Iain Overton

Modern slavery encompasses a broad range of offences including forced labour, human trafficking, domestic servitude, tissue harvesting and illegal organ removal. Legislation is in place to ensure that living organ donors have made an informed and voluntary decision to donate their organ; free from duress, coercion and reward, yet the transnational nature of interconnected criminality can drive exploitative activity deep underground. 

The panel will address issues such as claims of forced organ procurement from executed prisoners in China, through to efforts to reduce the demand for illegally sourced organs. The panel will also address how easy it can be for individuals to become victims of human trafficking and subsequently held in debt bondage. 

Panel Chair Professor Bela Arora, will be joined by:

Dr Adnan Sharif - Consultant Transplant Nephrologist and secretary of the non-Government Organization Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) which campaigns against illegal and unethical organ procurement around the globe. The group was nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in this area.

Dr Mike Stephens -  Wales' leading transplant surgeon

Red Godfrey Sagoo - CEO of Sophie Hayes Foundation 

Taniel Yusef - Actor and writer

Come the the House of Comedy for late night laughter with …

Elle Bert

Elle’s comedy career started in August 2016 at an open mic night in Southampton when after a few too many gin and tonics she wrote her name down “as a joke”. The joke paid off as the audience liked the cut of her gib and the venue even asked her to return the following week as comedy had always been seen as the “dark horse” of the open mic circuit.

Since August 2016 Elle had performed and compered all over the country to audiences as small as 2 and as big as 600. She’s been on the same bill as some comedy greats and even ran her own monthly comedy night at The Stable in Winchester. She’s picked up awards, won gong shows and even gained a world record along the way.

Winner Solent Comedy Gong Show - 2017, Winner Fifty 50 Entertainment Gong Show - 2017, Funny women - One to watch - 2017, Guinness World Record - Longest Running Stand Up - 2018, Winner Blackout at Up The Creek - 2018, Bath New act Finalist - 2018, Bath New act Finalist - 2019

Darcie Silver

Finalist of LGBTQ Comedian of the Year and winner of the G&B Girl-Power Grant Darcie is one funny woman.

With one liners & short jokes covering being trans and just about everything else imaginable she’s been described as one of the most exciting new comedians on the circuit. Her material is occasionally so dark you can’t quite believe she’s saying it. She doesn’t disappoint.

“Very Funny Stuff” - Russell Kane

“Transgender icon in the making” - Tony Slattery

“Very Talented Joke Writer” - Garry Delaney

Phil Kay

Phil Kay burst on to the comedy circuit in 1989, when he won the new act contest So You Think You're Funny in only its second year.

His unpredictable, freestyle approach won him a Perrier nomination in 1993 and the award for best stand-up at the 1994 British Comedy Awards, and he was given his own Channel 4 show, Phil Kay Feels..., in 1997, which was recorded in front of a live audience to try to capture his manic energy. Phil has been seen all over the TV with Russell Howard’s good news being one of these!!

El Baldiniho

El Baldiniho is a magician and prop comedian performing on TV, in comedy clubs , at festivals and at corporate events across the UK and beyond and recently seen on Britain’s Got Talent, where he got 4 yeses! With over 300K YouTube views and a growing social media profile , El Baldiniho is one to watch.

Alex Martini

Alex Martini is a London-based Italian-born stand-up comedian and like all Italians, he's crazy, loud & proud. He's knowledgeable about food & drinks and all the other things the Brits aren't good at! Expect loud volume and unpopular opinions!

and The Winner of the Open Mic

Cult With No Name (often abbreviated to CWNN) is a musical duo from London, UK, formed in 2004, comprising Erik Stein and Jon Boux. Influenced largely by electronic music, post-punk and modern classical music, they refer to themselves 'post-punk electronic balladeers'.

CWNN's music has been described as difficult to categorise. However, they have been compared to Roxy Music, Tuxedomoon, the Pet Shop Boys, Colin Newman, Nits, David Sylvian, and Scott Walker, amongst others.

Hardeep Singh Kohli is a writer, presenter, comedian and broadcaster known for his love of food and hilarious anecdotes. He’s a regular figure on British television, appearing frequently on The One Show and recently presenting a cooking series with Masterchef’s John Torode. His book, Indian Takeaway: One Man’s Attempt to Cook His Way Home (2008) is a funny, conversational adventure depicting contemporary India and a celebration of his multiple cultural identities.

Born in Glasgow in 1969, Hardeep lived with his Sikh family in the UK as his parents emigrated there from India in the 1960s. Indian Takeaway destroys the feeling of ‘otherness’ born from his experiences as a Scot. He says, “I would be asked time and again where home was and they would laugh when I suggested Glasgow. Implicit in all of their interrogations was the accusation that I did not belong, that I was other, that my home was not here. To them I could never be Scottish.”

Hardeep wrote, directed and starred in Channel 4’s Meet the Magoons (2004), which was nominated for a Golden Rose at the Montreux Comedy Festival, and wrote, produced and presented In Search of the Tartan Turban (Channel 4) – which explored his cultural identity as a British-Scottish Asian and won a children’s BAFTA, spinning off into the Channel 4 series, Hardeep Does…

His television career continued successfully with £50 Says You’ll Watch This, Get 100 (CBBC), Loose Ends, appearances on Question Time, Newsnight Review, a celebrity version of The Apprentice, Celebrity Masterchef and Saturday Live on BBC Radio 4. He currently writes a column entitled ‘Hardeep is your love’ for Scotland on Sunday and occasionally writes for The Guardian and The Independent.

One of the UK’s foremost poets, regularly anthologised and headlining festivals nationally and internationally. A BBC regular, Salena Godden has written and presented several arts and music programmes – a film of her poem Titanic was aired as part of BBC poetry programme We Belong Here. A short-fiction Blue Cornflowers was shortlisted for the Guardian Short Story Prize 2016. Her essay Shade was published in 2016’s literary sensation The Good Immigrant, which won the Reader’s Choice Book Of The Year Award. A new piece Skin was commissioned for The Essay and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in February 2017. Her live album LIVEwire showcases a broad range of her work and has attracted rave reviews since launching with indie poetry label Nymphs and Thugs. The LIVEwire limited edition vinyl launches with the N&T ‘Summer of LOVEwire’ UK tour in spring 2017.

The unique combination of John Dipper’s 14-string viola d’amore, Dave Malkin’s finely honed guitar and remarkable vocals, and award winning storyteller Nick Hennessy’s passion for reinventing tradition visits the places where the sophistication of Purcell meets the soul of English folk. breathing new life into our much overlooked cultural inheritance.

Distinctively English, albeit with an exotic twist ... that little bit different from anything else out there.’ - Living Tradition Magazine

"John Dipper's duets with the guitarist Dave Malkin are perfectly judged, the latter's occasional unassuming vocals adding just the right measure of grit. Exquisite..." - The Sunday Times
​
"The combination of the viola’s rich, sonorous tones, and Dave Malkin’s guitar and voice is a winner. On ‘King Storm’, the pair hit on an unusual ambient soundscape, starting simply with Malkin’s dark vocals set against sparse viola harmonics, before a glorious duet ensues." - Acoustic Magazine

Nick Hennessey:

'Compelling' - The Times
‘Spellbinding’ - Southbank Centre, London
‘Captivating, powerful, perfect’ - The Oxford Culture Review

A sketch comedy show for and about the weird and wonderful people of Forest Row and the surrounding areas. Biting sketches and sensational musical numbers

Max Porter’s first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers won the Sunday Times, Peter, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Europese Literatuurprijs and the BAMB Readers’ Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. It has been sold in twenty-nine territories. Complicité and Wayward’s production of Grief Is the Thing with Feathers directed by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy opened in Dublin in March 2018.

Discussion with Kirsty Lang, Peter York, Peter Jukes and Patrick Howse

Peter York is an author / journalist / broadcaster and a management consultant – a Capitalist Tool.  Under both hats the subject of social groupings and market segments is his major preoccupation.  His earliest and best-known description of a social group came in his best selling book ‘The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook’, which he co-authored with Ann Barr.  Since then he has charted the fortunes of many elite groupings, from designers (‘chic-graphique’) to Television Types.  He believes that while sociologists and market researchers are forever studying The Rest Of Us, the people at the top have escaped scrutiny for too long.  

Peter started writing as Style Editor at Harpers & Queen and over the last 30 years he has produced a flood of broadsheet articles and 11 books.  He has also contributed to television programmes from ‘The Tube’ to ‘Newsnight’ and made some of his own, including two series, one on style and one on The 80s and a number of single ‘authored’ documentaries, including ‘The Rise and Fall of The Adman’, all for BBC2.

Patrick Howse worked for the BBC for 25 years.
The bulk of his career was spent as a news gathering producer covering wars, riots and other events around the world, which involved being shot at, tear-gassed, pelted with stones, bricks and bottles, punched, kicked and spat at. He also had a narrow escape from a rocket that came through the ceiling of his office in Baghdad, where he was bureau chief between 2004 and 2009 at the height of the violence that followed the US-led invasion.
After leaving the Corporation in 2015 he trained conflict journalists from international news organisations, and now earns a living as a freelance writer, editor and poet. His first collection of poems, Shadow Cast By Mountains was published by Hayloft Books in 2017, and the second, The Road Taken, will appear later this year.
He’s been a vocal critic of the BBC’s coverage of Brexit, in particular what he feels is their misplaced obsession with ‘Balance’.

Kirsty Lang is a highly experienced interviewer, presenter and moderator

With 30-years in journalism, both as a foreign correspondent and a TV news anchor for BBC World and Channel 4 News. She has written for The Financial Times, The Mail on Sunday, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Radio Times. Kirsty has been a visiting professor at the University of Columbia, New York in the School of International and Public Affairs. Next year she will be teaching a course in public diplomacy and soft power at UCL, University of London.

Gavin Esler is a Scottish journalist, television presenter and author. He was a main presenter on BBC Two's flagship political analysis programme, Newsnight, from January 2002 until January 2014, and presenter of BBC News at Five on the BBC News Channel.

In conversation with Stephen Colegrave

David Hencke - Chair
Joanne Welch - the organiser of BackTo60
Jackie Jones - Labour MEP for Wales
Dr Davina Lloyd - from Back to 60, who its providing diplomatic advice to UN in Geneva

Yvette Greenway - is Joint CEO and co-founder of SOS Silence of Suicide, the mental wellbeing Charity who have supported Back to 60 members for 3 years. Yvette is also an active campaigner, assisting the Back to 60 movement, the vaginal mesh and sodium valproate scandals and other, less prominent, but equally important, cries for justice and accountability.

Otto English

Hardeep Matharu

Tina Gharavi

Mike Stuchbery

Peter Jukes

CHAIRED BY Stephen Colegrave

Picking up from the earlier Business Plan for Peace discussion, the Renegade Saints will improvise new ways to build peace and stop war!

Renegade Saints are a many-headed beast from all over the world, brought together by the vicissitudes of fate in Geneva, where they started being funny together in 2013. Blending a range of backgrounds in typically Genevan international community style, they performed their first show together in 2014, and now perform regularly in the city, at private shows, workshops and various other occasions.

Doves Don't Do it!

If doves don’t do it, what does? Come and join Business Plan for Peace to explore what it takes to build a world without war. Humanity now has the experience, knowledge and tools to prevent and resolve conflict without the use of violence. War is past its sell-by date!

Chaired by Teohna Williams

Scilla Elworthy Three times Nobel Peace Prize nominee for her work with Oxford Research Group to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics, work which included a series of meetings between Chinese, Russian and western nuclear scientists and military. She founded Peace Direct in 2002 to fund, promote and learn from local peace-builders in conflict areas: Peace Direct was voted ‘Best New Charity’ in 2005.

Kristina Lunz is an award-winning human rights activist, co-founder and Germany director of the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy, and adviser to the German Federal Foreign Office. She was also recently named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list. Public speaker and feminist activist she continues to raise her voice against sexism, educational inequality, and racism, with “zero tolerance for social injustice,” as she says.

Jeremy Gilley In September 2001, as a result of Jeremy’s efforts, a General Assembly resolution was unanimously adopted by UN member states, establishing 21 September as an annual day of global ceasefire and non-violence on the UN International Day of Peace – Peace Day. To prove the day can work, Jeremy and Peace One Day Ambassador Jude Law travelled to Afghanistan to spearhead a campaign that, over the years, has resulted in 4.5 million children being vaccinated against polio in hitherto unreachable areas, as a result of Peace Day agreements in the region.

Taniel Yusef

This discussion will be followed by an improvisation performance from The Renegade Saints at 6pm who will take the ideas discussed and together with you create new ways to build a more peaceful world.

Chair: Hardeep Matharu, Editor, Byline News

Speakers:

Brian Cathcart

Bonnie Greer

Rizwana Hamid is the director of Centre for Media Monitoring overseeing the teams work and engaging with key stakeholders (media professionals, regulators, policy makers & other campaign groups). Rizwana has over 30 year experience working in the media. She has worked as a producer/director for BBC Television (News, Current Affairs, Religious, Documentary, World Service & Multicultural Programming) as well as for Channel 4 and other international broadcasters. Her films have won awards – “Journey Into Darkness” – BBC Panorama, been used as evidence in internal enquiries – “Inside Injustice” – Channel 4, and led to changes in policy – “Skeleton’s in the Cupboard” – BBC Heart of the Matter. Rizwana has also run media skills workshops for disenfranchised communities in the UK, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Zeeshan Ali

In Association with MEND

How Britain’s most covered up Murder tells you a lot about Brexit Britain, colonial style policing and the media hacking of democracy. With Alastair Morgan, Peter Jukes, Kirsteen Knight and Jake Arnott

The legendary Phillipa Perry, cartoonist, therapist talks about her number one best selling book ‘The Book yo wish your Parents had Left (And your Children will be glad you did).

Chair: Research Fellow Sussex University and Journalist - Thembi Mutch

Thembi is an award winning South African/London tv/radio/print journalist who has lived worked across West, Southern and Eastern Africa, based in Tanzania 2007- 2015. She has also lived and worked in Ethiopia, South Africa, Rwanda and Mozambique, teaching journalism in Maputo at the Eduardo Mondlane University as an African Studies Association Fellow. She has worked for BBC, Channel 4, Canal plus, Arte and advised on a number of corporate, government and community projects in East and Central Africa.

Audrey Brown, BBC World Service producer/reporter/presenter is a South African broadcast journalist and curator working with the BBC World Service flagship news and current affairs programme, Focus on Africa. She cut her journalistic teeth on progressive newspapers like Vrye Weekblad and the then Weekly Mail, now Mail and Guardian in South Africa in the late 1980s.
Audrey lives in London and travels the world, making radio documentaries and reporting on the lives of people in Africa and the diaspora.

Nishtha Chugh is an award-winning independent journalist and has reported from seven countries on global development, international security, climate change, social justice, migration, and gender equality. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, BBC World Service, New Internationalist, Channel 4 News, Forbes, Africa News, The Dhaka Tribune and The Indian Express. In 2013, she won the Guardian’s International Development Journalism competition for her news feature from Rwanda. In 2016, she was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship following her investigative work on organ trafficking for BBC and Al Jazeera. Nishtha speaks four languages and is a media trainer for the US embassy in London. When not reporting she's trying to win the lottery to fund her dream of going to the International Space Station one day.

Eliza Angangwe is a writer, managing editor of new digital publisher, The Correspondent, and the founder of The Nzinga Effect, a media project focused on telling the stories of African and Afro-descendant women. She began her career working for non-governmental organisations, but has spent the past decade working for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, narrative change organisation, The Rules, The Guardian and CNN Africa.

MCs Twizzy and Ambush Tactics.

Both lyricists have rhyme schemes that hark back to UK hip hop’s original surge in creativity at the same time as pushing onwards, they simultaneously sound classic and more than capable of holding their own against the scene leaders of today. In terms of content: Positivity can be a dirty word in the current landscape of hip hop, but the balance of hope and fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-it defiance was what made the genre powerful in the first place.

As Twiz and Ambush put it “We bring the battle to the empires, you can say I’m Wrong but this energy can start fires.”

Seething Akira are a 5 piece Electronic rock band from Portsmouth in the South coast of the UK. Combining rock riffs, rap and harmonic vocals Seething Akira are truly unique and stand out with their electric live shows.

London duo Tokyo Taboo’s comprise of singer Dolly Daggerz and guitarist Mike, who are joined by a band for their live shows. Dolly takes inspiration from iconic performers from Heart to David Bowie and Karen O and Mike simply loves a good riff. Tokyo Taboo is a perfect amalgamation of Dolly and Mike’s influences; inspired by Manga, Japanese culture, drag and 80s fashion, they are true performers, with an image that equals the intense vibrancy of what you hear on record.

From Dolly’s quarter life crisis to politics and vulnerability, they aren’t afraid of smashing the expectations of ‘the industry’ whilst wearing their hearts on their sleeves - cuts, bruises, tears and all.

Sasha & The Shades are a six piece band fronted by Sasha Adamczewski on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, backed by Tom Julian Jones on lead guitar and harmonica, Sam Rutland on bass and vocals, and Paul Winter-Hart on drums, Eli Rose also on Lead Vocals and finally Arthur Palmer on Keys.

Musically, Sasha & The Shades aren't easy to pigeonhole but at the heart of it is a convergence of blue-collar rock, blues, and punk music. The group takes influence from bands such as Dr Feel Good, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Ramones and Nick Curran & The Lowlifes.

Delphis formed in 2014 and were winners of the “Purbeck Rising” competition in 2016. Made up of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Floyd and classically trained singer and recorder/whistle player Julia Simpson, they play festivals around the UK and regularly perform in the London area, where they are based. They play their original songs as an acoustic duo/trio or invite other musicians to perform with them for a full band set up with guitar and drums.

What began as a documentary photography project by Guy Martin in Turkey quickly spiralled into a deeper journey along the fault lines of truth, and the power of narratives to control reality. 

Guy Martin in conversation with Jo Glanville

Related book: The Parallel State by Guy Martin