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MAY
Ilminster Literary Festival
Peter Clark – The Men of 1924
31 May | Monk’s Yard | 14:30
2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the first Labour cabinet, a turning point in Britain’s political history.
For the first time, Britain’s cabinet included working-class men, former miners, and immigrants. The newly elected prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, was the illegitimate son of a Scottish domestic servant, and around him he assembled a politically diverse cabinet of former Liberals, former Conservatives, socialist intellectuals, and trade unionists.
Peter Clark is a writer and translator, and a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London.
More information is available here.
JUNE
Ilminster Literary Festival
Simon McDonald – Beyond Britannia
3 June | Monk’s Yard | 11:00
Former Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of Diplomatic Service, Simon now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.
What should the future of British foreign policy look like? For too long successive governments have shied away from acknowledging uncomfortable truths about the decline of Britain’s military capabilities.
In his new book, Simon shows how the UK’s significant soft-power strengths can be harnessed to expand our international influence.
More information is available here.
Book Soup
Jeffrey Lewis – Leonard Cohen: A Novel
6 June | Book Soup | 19:00
The Leonard Cohen at the center of Leonard Cohen: A Novel is an everyman, a would-be artist, a would-be lover, a would-be tragic figure, yet a man haunted by the greatness of his namesake. He struggles to compete. He struggles to be more than a punchline in his own mind. He struggles, in particular, to write one song as great as the least of the great Leonard Cohen’s songs.
At the center of Leonard’s life is Daphne. In their meeting on a Greek island, a contemporary fable of Daphne and Apollo plays out. But even with Daphne, Leonard is shadowed by the other Leonard Cohen, whom he fears is the real Apollo. The ancient myth haunts the fated lovers.
Once upon a time, Apollo fell hard for Daphne, who turned herself into a laurel tree. No less a fate awaits the protagonists of this slender yet universal novel, where art, love, and fame all fatefully intertwine.
More information is available here.
JULY
Buxton International Festival
Simon McDonald – Beyond Britannia: Reshaping UK Foreign Policy
11 July | Pavilion Arts Centre | 10:00
What should the future of British foreign policy look like?
For too long successive governments have shied away from acknowledging uncomfortable truths about the decline of Britain’s military capabilities. Lord McDonald was the British ambassador to Germany and later permanent under-secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and head of the Diplomatic Service. He argues that the UK’s significant soft-power strengths can be harnessed to expand our international influence. Such a shift will only be possible, he says, if we first acknowledge the challenges of Brexit and the need to reduce our unrealistic hard-power ambitions. Excellence in areas that other countries care about will keep the UK internationally relevant in a way that nostalgia for a lost pre-eminence will not.
Purchase tickets here.