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.