Borders Book Festival

Presented by http://www.mcinroy-wood.co.uk/ ITV’s political editor and presenter of Peston on Sunday, Robert Peston, talks about the mess facing liberal democracy and what can be done to mend the terrible fractures in our society. He looks at what must happen to prevent democracy being subverted by technocratic geniuses with the ability to manipulate social media, what can be done to staunch the widening gap between rich and poor and how to raise living standards for all. Based on his book WTF, this lecture will be personal, angry and funny.

A live recording from the inaugural Brewin Dolphin Lecture at the Baillie Gifford Borders Book Festival in Melrose. The liberal order we have lived with for seventy years is coming apart at a dizzying speed. Europe is fragmenting into rival blocks with competing, often mutually hostile, visions for the future. The US has elected a protectionist ‘America First’ president. Russia is back as a global force – nationalistic, authoritarian and anti-western. The rise of Asia means five hundred years of western hegemony in the world is coming to an end in our lifetimes. Can liberal democracy survive? Allan Little, who has reported for thirty years from more than eighty countries, takes us on a tour of a rapidly changing world and asks – what kind of world are we in transition to?

In our weekly update we travel the world. To Argentina, where Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham worked as gaucho, before he co-founded the Scottish Labour party and later the Scottish National Party, to un-discovered islands with Malachy Tallack and finally to the land of the dawn-lit mountains, India's forgotten frontier, with Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent. For more information and to book your tickets visit http://www.bordersbookfestival.org or call 0844 357 1060.

Festival Director Alistair Moffat introduces events of the Borders Book Festival, taking place from 15 - 18 June at Harmony Garden in Melrose. Book your tickets at http://www.bordersbookfestival.org or call 0844 357 1060.