

James Murdoch was seated at a conference table in a Manhattan law office in March 2024 when he realised he was witnessing the final dissolution of his family. Three months earlier, his father, Rupert, had told James and his sisters that he was rewriting the family trust to grant his elder son, Lachlan, full control of the Murdoch empire after his death, rather than splitting it equally among his four oldest children. The amendment was part of a secret plan that the patriarch’s allies had code-named ‘Project Family Harmony.’

Dale Vince, nicknamed ‘Labour’s Green Knight’, is a green industrialist dedicated to championing environmental sustainability. Since founding the world’s first green energy company, Ecotricity, he has been on a mission to change the face of the industry by leading the move away from fossil fuels towards renewables.

Using business as a tool for environmentalism, Vince is helping to lead the eco revolution. He runs Forest Green Rovers FC, dubbed the world’s greenest football team by FIFA; creates diamonds out of atmospheric carbon; builds windmills for export around the world; has launched a range of vegan burgers; and last year launched the world’s first electric airline. He also made the world’s first electric supercar and built the UK’s first national network of EV charging stations.

He has been awarded an OBE for services to the environment and was appointed UN Ambassador for Climate Change in 2019. His book Manifesto shares the tools for changing the world.

In conversation with broadcaster, journalist and TV presenter, Bidisha.

Sir Graham Brady has been the Chairman of the 1922 Committee since 2010. As the leader of the group with the power to choose a new leader of the Conservative Party, it is his hand that held the executioner’s axe over five consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers’ heads.

Cameron. May. Johnson. Truss. Sunak. Brady lifts the lid on some of the leadership battles that have defined British politics for a decade and a half. The last fourteen years have seen unprecedented turbulence at the centre of politics. From coalition to Brexit, Covid to Partygate, Trussonomics to the 2024 election, our government has never felt so fractured. And as Prime Ministers have come and gone, Brady has been at the heart of every leadership challenge, seeing all, but saying nothing. Until now. He talks to broadcaster Jane Garvey.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of landmark legislation in Wales requiring public bodies to consider the long-term impact of their decisions on social, economic, environmental and cultural well-being.

Our panel takes a look at the impact of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, in Wales and beyond, what successes and setbacks there have been, and how to move forward over the next ten years.

Jane Davidson is Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and chairs the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission’s Wales Inquiry. She proposed the legislation when she was serving in the Welsh government. Kevin Morgan is Professor of Governance and Development in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University. Jane Richardson is the Chief Executive for Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales). Derek Walker is Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.

She’s been called one of “the internet’s best left-wing thinkers” by the Spectator. Journalist and leading political commentator Ash Sarkar is a contributing editor of Novara Media, and regularly appears on panels including Question Time, The Moral Maze, Good Morning Britain and Jeremy Vine on 5.

In Minority Rule she exposes how a strategic misdirection of blame by real minority elites is keeping the majority divided, from how identity politics has been warped and weaponised, to how an epidemic of ‘microevent’ media coverage is poisoning our information environment and stoking fear and panic in society.

We’re all getting poorer. What does that look like for British children and their life chances? Social scientist Danny Dorling’s highly original approach constructs seven ‘average’ children from millions of statistics – each child symbolising the middle of a parental income bracket. Born in 2018, when the UK faced its worst inequality since the Great Depression and became Europe’s most socially divided nation, these ‘children’ turned five in 2023, amid a devastating cost-of-living crisis.

Getting to the heart of post-pandemic Britain’s most pressing issues, Dorling asks: what do we miss when we focus only on the super-rich and the most deprived? Who are today’s real middle class? And how can we reverse the trends leaving all children worse off than their parents?

Dorling is the 1971 Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford. His books include Inequality and the 1% and All That is Solid.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are Paralympic athlete and presenter Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and award-winning comedian Sara Pascoe, host of BBC2’s Great British Sewing Bee and author of Sex Power Money.

As the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet, there are few people better placed than Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi to reflect on the position of Muslims in the UK, and the rising tide of Islamophobia they face. Discussing her book Muslims Don’t Matter, Baroness Warsi looks at the far-right riots that broke out in the UK in 2024, how more hatred has been directed at Muslims in public life during the war on Gaza, and how a network of media and commentators feed Islamophobia. She urges us to change course and unite to dismantle this toxic bigotry.

Warsi is a lawyer, businesswoman and racial justice campaigner. She was instrumental in the launch of Operation Black Vote, a national not-for-profit working towards greater racial justice throughout the UK. Rachel Shabi has reported extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is author of Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism.

The future is uncertain. The future is full of danger. The future is a risk. But there is hope in the future too, for us and the generations after us. Social geographer Danny Dorling and climate activist Rob Hopkins discuss how we should navigate life now to mitigate the effects of the crises we are facing, from the cost of living to climate change, and how we should rethink the future.

Dorling is author of The Next Crisis, in which he unpacks the data on what people really think about when they consider the future. He is the 1971 Professor of Geography, and advises the government and the Office for National Statistics.

Hopkins is co-founder of the international Transition Network movement, which aims to reimagine and rebuild the world. His forthcoming book How to Fall in Love with the Future looks at how we change the world.

Dive into the thrilling life of Raymond Chester, the Oakland Raiders legend. During the 1960s, while America was convulsed following the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, Chester was making historic changes that brought Black American football into the mainstream. From his college glory at Morgan State to his iconic moments on the NFL field, Chester’s story is one of resilience and triumph which resonates far beyond the world of sport and proves the significance of sport in our social and political lives.

Welsh author and rugby fan Jon Gower’s Raider is based on extensive conversations and interviews with Chester himself – a love-letter from Wales to an American football icon whose legacy transcends the game.

We are living through a Long Emergency: a near-continuous train of pandemics, heatwaves, droughts, resource wars and other climate-driven disasters. Two great thinkers at the intersection between politics and everyday life share their thoughts on possible bulwarks against despair.

Adam Greenfield is Senior Urban Fellow at the LSE Cities centre of the London School of Economics. In Lifehouse, he asks what might happen if the tactics and networks of care and local power that spring up in response to climate disasters were brought together in a single, coherent way of life. Danny Sriskandarajah is CEO of progressive thinktank the New Economics Foundation. In Power to the People he presents a blueprint for how we can make a difference through greater community engagement, and how we can deliver a society that works for the many and not the few.

Malcolm X is a titanic figure in political history, but also one of the most misunderstood. Forever known as the violent Yin to Martin Luther King’s Yang, since his death he has been co-opted into the American project and marginalised by decades of governments, academics and activists. But on the centenary of his birthday, in a world shaken by decades of injustice and racism, Malcolm’s political mission is more urgent than ever.

In conversation with poet and actor Connor Allen, Kehinde Andrews – the UK’s first professor of Black Studies, at Birmingham City University – reveals Malcolm's real revolutionary programme. Malcolm’s activism was his philosophy, and paying attention to it reveals the true cultural icon – who, if he were alive today, would tell us to pick up the mantle and overturn this system for good.

In 1975, Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Mount Everest. On the 50th anniversary of the climb, join our panel to celebrate her achievement, highlight the lives of women who have often been overlooked in the history of climbing, and explore the untold stories of women who are part of Everest’s legacy.

Jo Bradshaw summited Mount Everest in 2016. Dr Jenny Hall is researching the experiences of contemporary and historical adventurers. Tori James was the first Welsh woman to climb Everest, aged 25. Historian Kate Nicholson is a historian and has written Behind Everest, about Ruth Mallory, whose husband George died on his third attempt to scale the mountain. Rebecca Stephens became the first British woman to climb Everest in 1993.

Gain a new understanding of the British Empire and its enduring entanglement with the Anglophone Caribbean with historian Imaobong Umoren, in conversation with actor and author Paterson Joseph. In her book Empire Without End, Umoren starts with European contact with the Caribbean and ends today, looking at the impact and legacies of racial slavery through to the end of colonialism, and its replacement with neo-colonialism.

Umoren is an associate professor of International History at the London School of Economics where she specialises in histories of racism, women and political thought in the Caribbean, Britain and US in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Empire Without End received the 2020–21 British Library Eccles Centre and Hay Festival Writer’s Award.

How can we better understand how the far right operates? Ask the filmmaker whose documentary screening was pulled amid fears of a mobilisation against it. Ask the geneticist who broke the story of American money funding the re-emergence of eugenics. Ask the undercover journalist who spent a year masquerading as an extremist named Chris.

Havana Marking is a British documentary filmmaker known for finding the human stories that reflect the large geopolitical picture. Her latest film is Undercover: Exposing the Far Right. Adam Rutherford lectures in Genetics and Society at UCL. His books include How to Argue With a Racist and Control: the Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics. Harry Shukman’s Year of the Rat is an urgent exposé that follows the Hope Not Hate researcher and reporter on a nail-biting year undercover infiltrating far-right groups in the UK.

They discuss the far right and its work to dismantle our democracy with Jennifer Nadel, co-founder of think tank Compassion in Politics.

On the centenary of Malcolm X’s birth, WritersMosaic, in collaboration with the British Library Eccles Institute, brings together writers and performers to explore his global legacy as a resistance leader, with music from Tony Njoku.

“If you’re black you were born in jail,” said Malcolm X, the Black nationalist spokesman for the Nation of Islam, who was reviled by white America during the Civil Rights era. He argued there’d be no peace for “blue-eyed devils” (white people) without a reckoning for the sins of the past. And after his assassination in 1965, many African Americans viewed him as a prophetic revolutionary whose fierce strategy of opposition “by any means necessary” was adopted by the Black Panthers. Malcolm X’s spirit of resistance increasingly speaks to people worldwide emerging from the oppression of colonialism and dictatorships.

In this explosive new docu-thriller, anti-racist investigators and their secret cameras reveal the tactics of the modern far right. As the UK reels from 2024’s racially motivated riots, Undercover shows how vulnerable communities are targeted, racist ideas are mainstreamed and money sought from powerful elites.

Featuring the extraordinarily brave Harry Shukman, his handler Patrik Hermansen and the team at Hope Not Hate, we see the inspiring work that is being done to research, expose and stop the advance of populist forces. Things get very tense when the researchers discover a million dollar trail to Silicon Valley…

Directed by Havana Marking and produced by Natasha Dack in association with Channel 4.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University Kehinde Andrews, author of The New Age of Empire, and award-winning director Havana Marking, whose documentary Undercover: Exposing the Far Right is screening at the Festival on 28 May.

The extraordinary courage of Gisèle Pelicot has changed how we see victims of sexual assault, and the trial of her husband Dominique Pelicot has gone down in history. Now, their daughter Caroline Darian bravely shares her story, offering a first-hand insight into the story of the Gisèle Pelicot trial, giving a voice to women who have been silenced and sharing how she and her mother are rebuilding their lives.

Darian talks to broadcaster and activist Jameela Jamil about the moment she found out her father was capable of some of the worst crimes imaginable and why she and her mother made their private trauma into a public fight. This courageous and important discussion highlights that shame should be placed on the perpetrators of sexual crimes.

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe Dalton to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, the last thing she expected was to be the custodian of a newly born hare. In this heartwarming and life-affirming event, she talks to politician William Hague about finding the creature, alone and no bigger than her palm, and choosing to nurse it and give it a chance at survival.

Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist. She spent over a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Raising Hare chronicles Dalton’s journey with the hare, from caring for it as a baby to preparing for its return to the wild.

At a time when we are faced with fundamental questions about the sustainability and morality of the economic system, John Cassidy adopts a bold new approach: he tells the story of capitalism through the eyes of its critics. From colonialism and the Industrial Revolution to the ecological crisis and artificial intelligence, he offers a kaleidoscopic history of global capitalism and a lively exploration of economic theories.

In conversation with Jennifer Nadel, co-founder of think tank Compassion in Politics, he looks again at familiar figures – Smith, Marx, Luxemburg, Keynes, Polanyi – but also at many less well known, such as Flora Tristan, the French proponent of a universal labour union; John Hobson, the original theorist of imperialism; and JC Kumarappa, the Indian exponent of Gandhian economics. Cassidy is a staff writer on The New Yorker and author of How Markets Fail, a Pulitzer finalist.

Broadcaster Jeremy Bowen shares insights into the Middle East and Ukraine, and looks at the increasing global instability. Bowen, who is the BBC’s International Editor and has reported from the war on Palestine, brings his wealth of experience from reporting across the world to the conversation, offering nuanced views on current conflicts, political figures and economic realities.

Bowen is a seasoned war correspondent. His podcast Our Man in the Middle East sees him journey through the region and its history, meeting ordinary men and women on the front line, and exploring the power games that have often wreaked devastation on civilian populations.

Join him to take a look at how the world is changing, what this new era of global instability means to societies across the world, and the things we need to grapple with – from changes in political leadership to new types of warfare – to understand the world today.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are philosopher AC Grayling, founder and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and former BBC North America editor Jon Sopel, author of Strangeland.

After eight years of political reporting in the US, journalist and podcaster Jon Sopel moved back to the UK, only to find he’d returned to a very different country than the one he’d left almost a decade before.

In Strangeland, Sopel takes a personal look at what it means to be British in a post-Brexit world. In this event he discusses how disconcerted he felt with the country he’d come home to, whether the UK has dramatically changed or whether it’s just him, and how he drew a new portrait of his homeland in chaos.

Sopel is a host of hit podcast The News Agents. He previously worked as the BBC’s North America Editor.

Two crusading journalists from Britain and Mexico discuss their work reporting on worldwide conflicts with New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson, who has reported extensively from Latin America.

Iraqi-born Hind Hassan has broadcast for Al Jazeera from the West Bank, Lebanon and Washington DC, and is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, covering conflicts and humanitarian crises. Mexican reporter Marcela Turati focuses on human rights, the impact of drug violence and its victims. She is a reporter for Proceso magazine and co-founder of the network Periodistas de a Pie (Journalists on Foot), dedicated to training journalists and defending freedom of expression.

This event is part of the Hay Festival and British Council’s Equity Series that pairs authors from the UK and around the world, and began with a conversation at Hay Festival Querétaro 2024.

Award-winning scientist and philosopher Cordelia Fine provides a sharp and clear-eyed analysis of how the gendered division of labour is built and why it persists.

The effects of gendered division is both cause and consequence of men’s greater status and power, and affects not just our workplaces, but contributes to poverty, undermining health, putting pressure on family life and preserving females’ second-class status, causing real harm and injustice for both sexes.

Fine, whose work analyses biological explanations of behavioural sex differences and workplace gender inequalities, explores the effects of gender-related attitudes and biases on judgements, decision-making and workplace gender equality.

Defending freedom of expression, a central principle of any democratic society, is a main goal of the global PEN network, which was joined by Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. But what does freedom of speech mean in today’s divided world? Three writers and free speech advocates discuss the concept with poet and academic Mererid Hopwood.

Fara Dabhoiwala is Senior Research Scholar and Professor of History at Princeton and author of What is Free Speech? Menna Elfyn is a poet, author and President of Wales PEN Cymru. Burhan Sönmez, novelist and President of PEN International, grew up in a Kurdish village in Turkey at a time when his language was stigmatised and banned in education.

Former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt considers Britain’s role in the world in the century ahead. He tells stories from his time as Foreign Secretary, asking if Britain is a minor player, marginalised by our departure from the EU, or if there’s a bigger role for us to play in an international order that is rapidly changing.

The MP also looks at whether it’s time to focus on more narrow interests, or to defend the huge progress of freedom and democracy we have seen over the last century. Hunt was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in 2005. He served in a number of roles during the recent Conservative government, including Health Secretary and Chancellor.