Speakers Panel
The YBF Speakers Panel is a programme to organise regular speaker meetings and tours of schools and university campuses across Britain by a broad range of centre-right speakers, designed to provide a platform for British students to hear centre-right ideas and alternatives – often for the first time.
YBF works with activists such as you in bringing conservative, Eurosceptic or free-market speakers to your school, college or university. We help pay the speaker’s travel expenses, assist with organising the speaker event or debate and then work with you to secure student, local and national media coverage for your event.
Among those on the YBF Speakers Panel – and the topics on which they are willing and able to speak – are:
Rt Hon David Davis MP
David Davis is a former Shadow Home Secretary and former Chairman of the Conservative Party. He resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and as a Member of Parliament in June 2008 to fight a by-election on the issue of 42 Days. Resoundingly re-elected, David Davis is now pursuing a series of freedom-oriented campaigns designed to highlight the erosion of traditional British freedoms. Prior to becoming an MP, David Davis was a director of Tate & Lyle and a reservist in the SAS.
Topics: Freedom, Civil Liberties, ID Cards, CCTV, Europe, Law & Order, Conservatism.
Matthew Elliott
Matthew Elliott is the Founder and Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Britain’s pre-eminent conservative campaigning organisation. Matthew is a graduate of the London School of Economics and former employee of the European Foundation. He founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance in 2004, since when it has gone on to receive unrivalled media coverage and numerous plaudits and awards. Under his leadership, the TPA has grown from operating as a group of volunteers meeting in various coffee shops around London, to employing six members of staff working from offices in London and Birmingham. In 2006, the TPA won the ConservativeHome “One to Watch” award and in 2007 the Bumper Book of Government Waste was awarded the Sir Antony Fisher Memorial Award. In November 2007, Matthew was presented with the Conservative Way Forward ‘One of Us’ award by William Hague at the CWF annual dinner and in December the TPA won the Stockholm Network’s prestigious Golden Umbrella award for Innovation. Outside of his work at the TPA, Matthew has visited Azerbaijan (2000), Ukraine (2001) and Serbia (2006) on behalf of the Westminster Foundation. In June 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers & Commerce.
Topics: Tax, Freedom, Government Waste, Europe.
Guido Fawkes
Guido Fawkes is Britain’s leading political blogger. Guido’s blog was started in September 2004 and was designed purely to make mischief at the expense of politicians and for the author’s own self-gratification. At the time most political blogs, from the author’s viewpoint, were earnest and serious. His intention was to create a more fun, gossipy and acerbic “anti-politics” form of commentary. Never having suffered from a lack of intellectual confidence, the adoption of tabloid news values was not embarrassing or accidental, it was a deliberate and necessary step towards becoming popular.
Topics: Blogging, New Media, Freedom.
Frederick Forsyth CBE
An expert on the British Secret Service, Frederick Forsyth was born in 1938 in Ashford, Kent. He worked for the Eastern Daily Press, before becoming a correspondent for Reuters in 1961 – winning praise for his coverage of the Biafran side of the Biafra-Nigeria war from July to September 1967.
His novel ‘The Day of the Jackal’, published in 1970, remains one of the most critically acclaimed books in literary history. In 2003, he was awarded the Conservative Way Forward “One of Us” Award for his commitment and service to the Conservative Movement in Britain.
Topics: Europe, Military Covenant.
Michael Gove MP
Michael Gove was elected as Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath in May 2005. He has served as Shadow Minister for Housing & Planning and is currently Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools & Families. A journalist by profession, he has used his position as a writer for The Times and a broadcaster on the BBC to fight for greater personal freedom, a tougher line on crime, a more dynamic economy, a cleaner environment, stronger defence and a better deal for hard-pressed families. His most recent book, Celsius 7/7, was released in 2006 to much critical acclaim.
Topics: Education, Conservatism.
Daniel Hannan MEP
Dan Hannan was first elected MEP for the South East region in 1999. He is a member of the Fisheries Committee. After being Chairman of Oxford University Conservative Association, Oxford Campaign for an Independent Britain and the National Association of Conservative Graduates, Daniel was Special Adviser to the Rt Hon Michael Howard MP from 1997 to 1998, and Director of the European Research Group from 1994 to 1999. He has been a leader-writer for The Daily Telegraph since 1996, and writes a column for the German newspaper Die Welt. Born in 1971, Daniel is married with two young children. His publications include “A Treaty Too Far”, “The Euro: Bad for Business”, “The case for EFTA” and “What if Britain votes No?”.
Topics: Europe, Localism, Direct Democracy.
Douglas Murray
Douglas Murray is a bestselling author and commentator based in the UK. His most recent book is the critically acclaimed Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (SAU, UK: Encounter Books, US) which Christopher Hitchens praised in the Washington Examiner as “a very cool but devastating analysis” and which caused Andrew Roberts to hail him ‘The right’s answer to Michael Moore’, continuing, ‘This book shows how to fight and win the War on Terror’.
He appears regularly on the television and radio across Europe and America. He is a trustee of the newly founded European Freedom Fund and a member of the Advisory Board of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. Since April 2007 he has been Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion in Westminster, London.
Topics: Jihad, Islamism, Israel, War on Terror, Neo-Conservatism.
Rt Hon John Redwood MP
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College, and has a DPhil from All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has been a director of NM Rothschild merchant bank and chairman of a quoted industrial PLC. John was an Oxfordshire County Councillor in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s he was Chief Policy Advisor to Margaret Thatcher. He urged her to begin a great privatisation programme, and then took privatisation around the world as one if its first advocates before being elected to parliament. He was soon made a minister, joining the front bench in 1989 as Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Department of Trade and Industry. He supervised the liberalisation of the telecoms industry in the early 1990s and became Minister for Local Government and Inner Cities after the 1992 General Election.
Shortly afterwards, John joined the Cabinet and served as Secretary of State for Wales from 1993 to 1995. In opposition he has acted as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (1997-1999), Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1999-2000) and Shadow Secretary of State for Deregulation (2004-2005). He stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1995 and again in 1997.
John has published a number of books including ‘Superpower Struggles‘, on the European Union, China and the United States, ‘Just Say No‘ on why the UK should reject further European integration, and ‘Singing the Blues‘, his personal history of the Conservative Party throughout the last thirty years. His latest publication, ‘I Want to Make a Difference, But I Don’t Like Politics‘, examines the reason for the decline in membership of political parties and those voting in local and General Elections.
Topics: Freedom, Tax, Europe.
Anthony Worrall Thompson
Antony Worrall Thompson was born in 1951 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Public-school educated (Kings School, Canterbury) Antony then studied Hotel and Catering Management at Westminster College. He worked for various establishments in Essex, much to the horror of his grandmother who refused to write to him because she could not bring herself to write the word Essex on the envelope. He finally became brave enough to make the move to London in September 1978 to become sous chef at Brinkley’s Restaurant in the Fulham Road. He became head chef after only one month. In 1979 he took six months ‘educational sabbatical’ in France, eating and working in 3-star establishments.
Returning to Brinkley’s as head chef, Antony changed the menus according to his experience gained in France. Next was Dan’s Restaurant in Chelsea, where, as head chef in 1980 he changed its character from café to haute cuisine, propelling its image into the pages of glossy magazines and Sunday supplements.
It was in 1981 that Antony opened Ménage a Trois in Knightsbridge (widely known to be the Princess of Wales’ favourite restaurant) to abundant publicity and reviews: it was the only restaurant in London to serve just starters and puddings. The restaurant and Antony received a tremendous amount of press coverage. Antony also opened Ménage a Trois in Bombay, with the Taj Hotel Group; in Melbourne and Stockholm with private backers and in New York, again with the Taj Group.
Topics: Freedom, Smoking, Choice.
To arrange for one of these speakers to speak at your campus or constituency event, please contact Steven Dent, Director of Operations, at steven@ybf.org.uk.