Hay Festival has forgotten about books, Spectator critique says
Hay festival is being attacked for forgetting about books, after a Spectator essay argued the event now leans harder into politics, activism and culture-war programming. The critique says that shift has left the festival with a different identity from the one that once drew writers and readers to Hay-on-Wye.
Baillie Gifford row lingers
The piece says the festival’s 2024 sponsorship row over Baillie Gifford left an indelible stain, and it uses that fallout as part of the case that Hay has moved away from literary programming. That argument lands with extra force because the writer says they were invited to speak there about a decade ago and remembers Benedict Cumberbatch greeting them in the green room while Ian McEwan topped up his coffee.
Hay itself is described as a pretty town amid rolling sheep-studded fields and quaint little streets with pop-up Eccles cakes shops and independent bookshops. Against that setting, the critique argues, the festival’s current blend of civic debate and theme-led sessions looks less like a book fair and more like a broader cultural platform.
Palestine Action on the bill
An event scheduled for next Tuesday asks, “Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action: A Public Nuisance or a Public Good?” and the writer says another event treats Palestine Action as part of civic culture. Those bookings sit beside themes including “Hay Green,” “South to North Conversations,” and memorial lectures on “truth,” “representation,” and “nuclear threat.”
The programming list also includes Malala Yousafzai, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Emma Thompson and David Miliband, which the critique presents as evidence that the festival is leaning into public affairs as much as literature. For attendees choosing sessions, that means the draw is no longer just author talks and book discovery; it is now a festival timetable built around public argument.
Romantasy and plant-based menus
One Romantasy event asks, “Are you obsessed with Romantasy yet?” and adds: “Book sales are growing faster than in any other genre… Here a panel of experts explain why it’s so successful and consider what we should learn about the huge appeal of worlds where women are in control.” That is still a books story, but the framing shows how the festival is packaging genre talk alongside politics, activism and identity-driven themes.
The same website language also sells “sustainable catering, with plenty of plant-based and gluten-free options,” which fits the same broader brand direction. The critique’s sharpest point is simple: Hay festival is not short of content, but the question now is whether it is still organised around books first or whether books have become one strand in a wider civic program.
