Festival welcomes leading politicians

The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival welcomes a series of major political figures and political and social commentators.

The line-up includes Adam Michnik, a key player in the Polish solidarity movement, Fabian Picardo, the chief minister of Gibraltar, and Nick Robinson, pictured right, the BBC’s chief political correspondent.

Michnik, pictured left, an active historian, essayist, public intellectual and editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, the left-leaning Polish national newspaper, will give the inaugural Ratiu Democracy Lecture examining the post-communist realities for Eastern Europe.

Picardo, pictured bottom right, is a lawyer and leader of the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party, and was elected Chief Minister in 2011. He will talk about the fundamental right to self determination.

His new book, Live from Downing Street, is the subject of Robinson’s talk at the festival. It is a personal and colourful account of the ‘forced marriage’ between the men and women who wield power and the journalists.

Robinson will also interview former Labour Cabinet Minister Jack Straw at another festival event. Straw will talk about his political memoirs, Last Man Standing: Memoirs of a Political Survivor.

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